Endnotes

Endnotes

1 La credibilite et l'apologetique, 1912, p. 220

2 Documentation catholique, 20 August 1939, col. 100 0. The Holy Father condemned this distinction once more in the encyclical Mystici Corporis Christi, A. A. S., 1943, p. 224

3 The linking up of the properties and the notes with the four causes of the Church is indicated by Pere Garrigou-Lagrange, De Revelatione per Ecclesiam Catholicam Proposita, Paris 1918, vol. II, pp. 208, 210, 211, 213

4 "Aliud quippe volumus quia sumus in Christo, et aliud volumus adhuc in hoc saeculo" (St. Augustine, In Joann. Evang., tract. 81, no. 4

5 Soloviev well says that "The Church is unsoiled by our sins"; but he errs when he adds that "she is not in us, although she is made up of us", and by reducing her to no more than a pure spiritual form that gathers up believers. Cf. God, Man and the Church, the Spiritual Foundations of Life, trans. D. Attwater, London, page 143

6 Cf. A. Palmieri, art. "Favaroni" (Augustin), Dict. de theol. cath, col 2113

7 It was Newman, who did not see himself as a "Theologian", who, in the nineteenth century was one of the first to see the whole importance which the problem of the development of dogma would acquire Before him came the "autodidact", J. A. Moehler

8 III Contra Gentes, cap. lcv III. "Just as God alone can create, so too He alone can bring creatures to nothing, and He alone upholds them in being lest they fall back into nothing. And thus it must be said that the soul of Christ had not omnipotence with regard to the immutation of creatures" III q. 13, a. 2

9 It is remarkable that the ancients, who were innocent of our views on the evolution of the universe, and believed in a certain natural immobilism, were conscious, thanks to revelation, of the law of historical development in its most eminent case—that of the spiritual salvation which was to progress from the Fall till the advent of the Messiah." The Greek cosmos is a world as it were without history, an eternal order in which time has no efficacy, whether because it leaves that order always the same, or because it produces a succession of events which always come back to the same point, through cyclical changes indefinitely repeated. The opposite idea, that reality is subject to radical changes' to fresh impulses, to genuine innovations, would have been impossible before Christianity had come to overturn the cosmos of the Hellenes" (Emile Brehier, Histoire de a philosophie, vol. 1, p. 489

10 III, q. 1, a. 3

11 "Of all this multitude [angels and men] Christ is the Head: for He stands nearer to God and He participates in the divine gifts more perfectly than men and the angels" (St. Thomas, III, q. 8, a. 4) The creation and justification of the angels, remark the Salmanticenses, who were never to make shipwreck but would always endure, "might very well have been ordered to Christ as to their end, and consequently be the term of His influence in the order of final causality" (De Incarnatione, disp. 16, dub. 5, no. 77

12 The influx of Christ, says St. Thomas "attains not only men but also the angels; for we read in the Epistle to the Ephesians [i. 20—22] that God the Father set Christ down on His right hand in the heavenly places, above all principality and power, and virtue and dominion, and every name that is named, not only in this world, but also in that which is to come, and hath subjected all things under His feet" (III q. 8, a. 4) I think we are justified in saying of the grace of the angels what John of St. Thomas said of the grace of the just before Christ: "The influx which the Word of God, conjointly with the Father and the Holy Spirit, bestowed in a direct manner on the just of old this He continues still to bestow, now however availing Himself of the human nature with which He is clothed, as an instrumental cause" (III, q. 61, disp. 23, a. 3, no. 95; Vives Edn., vol. IX, p. 141) Men have a greater solidarity than angels have with Christ, a solidarity not merely of nature but of destiny; their whole life is drawn in the wake of His

13 III, q. 61, a. 2. Cajetan notes in his commentary on this article that if the state of innocence had been maintained, children would have been born in a state of grace and with the supernatural gifts that perfect the intelligence

14 St. Thomas, I, q. 113, a. 4, ad 2

15 ibid. a. 1, ad 2

16 "Although almighty and sovereignly good, God nevertheless permits evils to arise in the universe which He could prevent, in case He should thereby exclude a greater good or provoke worse evils" (II—II, q. 10, a. 11

17 St. Thomas, who holds that if man had not sinned God would not have become incarnate affirms nevertheless that prior to the original sin Adam was aware of the future incarnation of the Word (II—II, q. 2, a. 7) How reconcile these two views? The Salmanticenses supply the answer: Adam did not believe that Christ would be the Head of the people of God in respect of the state of innocence but he did believe—and this is something very different—that Christ would be Head of the people of God in a new order of things, which, for the rest, lay quite beyond his ken (De Incarnatione, disp. 16, dub. 4, nos. 62 and 63

18 The sacraments of the Old Law "do not cause grace"they merely signified that it would be given through the "Passion of Christ"; the sacraments of the New Law, on the other hand," contain grace, and confer it on those who receive them with the required dispositions" (Council of Florence, Denz., 695

19 To receive divine things by the ministry of men is connatural to man, in itself and essentially. It can become accidentally a great trial—think for example of a people conquered in an unjust war, to whom the Gospel is brought by their conquerors. But God can stir up heroism on ei ther side, and draw some good out of the evil, perhaps even here on earth

20" The flesh serves as the organ of the Deity" (St. John Damascene, De Fide Orthodoxa, lib. III, cap. xv; P. G. XCIV, col. 106 0)" Humana natura in Christo erat velut quoddam organum divinitatis" (St. Thomas, De Veritate, q. 27, a. 4

21" Humana natura est instrumentum divinae actionis" (St. Thomas, III, q. 43, a. 2

22 The Passion of Christ, remarks St. Thomas, being corporeal, cannot touch all men; but by reason of the Divinity united to it, it possesses a spiritual virtue and acts by spiritual contact (III, q. 48, a. 6, ad 2) The Salmanticenses were to say that although bodily contact with Christ is desirable (connaturalis) it is not necessarily required (essentialis) to produce a physical causality; a spiritual contact suffices (De Incarnatione, disp. 23, dub. 4, nos. 37 and 38

23 cf. St. Thomas, III, q. 49, a. 5, ad 1; q. 52, a. 5, ad 2, and a. 8, ad 3

24 St. Thomas, De Veritate q. 29, a. 5

25" Christus autem operatus est nostram salutem quasi ex propria virtute, et ideo oportuit quod in eo esset gratiae plenitudo" (ibid., ad 3) Cf John of St. Thomas, III, q. 8; disp. 10, a. 1, no. 45, vol. V III, p. 260. Further on John of St. Thomas explains that the grace of Christ, being of the same species as ours, is of itself incapable of causing ours physically: it is by reason of Christ in whom it is found, and because it serves as an instrument of the divine virtue, that it can become the cause of our own grace. Hence it follows that Christ as man is the instrumental physical cause, but not a second physical cause, of our grace. (III, q. 13; disp. 15, a. 4, no. 45; vol. V III, p. 460.

26" The Son of God wished to bring others into conformity with His filiation, so as not only to be Son but also the Elder of many sons. Hence He who is, by an eternal generation, the Only-Begotten, is, by the transmission of grace, the First-Born of many brothers" (St. Thomas, Comm. ad Rom., cap. v III, lect. 6

27 Scheeben considers that the purpose of sacramentality is less to overcome our wounds and weakness than to initiate a more sublime economy of salvation. We hold, without doubt, that the grace of Christ given us by the sacraments is better than the grace of Adam; so far, Scheeben's views are to be retained. But we must not forget that the sacraments—differing herein from the Incarnation—will pass away, and do not belong to the economy of the glorified Church (cf. M. J. Scheeben, Die Mysterien des Christentums, Fribourg—im—B. 1865 , ch. VII, no. 81, p. 541

28 Direct contact of agent and patient may be said to be connatural by reason of the generic exigencies of physical action: for which reason the Salmanticenses, in a passage cited above, note that it is needed" connaturally", not" essentially", in view of a" natural" but not an" essential" condition (De Incarnatione, disp. 23, dub. 4, nos. 37 and 40) But this contact may be called connatural in another way, namely on account of the particular condition of the patient: to men wounded by the first sin only action by sensible contact can bring grace connaturally. St. Thomas teaches this view when considering the suitability of the Incarnation and of the sacraments. Cf. III, q. 1, a. 2; q. 61, a. 1

29 Prologue to the fourth book of the Sentences to Annibald. This was really written by a Dominican of that name, a friend and disciple of St. Thomas. Cf. Pere Mandonnet, O. P., Des ecrits authentiques de saint Thomas d'Aquin, Fribourg 1910, p. 153

30 It is true that there is no need for the presence of the hierarchic powers in the ministers of Baptism and of Matrimony, and that is why these two sacraments continue to exist in Protestantism. And yet these sacraments are connected with the hierarchy by numerous links and that is why, in Protestantism, their validity remains, in spite of everything, precarious

31 This, for St. Augustine, was already the Baptism of the New Law. For St. John Chrysostom it was fundamentally no more than the baptism of John. Cf. M. J. Lagrange, Evangile selon saint Jean, Paris 1925, p. 91. St. Thomas follows St. Augustine (III, q. 66, a. 2): not however without hesitating (III, q. 73, a. 5, ad 4

32 Leon Chestov, Les revelations de la mort, preface by Boris de Schloezer, Paris 1923, p. xlvi

33 St. Thomas, IV Sent., dist. 18, q. 1, a. 1, quae St. 1

34 Bk. IV, ch. V

35 There are two ways in which one can be called:" First, exteriorly by the mouth of the preacher: Wisdom hath sent her maids to invite to the tower and the walls of the city [Prov. ix. 3]; thus God called Peter and Andrew [Matt. iv. 19]. The other calling is interior, and this is by way of a certain spiritual stirring, [‘quidam mentis instinctus’] by which God inclines the human heart towards the things of faith and of virtue: Who hath raised up the just one from the East and hath called him to follow him? [Isaias xli. 2 (Vulg.)]. This second calling is indispensable, for our hearts would not turn to God if He did not draw w to Himself: No man can come except the Father, who hath sent me draw him [John vi 44]: Convert us, O Lord, to thee, and we shall be converted [Lam. v. 21]" (St Thomas, Comm. in Rom., cap. V III, lect. 6

36 cf. St. Thomas, I, q. 19, a. 6, ad 1; Comm., super 1 Tim., cap. ii, lect. 1; St. Augustine, Enchiridion de Fide, Spe et Caritate, cap. c III, 27

37" Licet autem effectus dependeat a prima causa, causa tamen superexcedit effectum, nec dependet ab effectu. Et ideo praeter baptismum aquae potest aliquis consequi sacramenti effectum ex passione Christi..." (St. Thomas, III, q. 66, a. 11)" Deus.... cuius potentia sacramentis visibilibus non alligatur" (ibid., q. 68, a. 2

38" 'And other sheep I have that are not of this fold; them also I must bring, and they shall hear my voice; and there shall be one fold and one shepherd' (John x. 16) The sheep in Israel, leaving their ancient fold, will join with the Gentile sheep and there will be but one flock and one shepherd. In St. John's text the word 'bring' does not mean 'take’ them to the fold (perducere, adducere), but 'lead them like a flock.' The essential thing in the parable is not 'to be in the fold' but 'to be led by the true Shepherd’" (M. J. Lagrange, O. P., Evangile selon Saint Jean, 1925, p. 281) Literally, then, it is not a question of a single fold, but of a single flock. All the sheep that are led by the true Shepherd tend to make up a single flock; and that is what matters

39 Even in a state of pure nature, and so abstracting from any injuries resulting from sin, action by contact would be better than action at a distance. For, as St. Thomas remarks (III, q. 61, a. 1), it is consonant with human nature to avail itself of corporeal and sensible things to attain to the Spiritual and the intelligible. But the state of pure nature has never existed. On the other hand there is no longer any special privilege attached to action by contact either in the state of innocence or the state of glory. In fact, therefore, it keeps this special privilege only for the state of nature injured and healed

40 St. Thomas, who made so profound an analysis of the state of original justice, went so far as to think that man had then no need of sacraments" not only inasmuch as their end is to provide a remedy for sin, but also inasmuch as their end is to perfect the soul" (III, q. 61, a. 2

41 De Imitatione Christi, lib. IV, cap. 2

42 This is the chain of causes in actual present dependence. But the apostolic body will also renew itself from generation to generation, and this will be the chain of sequence in time, or of the apostolic succession

43 On Jesus' words to the seventy-two disciples returning from their mission, "I saw Satan falling from heaven like lightning," Pere Lagrange, O. P., notes: "Nothing more forcibly expresses Jesus' intention to carry out His redemptive work through those whom He invested with His authority. The Church, along with her hierarchy, rests on this intention." Evangile selon saint Luc, Paris 1921, p. 301

44 Because its proper cause is a hierarchy invested for all time with the power conferred on the Apostles by Christ, the Church is called apostolic. Apostolicity, thus considered, marks the dependence of the Church as found in all the faithful, of the Church believing and loving, on its divine causes. Apostolicity belongs to her ratione causalitatis, secundum perseitatem quarti modi

45 Profession de foi du vicaire savoyard

46 To deny the mediation of the apostolic body without denying that of Christ, violates the organic order of salvation none the less. To invoke the text of St. Paul: "There is one God: and one Mediator of God and men, the man Christ Jesus, who gave himself a redemption for all" (1 Tim. ii, 5), merely complicates the error with a textual misreading the second chapter of this Epistle to Timothy opens with a discourse on prayer. St. Paul first indicates its forms: "I desire therefore first of all that supplications, prayers, intercessions and thanksgivings be made..." (v. 1); then its beneficiaries: "for all men, for kings, for all that are in high station that we may lead a quiet and peaceable life in all piety and chastity" (vv. 1-2); and then its motives, which are drawn either from its very nature: "For this is good" (v. 3); or from God's desire for the same: "and acceptable in the sight of God our Saviour, who will have all men to be saved, and to come to the knowledge of the truth" (vv. 3-4

St. Paul establishes that God wills the salvation of all men, Jews and Gentiles alike, by three considerations. The first is drawn from the fact that God is God over all, over Jew and Gentile together "There is one God" (v. 5: cf. Rom. III, 29) The second is drawn from the universality of Christ's mediation: "and one mediator of God and men, the man Christ Jesus, who gave himself a redemption for all" (vv. 5-6) The third is taken from the mediation of Paul himself, by whom Christ's redemption is brought to the Gentiles: "Whereto I am appointed a preacher and an apostle (I say the truth, I lie not), a doctor of the gentiles in faith and truth" (vv. 6-7

This text, correctly analysed, proves therefore once more that salvation comes down by successive steps: God, then the human nature of Christ, then Paul, then the Gentile peoples. Paul knows that death is near (2 Tim. iv. 6); he has laid his hands upon Timothy (2 Tim. i. 6), who is to keep safe what has been entrusted to him (1 Tim. vi, 20), and to pass it on to trustworthy men fit to teach others also (2 Tim. ii. 2), on whom in turn he is to impose hands (1 Tim. v. 22

The Epistles to Timothy and Titus tell so strongly in favour of the apostolic hierarchy that liberal Protestantism has been driven to deny their authenticity

47 Cf. St. Thomas, I, q. 103, a. 6: "Utrum omnia immediate gubernentur a Deo."

48 If authority is a service, then Paul who planted, Apollo who watered, and Cephas are all in a sense the servants of the Corinthians: "For we preach not ourselves, but Jesus Christ our Lord and ourselves your servants through Jesus" (2 Cor. iv 5

49 The Dialogue of St. Catherine of Siena, trans. A. Thorold, London, 1925, p. 16

50 The "greater works" here in question are not merely miracles, but the diffusion of Christianity throughout the world. Though he was too hostile to the supernatural to accept the Fourth Gospel, Loisy at least saw the meaning of this passage very clearly. "The birth, development, and entire life of the Church are here presented," he says, "as something to follow the Gospel and surpass it. Fundamentally, these are not distinct works and it will always be Christ who acts; while He lived with His disciples His activity was limited by the physical conditions and the providential necessities of His role with regard to the Jews. It will no longer be so when He has entered unto His glory, and that is why the work of His disciples was to be more marvellous than His own. (Le Quatrieme Evangile, 1903, p. 749

51 Discours sur l'histoire universelle, pt. II, ch. XXX

52 The sacraments by which Christ still makes contact with us, if they are to be validly conferred, presuppose in the minister a spiritual power connecting him with Christ the sovereign Prie St. This is the sacramental power, the sacramental character. (There is no exception save in the case of Baptism.) Marriage apart, which requires in the spouses only the baptismal character common to all Christians, the sacramental power required for validly conferring the other sacraments is the power of order, which is a reserved power, a hierarchic power

53 The term "pastor" can designate either one who feeds and leads the flock, or one who simply takes the flock to the pasturage. Hence the pastoral power can be understood in two ways. In a broad sense it designates both the power of order and the power of jurisdiction; in a restricted sense, as we take it here, the power of jurisdiction alone

54 Suppl., q. 19, a. 3

55 II-II, q. 1, a. 10

56 II-II, q. 39, a. 3

57 Suppl., q. 19, a. 3

58 III, q. 63, a. 3

59 "Vicem gerunt Christi" (III, q. 8, a. 6

60 III, q. 63, a. 2

61 III, q. 64, a. 5

62 "Minister.... comparatur ad dominum sicut instrumentum ad principale agens.... Oportet autem instrumentum esse proportionatum agenti. Unde et ministros Christi oportet esse ei conformes.... Oportet igitur ministros Christi homines esse et aliquid divinitatis ejus participare secundum aliquam spiritualem potestatem.... Haec spiritualis potestas a Christo in ministros Ecclesiae derivatur" (St. Thomas, IV Contra Gentes, cap. Lxxiv

63 III, q. 63, a. 5

64 II-II, q,. 39, a. 3

65 "Non immobiliter adhaeret" (II-II, q. 39, a. 3

66 Ibid

67 Can. 108, § 3

68 cf. R. M. Schultes, O. P., De Ecclesia Catholica, 1925, p. 294: "Ecclesia credens dicitur collectio omnium fidelium (romani pontificis, episcoporum, clericorum et laicorum) non quidem prout sunt numerus quidam fidelium, sed in quantum Ecclesiam constituunt."

69 "The Prince is said to be exempt from the law, as to its coercive power; since, properly speaking, no man is coerced by himself, and law has no coercive power save from the authority of the Prince.... But as to the directive force of law, the Prince is subject to the law by his own will.... Hence, in the judgment of God, the Prince is not exempt from the law, as to its directive force; but he should fulfil it of his own free-will and not of constraint" (St. Thomas, I-II, q. 96, a. 5, ad 3

70 "It would seem the part of a Christian to be purely passive when he enters on the common life, and receives his new being immediately from the totality of believers. But in fact this passivity involves the greatest possible activity, the greatest free and personal work conceivable. The contrary opinion is based on a narrow view of personal and independent activity, one which reduces it to giving or generating, and quite overlooks our human capacity for receiving. Receiving often makes harder demands on us than giving—that is to say if it is to be a genuinely personal act.... The personal and independent impulse that prompts us to acceptance is predominantly one of abnegation and love; and by allowing another to act on us we become active in our turn. Whoever would make of giving an activity truly his own, must first of all have learnt to receive; and it is just this which sets up and maintains relations between men. To give having received and without ever receiving, is the prerogative of God" (J. A. Moehler, Die Einheit in der Kirche, Tubingen 1825, pt. ii, ch. i, §49, no. 1, p. 198

71 "L'anima della Chiesa consiste in cio che essa ha d'interno e spirituale, cioe la fede, la speranza, la carita, i doni della grazia e dello Spirito santo e tutti i celesti tesori che le sono derivati pei meriti di Cristo Redentore e dei santi" (Compendio della dottrina cristiano prescritto da S. S. Pio X, alle diocesi della provincia di Roma Rome 1905, p. 119) "By the soul of the Church is meant the invisible principle of the spiritual and supernatural life of the Church, that is to say the perpetual assistance of the Holy Spirit, the principle of authority and internal obedience to superiors, habitual grace with the infused virtues, etc." (Cardinal Gasparri, Catholic Catechism London 1932, p. 99

72 Note in passing that when clergy and laity are opposed in Canon Law, the clergy include not only the ordained but also the tonsured; in spite of the fact that the tonsure is not an Order but a preparation for Orders

73 "Supernaturale accidens impressum animae" says Cajetan, and again: "Supernaturales potentiae" (In III, q. 63, a. 2. no. X

74 John of St. Thomas writes: "Gratia autem, aut fides, aut character, non solum sunt quid supernaturale quia productio eorum superat totam vim naturae, sed quia in seipsis entitative superant omnem naturam, quia in se sunt participationes univocae et supernaturales Dei" (In III, q. 63, disp. 25, a. 2, no. 57, vol IX, p. 336

75 L. Ponnelle and L. Bordet, Saint Philip Neri and the Roman Society of his Time, tr. R. F. Kerr London 1932, p. 151

76 Except in the case of Matrimony, in which the baptized spouses administer grace to each other. As to Baptism, if it is private it can be conferred by anyone; but if it is solemn the ordinary minister is the priest

77 "The sacraments are channels by which so to speak God comes down to us" (St. Francis de Sales, Les ways entretiens spirituels, Annecy 1895, vol. VI, p. 337) The "channel" image successfully conveys that the sacraments of the New Law really contain grace. It is however imperfect because grace is contained therein only "secundum quamdam instrumentalem virtutem, quae est fluens et incompleta in esse naturae"; whereas in a channel the water is there in Its own proper being. The beauty of a drawing passes wholly through the pencil, but it exists in the pencil in a state of becoming and is realized only on the paper. So grace, which is in a state of becoming in the sacrament, is realized only in the soul

78 John of St. Thomas, III, q. 62, disp. 24, a. 2, vol. IX, p. 283. All theologians accept two things as certain: first, that each sacrament conveys its own proper and particular grace, and secondly that the grace proper to each sacrament is not simply a more or less intense degree of habitual sanctifying grace, but adds something to this latter. If this were not so the multiplicity of sacraments would have no raison d'etre. A third point is still disputed: whether sacramental grace is an aid that is simply momentary (Cajetan) or permanent (John of St. Thomas) The conclusions we draw from the doctrine of sacramental grace in relation to the soul of the Church would remain valid even for those who consider with Cajetan that sacramental grace is not an habitual modality of sanctifying grace, but only a divine aid in the form of simple transitory impulsions

79 The expression "jurisdictional power" is here taken in Its full traditional significance. It designates the power to pronounce with divine authority in speculative and practical matters. The Church exerts it in two ways—by transmitting divine revelation or by promulgating the decisions of ecclesiastical law. Scheeben, referring to the passage where Jesus entrusts His lambs and His sheep to Peter, suggests the term "pastoral power" (Hirtengewalt) (Die Mysterien des Christentums, 1865 , no. 80, p. 529) This term may be accepted. We have already noted however that taken in a broad sense the pastoral power comprises both powers—of order and of jurisdiction

80 In Joan., tract. 26, no. 13; 27, no. 6. St. Augustine frequently says that there is no salvation outside the Church. He also makes it plain that he does not condemn ignorance in good faith, since he grants that those in error simply on account of their birth and upbringing "who seek the truth with care and prudence, who are ready to accept it when discovered, are not to be counted among the heretics" (Epist., xl III, 1) Must we say that he here applies the distinction between the soul and body of the Church? I do not think so. Mgr. Batiffol, however, while noting that "Specht was wrong in saying that the term ' soul of the Church ' is Augustinian", writes also: "We might say that Augustine glimpsed the doctrine of the soul of the Church, the soul that holds those saints whom God sanctifies, though they do not belong to the visible body of the Church" (Le catholicisme de saint Augustin, 1920, vol. I, p. 250) To talk of saints whom God would sanctify outside the visible body of the Church might be misleading. It is better to say that in this world the saints belong either re or voto to the Church which is visible by her body

81 The axiom "outside the Church no salvation" is contained equivalently in Scripture. We might cite for example Mark xvi. 16: "Go out all over the world and preach the gospel to the whole of creation; he who believes and is baptized will be saved; he who refuses belief will be condemned." It has been remarked in this connection that Jesus' condemnation "bearing solely on those who positively refuse to submit to the Church, does not touch anyone who, ignorant in all good faith of the divine authority of this Church, is not in fact subject to its teaching" (E. Dublanchy, art. "Eglise", Dict. de theol. cath., col. 2155) It was a common belief from the outset that "all who refuse to submit to the doctrinal or disciplinary authority of the Church, heretics or schismatics, lose all right to eternal salvation" (ibid., col. 2156) The first explicit texts occur in Origen, towards 249-251; "Let no one then mistake, let no one deceive himself: outside this habitation, that is, outside the Church, no one is saved—he who leaves it is himself responsible for his own death" (Hom. III, no. 5; P. G. XII, col. 841) And in St. Cyprian, in 251: "He who leaves the Church to join himself to an adulterous [sect] separates himself from the promises of the Church. He will not come to Christ's rewards, who abandons the Church of Christ. He cannot have God for his Father who has not the Church for his mother. If, outside the Ark of Noe anyone could have been saved, then might someone be saved outside the Church" (De Unitate Ecclesia Catholicae, cap. vi; P. L. IV, col. 505

82 "It must be remarked at the same time that these same [ecclesiastical] documents, when treating of our dogma (Extra Ecclesiam nulla salus) contain nothing positive in favour of a theological distinction between the soul and body of the Church. According to the tenor of these documents it is necessary for salvation to belong actually, or in re, to the Catholic Church, apart from two cases, implicitly or explicitly indicated, in which to belong in voto suffices. "The first case, provided for implicitly, is that in which Baptism cannot be effectively received; and the second, provided for explicitly, is that in which there is invincible ignorance about the Church (E. Dublanchy, art. "Eglise", Dict. de theol. cathol., cols. 2166 and 2167) On the question of a return to the traditional vocabulary, cf. Louis Caperan, Le probleme du salut des infideles, essai historique, 1934, vol. 1, p. 546

83 In what way does the distinction made by the Abbe Perreyve differ from the Protestant distinction between the invisible and the visible Church? "Theologians," he says, "understand by the soul of the Church the society of the just in whatever time and country they may have lived. Every man who, faithful to the interior promptings of grace and docile to such divine light as he is able to receive, believes, hopes and loves in the measure of the spiritual strength that is given him, lives in accordance with what he knows to be the law and desires to die in a state as far removed as may be from error and evil, belongs to the true Church by these virtues that come to him from above.... Outside the Church, no salvation: that is to say in the last analysis, outside the congregation of the just, outside of good faith responding to grace, outside of the quest for truth in a sincere and pure heart—outside of all this no salvation" (Entretiens sur l'Eglise catholique, vol. II, pp. 504 and 546, cited by L. Caperan, Le probleme du salut des infideles essai historique, 1934, vol. I, p. 476. (My italics

84 So real is the danger lurking in this distinction that it can lead such good theologians as Fr. Lemonnyer (Vie spirituelle, 1 May 1932, p. 71 et seq.) to contradistinguish "The Church visible" and the "Church invisible", the "Church visible" and the "Church in a state of grace"; the "Church visible" and "The Mystical Body of Jesus Christ", the Body of Christ is thus no longer considered as something in Itself visible, but as something in Itself invisible, of which however "The Church visible is the true home", Of course it is Fr. Lemonnyer's vocabulary, not his thought, that we are criticising here. We should not speak of a soul of the Church which extends beyond the body. Above all, we must not say that the just "without" belong to the invisible Church. Say rather, if you will, that they belong invisibly to the visible Church. It is difficult to think, however, that their supernatural charity is altogether without outward sign, and in this sense their membership of the Church is not wholly invisible. It could be said to be invisible simpliciter, but visible secundum quid. On the whole, and in practice, we might distinguish three ways of belonging to the Church, which is visible: (1) the membership, visible only, of sinful and carnal members (doubtless it is by virtue of the spiritual realities still surviving in them—the baptismal character, supernatural faith, supernatural hope—that they belong to the Church; but what is most spiritual in Christians, i. e., charity, is lacking); (2) the visible and spiritual membership of just members, and (3) the simply spiritual membership of the just "without"

85 III, q. 68, a. 2

86 Speaking of the way in which one can be deprived of Baptism, St. Thomas opposes the terms re and voto; cf. III, q. 68, a. 2. Speaking of the way in which one can be incorporated in Christ, he opposes the words sacramentaliter and mentaliter (ibid.) or corporaliter and mentaliter: "Adulti prius credentes in Christum sunt ei incorporati mentaliter; sed postmodum, cum baptizantur, incorporantur ei quodammodo corporaliter, scilicet per visibile sacramentum, sine cujus proposito nec mentaliter incorporari potuissent" (III, q. 69, a. 5, ad. 1

87 It is in fact to these distinctions made by St. Thomas in connection with the necessity of Baptism that St. Robert Bellarmine and later theologians have recourse to explain the axiom "outside the Church, no salvation", St. Robert Bellarmine, speaking of catechumens, begins by saying that they are of the Church, not "actu et proprie, sed tantum in potentia, quomodo homo conceptus sed nondum formatus et natus non dicitur homo nisi in potentia", and it is easy to see from this example—borrowed, he believes, from St. Augustine—that the in potentia of St. Robert Bellarmine is equivalent to what we have called a virtual act: the man already conceived but not brought forth, although not man in accomplished act, is man in act begun. St. Robert continues: "Quod dicitur: Extra Ecclesiam neminem salvari, intelligi debet de iis qui neque re ipsa, nec desiderio sunt de Ecclesia, sicut de baptismo communiter loquuntur theologi. Quoniam autem catechumeni, si non re, saltem voto sunt in Ecclesia, ideo salvari possunt" (De Ecclesia Militante, lib. III, cap. 3) Suarez has the same doctrine: "Melius ergo respondendum juxta distinctionem datam de necesitate in re vel in voto ita enim nemo salvari potest, nisi hanc Christi Ecclesiam vel in re, vel in voto saltem et desiderio ingrediatur" (De Fide disp. 12, sect. 4, no. 22) Billuart notes that catechumens "non sunt re et proprie in Ecclesia"; yet when they have charity, they are in the Church proxime et in voto as if one should say that a man under the porch was already in the house, they belong to the Church "inchoative et ut aspirantes.... et ideo salvari possunt. Nec obstat quod extra Ecclesiam non sit salus; id namque intelligitur de eo qui nec re, nec in voto est in Ecclesia" (De Regulis Fidei, dissert. 3, a. 2, 3) See on this point E. Dublanchy, art. "Eglise", Dict. de theol. cathol., cols. 2163-2165

What is to be gained by substituting some new explanation of the axiom: Extra Ecclesiam nulla salus for this traditional exegesis? "The result is that the apologists are out of accord with the theologians and deviate from the traditional teaching. When it is introduced simply as it stands into the formula 'outside the Church, no salvation" the distinction between the body and soul of the Church might easily falsify its meaning.... When the Fathers and the Councils made use of this formula, they did so to convey that all who would be saved must not only belong to the soul of the Church but must enter the external communion. It was without any detriment to the truth of the formula that the theologians reconciled it with the universality of grace and the universal possibility of salvation. They distinguished, like their predecessors, a real adhesion and an implicit adhesion to the visible Church" (L. Caperan, Le probleme du salut des infideles, essai historique, vol. I, p. 477) Happily, not all the apologists are here incriminated. In his 36th conference at Notre Dame de Paris, for example, Pere de Ravignan made admirably clear that the dogma "outside the Church, no salvation" condemns those who live in "voluntary and culpable error", but not those who have at least "The implicit aspiration and desire for the Church and for Baptism"

In his very stimulating book on the Church A. D. Sertillanges, O. P., more perspicacious than the apologists here criticised, clearly sees what is in fact obvious to every Thomist, that the soul and body of the Church must be coextensive, but to reconcile this truth with the doctrine of the possible salvation of those in Invincible ignorance of the Church, he looks in a direction which seems at first sight contrary to that followed here. He does not reduce the soul of the Church to the dimensions of its normal body by the distinction between grace simply sanctifying, which certainly overflows this normal body, and the sanctifying grace that comes of the sacramental power and is ruled by the jurisdictional power, which is the very soul of the Church, conformed to her normal body. On the contrary he leaves the expression "soul of the Church" an undifferentiated and universal significance, and enlarges the concept of the body of the Church so as to make it universal like the soul. "In the measure in which these organizations [pagan religions] favoured not vice and error as they did too often, but virtue and true religious feeling, they were, through God and His Christ, salutary; they were so to speak occasional uncovenanted supports for the universal soul of the Church." And again: "Just as the soul of our Catholic Church envelops all souls that belong to God no matter where they live, so does her body envelop as extrinsic dependencies, all other religious forms [dissident religions are here meant] which in themselves are her antagonists, but also partially, and n the way I have just described, her servants" (L'Eglise, 1917, vol. II, pp. 112 and 119. My italics) These views should surely be made more precise. What has to be determined is this: what is there of the soul of the Church outside the Church, and what is there of the body of the Church outside the Church?

88 We may here recall the 29th proposition of Quesnel condemned by Pope Clement XI: "No grace is to be had outside the Church, Extra Ecclesiam nulla conceditur gratia" (Denz., 1379

89 Here, without wishing to proscribe their use everywhere, I avoid of set purpose such phrases as salvation of infidels, pagans, or heretics in good faith. Infidels are saved in so far as they are among the faithful, pagans and heretics by that in them which is neither heretical nor pagan

90 Explaining an authentic passage of St. Augustine which puts the catechumens within the Church—"Futuri erant aliqui in Ecclesia excelsioris gratiae catechumeni" (In Evang. Joan. tract. 4, no. 13), St. Robert Bellarmine writes: "Voluit ergo dicere, esse in Ecclesia non actu sed potentia, quod idem ipse explicuit initio libri II De Symbolo [but this text is not St. Augustine's] ubi comparat catechumenos hominibus conceptis, non natis" (De Ecclesia Militante, lib. III, cap. 3) For E. Mersch, on the contrary, the catechumens would be members of Christ without being members of the Church, and he concludes that there need be no identity between the Mystical Body of Christ and the Church (The Whole Christ, London 1939, pp. 487 and 564

91 "Perceptio baptismi est necessaria ad inchoandam spiritualem vitam; perceptio autem eucharistiae est necessaria ad consummandam ipsam" (St. Thomas, III, q. 83, ad. 3

92 St. Augustine, In Joan. Evang., tract. 26, no. 13

93 The marriage of Protestants is not a sacrament in the eyes of the Protestant Church, but it is so in those of the Roman, Codex Juris Canonici, can. 1099 , 2. The two sacraments really retained by traditional Protestantism are not, as they themselves hold, Baptism and the Last Supper but Baptism and Matrimony

94 Why are Anglican Orders invalid? "The words which until quite recent times have been generally held by Anglicans to be the proper form of priestly ordination—'Receive the Holy Ghost'—certainly do not signify definitely the order of the priesthood or its grace and power which is, above all else, the power to consecrate and offer the true Body and Blood of the Lord in that sacrifice which is no mere commemoration of the sacrifice accomplished on the Cross.... Not only is there in the whole ordinal no express mention of sacrifice, of consecration of priesthood, of the power to consecrate and offer the sacrifice, but, as we have already indicated, every trace of these and similar things remaining in such prayers of the Catholic rite as were not completely rejected, was purposely removed and obliterated" (Leo X III, Apostolicae Curae, 1896

95 cf. St. Thomas, I-II, q. 89, a. 6

96 id., De Veritate, q. 14, a. 11, ad. 1

97 Divided Christendom, London, 1939

98 In so far as this is so, it is by reason precisely of what they have taken from the true Church or received from the loving kindness of the Holy Spirit, never by reason of the principle of their dissidence, but in spite of it

99 Divided Christendom, London, 1939, p. 41

100 ibid., p. 42

101 ibid., p. 256. This is perhaps the passage which P. Cordovani was summarising in the expression "lo scisma possiede quello che manca a noi", and which he notes as open to criticism in the Osservatore Romano, 22 March, 1940

102 cf. Etudes Carmelitaines, Oct. 1937, p. 183

103 Divided Christendom, p. 246

104 cf. the chapter "The Paradoxes of Christianity", in G. K. Chesterton's Orthodoxy: "It is true that the historic Church has at once emphasised celibacy and emphasised the family; has at once (if one may put it so) been fiercely for having children and fiercely for not having children. It has kept them side by side like two strong colours, red and white, like the red and white upon the shield of St. George. It always had a healthy hatred of pink.... It hates that evolution of black into white which is tantamount to a dirty grey... All that I am urging here can be expressed by saying that Christianity sought in most of these cases to keep two colours co-existent but pure."

105 See Appendix X of this same work of Moehler's which deals with some of St. Augustine's comments on St. Paul's words: Nam oportet et haereses esse (1 Cor. xi. 19

106 Moehler says "in the Church

107 Jacques Maritain, "Qui est mon prochain?", Vie intellectuelle, August 1939, p. 177.

108 Translator's note. This pouvoir cultuel (also here in the original called the pouvoir sacramentel) is a generic term for all the powers and characters conferred by the sacraments—the highest of these being the character conferred by the sacrament of Holy Orders and the corresponding power to offer the eucharistic sacrifice. There is perhaps no really satisfactory English equivalent for pouvoir cultuel, rituel, liturgique. We shall call it throughout the sacramental power. The French culte we have generally rendered as "cultus", reserving "cult" for non-Christian systems of religion.

109 St. Thomas writes that "The state of the New Law is intermediate between the state of the Old Law whose figures are fulfilled in the New, and the state of glory, in which all truth will be openly and perfectly revealed, and where there will be no sacraments" (III, q. 61, a. 4, ad 1) The priesthood of Christ is eternal, not as regards the offering of the sacrifice, but as regards the end and consummation of the sacrifice, that is to say as regards the glory which the elect will receive from Christ (q. 22, a. 5, and ad 1) "After this life the exterior cultus will not remain, but the end for which this cultus exists" (q. 62, a. 5, ad 3)

110 God's dominion extends to all things, but it is exercised either principally by way of justice or principally by way of mercy, and in the latter case it is called the Kingdom of God

111 Non-sacramental sanctifying grace is, as we have seen, but an initial participation in the sanctity of Christ

112 "Proprie officium sacerdotis est esse mediatorem inter Deum et populum, inquantum scilicet divina populo tradit..., et iterum inquantum preces populi Deo offert et pro eorum peccatis Deo aliqualiter satisfacit" (St. Thomas, III, q. 22, a. 1)

113 "If Christ could merit for others, this was radicaliter et praesuppositive in virtue of the grace of union, but also formaliter et proxime in virtue of habitual grace, inasmuch as this last was united to and completed by the grace of union. In the absence of habitual grace the grace of union would have sufficed to enable Christ to merit for others; but His soul would not then have been able to give birth to meritorious acts in so connatural a manner" (John of St. Thomas, III, q. 8, disp. 10, a. 1, no. 50; vol. V III, p. 261)

114 "Grace was bestowed upon Christ, not only as an individual but inasmuch as He is Head of the Church, so that it might overflow into His members; and therefore Christ's works are referred to Himself and to His members in the same way as the works of any other man in a state of grace are referred to himself" (St. Thomas, III, q. 48, a. 1, "Utrum passio Christi causaverit nostram salutem per modum meriti?")

115 From the standpoint of the perverse will of the Jews the death of Christ was certainly no sacrifice; His executioners had no thought of offering a victim to God, but sinned grievously. From the standpoint of the will of Christ freely accepting His passion, it had the character of a sacrifice. cf. St. Thomas, Ill, q. 22, a. 2, ad 2; q. 48, a. 3, ad 3."

116 cf St. Thomas, III, q. 48, a. 3: "Utrum passio Christi operata sit per modum sacrificii?" Christ, as Scheeben remarks, "could have merited grace and glory for us without having to suffer; but satisfaction, on the contrary, absolutely demanded suffering. For without self-alienation and renunciation, without destruction, the honour filched from God could not have been restored to Him; but merit demands simply that something be done for God's honour and glory out of love for God. Since however the most excellent gift of love is to offer oneself to the beloved, and since the most perfect adoration of God consists in really bringing oneself to naught before His infinite majesty, it must be concluded that Christ's merit attained its highest point with His passion and death" (Die Mysterien des Christentums, 1895, no. 67 p. 439)

117 Sacrifice, unlike offering, is "an essentially latreutic symbol", it is "in its essence a rite significative of that homage which is due to God alone. It is this that distinguishes it from other acts of religion and gives it its special moral value" (I. Mennessier, O. P., La notion de sacrifice, in his translation of St. Thomas' De Religione (II-II, q. 80, et seq.), Paris 1932, vol. I, p. 350) "The latreutic character of the sacrifice of Christ is seldom strongly emphasised. Sacred Scripture itself usually presents it as simply propitiatory, but with no other intention, as is clear, than to set forth the divine cultus in general in relation to the benefits it brings us. If the cultus draws down God's rewards on the creature, its supreme end is nevertheless not the beatification of the creature, but the glorification of God; and that indeed is the end of the beatified creature himself. Similarly Christ's sacrifice is assuredly ordained to reconcile the creature and restore it to grace, yet it is not the less willed for itself as a latreutic sacrifice directed to the glory of God; and in that precisely we must seek its deepest essence and highest significance. We believe indeed that the propitiatory and impetratory character of the sacrifice of Christ cannot be fully brought out save when its latreutic character is properly appreciated" (M. J. Scheeben, op. cit., no. 65, p. 416)

118 St. Thomas, I-II, q. 102, a. 3—and ad 10

119 cf. St. Thomas, III, q. 48, and q. 49, a. 4. The Passion of Christ effected our salvation by way of satisfaction and of redemption; it reconciled us with God. The various characteristics distinguishable in the Passion are all closely bound up with each other; they are so many aspects of one and the same reality. Just as Christ "by the satisfactory virtue of His sacrifice delivered us from the infinite debt to God we had contracted; so by the meritorious virtue of His sacrifice He made God our debtor, presenting Him with a price so high that henceforth the high grace of filiation would be granted by God to man not only out of pure favour and free love, but as of right; and precisely m that appears the supreme and mysterious significance of Christ's sacrifice" (M. J. Scheeben, op. cit., no. 67, p. 347) St. Thomas wrote: "Per passionem Christi est sublata odii causa: tum propter ablutionem peccati; tum propter recompensationem acceptabilioris boni" (III, q. 49, a. 4, ad 2

120 cf. St. Thomas, III, q. 48, a. 6; cf. ad 3: "Passio Christi, secundum quod comparatur ad divinitatem ejus, agit per modum efficientiae"; and q. 49, a. 1, ad 3

121 The sacrifice of Christ is opposed, in the Epistle to the Hebrews (x), to the sacrifices of the Old Law which no longer pleased God, both because the time was at hand when figures had to make way for the reality, and because they were offered hypocritically and without love. Such sacrifices, so offered, were what Jesus condemned in the Pharisees when He reminded them of the text of the Prophet Osee: "Go then and learn what this meaneth: I will have mercy and not sacrifice" (Matt. ix. 13; xii. 7

122 St. Thomas, III, q. 22, a. 3, ad 1

123 Jesus is called "priest according to the order of Melchisedech "for two reasons. First, as the Epistle to the Hebrews (vii) explains, because the levitical priesthood, finally eclipsed by the perfect priesthood of Christ on the cross, had been of old momentarily effaced by the better priesthood of Melchisedech. The book of Genesis (xiv. 20) represents Abraham, from whom the levitical priesthood was to issue, as paying tithes to Melchisedech, king of Salem and priest of the Most High. Secondly, as noted by the Council of Trent (cf. Denz. 938), because, just as Melchisedech, going before Abraham, brought bread and wine (Gen. xiv. 18), so Jesus, at the Last Supper, offered His Body and Blood under the appearances of bread and wine. In connection with those passages of the Epistle to the Hebrews which oppose Jesus the one Priest to the succession of the levitical priests, we note that the power of "The priests "today is not there to supplant the supreme mediation of Jesus, but to make it present. He alone is the perfect Prie St. They are His priests, that is to say mere ephemeral ministers dispensing His eternal redemption to all ages

124 Since Christ's cultus was ordered to His grace we could bring these two consecrations together and attribute them to Christ as Priest (or, on the other hand, to Christ as Saviour) We speak more strictly in attributing the first to Christ as Priest and the second to Christ as Saviour. A third privilege will concern Christ as King

125 All the sacraments, says St. Thomas, confer the consecration of grace. But three of them, Baptism, Confirmation and Holy Order, confer a sacerdotal consecration as well: "Sanctificatio autem duobus modis accipitur. Uno modo pro emundatione, quia sanctum est mundum. Alio modo pro mancipatione ad aliquod sacrum, sicut dicitur altare sanctificari, vel aliquod hujusmodi. Omnia ergo sacramenta sunt sanctificationes primo modo.... Sed quaedam sunt sanctificationes etiam secundo modo, sicut patet praecipue in ordine, quia ordinatus mancipatur ad aliquid sacrum.... Quicumque autem mancipatur ad aliquid sacrum spirituale exercendum, oportet quod habeat spiritualem potestatem, et solum talis. Et ideo non omnia sacramenta novae legis characterem imprimunt, sed quaedam, quae etiam secundo modo sanctificationes sunt" (IV Sent., dist. 4, q. 1, a. 4, quae St. 2

126 On incorporation into Christ, the King and Prophet, by the preaching of the truth, and on incorporation with Christ the Redeemer by sacramental grace, cf. below, pp. 511 and 513

127 The whole evangelical mystery of the Eucharist is faithfully expressed in the prayer of the Missal where it is said that: "As often as the commemoration of this offering is celebrated, the work of our redemption is carried out [quoties hujus hostiae commemoratio celebratur, opus nostrae redemptionis exercetur]" (Dom., IX post Pent.

128 The Mass is Christ bringing us the bloody sacrifice of the cross in a bloodless rite.

In a little work on the sacrifice and the rite of the Mass (Opuscula, Venice 1612, vol. III tract. 10) which he addressed on the 3rd May 1531 to Pope Clement VII and directed against the Lutherans Cardinal Cajetan seems to have got deeper than other theologians into the thought of St. Thomas (III, q. 83, a. 1) concerning the essence of the sacrifice of the Mass

Luther, as we know, held that the Eucharist truly contains the Body and Blood of Christ. But in opposition to the universal belief of the Roman Church and of the dissident Oriental Churches he denied that it is a sacrifice. He therefore also denied that it is an expiatory rite for the living and the dead

To establish that the celebration of the Eucharist contributes to the expiation of sins, Cajetan had only to cite the words of Jesus in the account of the Last Supper as given by St. Matthew: "This is my blood of the New Testament, which shall be shed for many unto remission of sins" (xxvi, 28)

He shows next that the sacrifice of the Mass, far from derogating from the sacrifice of the cross is one with it, and prolongs it to our own day. Christ offered Himself on the cross in a bloody manner and offers Himself on the altar in a bloodless manner. But the daily repetition of the bloodless rite does not make a new sacrifice. First, because the reality present, on the cross and on the altar is identically the self-same Christ. Next, because the bloodless rite is not juxtaposed but subordinated to the bloody sacrifice. Far then from supplanting it, it is but the vehicle of that remission of sins which Christ then obtained for us

Here, in the original text, are some lines of the delicate discussion in which, thirty years before the Council of Trent, this great theologian treated the mystery of the Mass: "Hostia cruenta et incruenta non sunt hostiae duae, sed una hostia. Quia res quae est hostia est unamet res; non enim Christi corpus in nostro altari est aliud ab illo Christi corpore quod oblatum est in cruce, nec sanguis Christi in nostro altari alius est ab illo Christi sanguine qui fusus est in cruce. Modus vero hanc unam eandemque hostiam immolandi, alter e St. Quia ille unicus substantialis ac primaevus immolandi modus, fuit cruentus, utpote in propria specie, corporis fractione, in cruce sanguinem fundens; iste vero quotidianus, externus, accessoriusque modus est incruentus, utpote, sub specie panis et vini, oblatum in cruce Christum, immolatitio modo repraesentans

Quodcirca, Novi Testamenti hostia cruenta et incruenta, unica est ex parte rei oblatae. Et ex parte modi offerendi, licet sit diversitas, quia tamen iste modus (scilicet incruente immolare) non est, secundum seipsum, tanquam disparatus modus immolandi institutus, sed dumtaxat ut refertur ad cruentam in cruce hostiam, consequens est apud sapientes et penetrantes quod 'ubi unum nonnisi propter alterum, ibi unum dumtaxat est" consequens, inquam, est, non posse affirmari proprie loquendo, duo sacrificia, aut duas hostias, aut duas oblationes, immolationes et quovis nomine appelles, esse in Novo Testamento ex hoc quod est, in hostia cruenta Christus in cruce et in hostia incruenta, Christus in altari; sed esse unicam hostiam, semel oblatam in cruce, perseverantem, modo immolatitio, quotidiana repetitione, ex institutione Christi, in Eucharistia.

In Novo Testamento non repetitur sacrificium, seu oblatio, sed perseverat immolatitio modo unicum sacrificium semel oblatum; et in modo perseverandi intervenit repetitio, non in ipsa re oblata; nec etiam ipse, qui repetitur, modus, concurrit ad sacrificium propter se, sed propter oblationem in cruce commemorandam incruente.

Absit a fidelium mentibus etiam cogitare quod ad supplendam efficaciam hostiae in cruce oblatae celebretur missa: celebratur enim tanquam vehiculum remissionis peccatorum per Christum in cruce factae; ita quod, quemadmodum non est alia hostia, ita non aliam affert remissionem peccatorum."

The sacrifice of the cross suffices of itself to intercede for the men of every age. And yet, as Scripture witnesses, it does not make useless the perpetual intercession of Christ in heaven—"he is also able to save for ever them that come to God by him: always living to make intercession for us" (Heb. vii. 25) The glorious intercession ratifies the sorrowful intercession by which it continues to save the world. The bloodless rite of the Mass, which brings down into our midst the glorious intercession of heaven, and ratifies the sorrowful intercession of the cross which is efficacious throughout all time, derogates from neither of these intercessions: it is subordinated to them. Cf. my opusculum La sainte messe ou la permanence du sacrifice de la loi nouvelle, in the series La Pensee catholique, Liege 1937

1291 Cor. xi. 23-32. Pere Allo in an excursus entitled Synthese et origine de la doctrine eucharistique de Saint Paul, minutely studies this text and that of 1 Cor. x, 14-22 from an exegetical standpoint, and establishes that they expressly contain the whole doctrine that has remained the Catholic doctrine, "which thus takes the Catholic dogma of the sacrifice of the Mass back to St. Paul, contrary to all the various Protestant theories". He adds: "The 'realism" the 'sacramentalism" and in a word the Catholicism of St. Paul, is no longer in doubt for any of those whose minds have shaken off the dissident confessions of faith. As for the question of the eucharistic sacrifice, which along with transubstantiation was the old subject of controversy between Catholics and Protestants, it seems that we are on the way to an agreement with critics emancipated from the Churches.... The historical evidence more and more inclines them to recognize that St. Paul presents all the essential lines of the dogma of the Eucharist—as also of others. Thus St. Paul is more or less openly given back to us, and that is no small thing" (Premiere epitre aux Corinthiens, Paris 1935, pp. 305 and 307 ) Of course, if Catholicism is in St. Paul, the rationalist critics do not therefore conclude that Catholicism is right, but that St. Paul is wrong

130 cf. E. B. Allo, O. P., Premiere epitre aux Corinthiens, pp. 239-243, and 302 et seq.: also Hebrews x III, 10: "We have an altar whereof they have no power to eat who serve the tabernacle."

131 The infinite meritorious virtue of the death of Christ is due radically and presuppositively to the "grace of union": it is due proximately and formally to "habitual grace", Even without habitual grace the grace of union would have sufficed to invest all Christ's actions with an infinite value Cf. John of St. Thomas, III, q. 8, disp. 10, a. 1, no. 50; vol. V III, p. 261. Cajetan said that the sacrifice of the Mass, being the very immolation of Christ, has an infinite impetratory, meritorious and satisfactory value of itself and absolutely—but is in fact applied to us in proportion to the devotion of the Church which offers it, and of those for whom it is offered (Opuscula, vol. II, tract. 3, q. 2) See Nova et vetera, 1932, p. 193

132 L. E. Rabussier, S. J., "Quelques notes sur le 'mariage spirituel’", Revue d'ascetique et de mystique, 1927, pp. 289 to 291. I have slightly altered the text. The author wrote: "God wills that all heaven's interventions here below shall find a fulcrum on earth." As for the Church in purgatory, we shall see later on that it remains dependent, in a way, on the Church in time

133 "O Father, why do you tarry? So long ago it was that my beloved poured forth his blood. I approach you in the interests of my Spouse.... You will keep your word, O Father, for you have promised him all nations" (Ecrits spirituels de Marie de l'Incarnation, Ursuline, ed. Dom Jamet, vol. II, p. 311) "Every night between Thursday and Friday you shall share this mortal distress which indeed I wished to undergo in the Garden of Olives, and which will reduce you, without your being able to understand it, to a kind of agony harder to support than death. And to accompany me in the humble prayer I then addressed to my Father in the midst of all my anguish, you are to rise between eleven o'clock and midnight to prostrate yourself for one hour with me, with your face to the earth, as much to soften the divine anger by asking mercy for sinners as to sweeten the bitterness I felt when abandoned by my Apostles, a bitterness that forced from me the reproach that they could not watch one hour with me" (Life of St. Margaret Mary Alacoque, written by herself) To another Visitandine, Sister Marie-Marthe Chambon, Jesus showed His wounds, saying: "My daughter, behold the world's treasure. The world does not want to recognize it. Here is something that can pay all debts", and He taught her this prayer which she pledged herself to say lovingly every ten minutes "Eternal Father, I offer you the wounds of Our Lord Jesus Christ, to heal those of our souls" (Vie de la soeur Marie-Marthe Chambon, Chambery 1928, pp. 62 and 63

134 Revue d'ascetique et de mystique, p. 291. In connection with the text of St. Peter, addressed to all Christians—"be you also as living stones built up, a spiritual house, a holy priesthood, to offer up spiritual sacrifices acceptable to God by Jesus Christ"—(1 Peter ii, 5), Cajetan writes in his third Jentaculum: "The Victim of the New Testament surpasses all others because He is Christ Himself, our God. But the offering of His sacrifice, if we consider those who offer it, is not always better than 'spiritual victims'—there are times, alas, when it is very inferior." The "spiritual victims" are acts of virtue performed in God's honour.

135 In Joannis Evang., tract. 80, no. 3.

136 We could say the perfect means and even, in a sense, the universal means, of grace, cf. above P. 12

137 St. Thomas, III, q. 62, a. 2.

138 I should like to recall in this connection the very just remark of a rationalist exegete: "The notion of 'worship in spirit and in truth' commonly held by Protestant theologians, is no more rational than it is evangelical.... Christ's reference to ' worship in spirit and in truth, (John iv. 23-24) does not oppose a purely interior to an exterior worship; but a worship that can be called inspired, spiritualized, the Christian worship which the Evangelist knew, and which is quickened with the Spirit given to believers, the worship that can be carried out everywhere, is substituted for the localised worship at Jerusalem or on Mount Garizim. The Evangelist who gives us the formula of worship in spirit and in truth is the same who gives us the formula of the Incarnation. The two correspond God is Spirit, and so also is His Word; the true worship is spiritual, because founded on the communication of the divine Spirit; but as the God-Spirit manifests Himself in the incarnate Word, the life of the Spirit communicates and sustains itself by the spiritual sacraments, the water of baptism, the bread and wine of the Eucharist" (Loisy, L'Evangile et L'Eglise, p. 258)

139 IV Con. Gen., cap. Lxxiv

140 "Per omnia sacramenta sanctificatur homo secundum quod sanctitas importat munditiam a peccato, quae fit per gratiam sed specialiter per quaedam sacramenta, quae characterem imprimunt, homo sanctificatur quadam consecratione, utpote deputatus ad cultum divinum" (St. Thomas, III, q. 63, a. 6, ad 2) Scheeben (Die Mysterien des Christentums, 1865, 83, pp. 550 and 557), wrongly calls Baptism, Confirmation and Order the "hierarchic" sacraments; the hierarchy begins only with the sacrament of Order. On the other hand Scheeben distinguishes four "consecratory" sacraments; and that is too many if we think only of those three consecrations which are characters, and too few if we admit that Matrimony and Extreme Unction confer a kind of consecration: for they actualise the receptivity of the baptismal character, so that it becomes impossible to repeat them during, respectively, the life of the spouses or during the same danger of death.

141 "Baptism, inasmuch as it generates children of adoption has the quality called grace for its principal effect. But inasmuch as it generates a Christian, that is to say a member of the Christian religion, of the Christian family, its principal effect is the character" (Cajetan, In III, q. 69, a. 10 no. iv.) We add that sacramental grace makes us members of the Christian family much more intimately still than the sacramental character.

142 The signs are visible. If the character, which is invisible, can be a sign, that is because it is stamped upon us by a visible sacrament. We know, for example, that someone has the baptismal character, if we know that he has received the sacrament of Baptism (St. Thomas, III, q. 63, a. 1, ad 2)

143 Contra Epist. Parmeniani, lib. II, nos. 28 and 29.

144 It is well known that the persecuted Japanese Catholics lived without priests for a century and a half, and remained faithful to their Church. Baptism maintained sacramental grace among them along with an initial sacerdotal power which enabled them to perform certain acts of the Christian cultus, for example to contract sacramental marriage. But it was deprived of its highest exercise.

145 op Cit., § 84, P. 560

146 III, q. 63, a. 4, ad 1.

147 Pere Louis Chardon, O. P., La Croix de Jesus. Introduction by R. P. F. Florand, O. P., Paris 1937, p. civ.

148 It is itself "effect", but yet the "sign" of an ulterior effect: "res et sacramentum",

149 III, q. 84, a. 1, ad 3

150 The character is likened by St. Thomas to a form which produces its effect, namely grace, as soon as any contrary dispositions are removed (III, q. 69, a. 10) That, says Cajetan, is a mere comparison.

151 Without the baptismal character the other sacraments are received materially in genere entis but not validly, in genere sacramenti.

152 St. Thomas however writes: "In case of necessity, when even a layman can baptize, he who baptizes without being in a state of grace does not sin; for his intention is to do a service, not to act as a minister of the Church. But this solution would not apply to those sacraments which are less necessary than that of Baptism" (III, q. 64, a. 6, ad 3)

153 In Evang. Joannis, tract. 5, nos. 15 and 18.

154 The two capital texts of Scripture concerning the sacrament of Confirmation (Acts v III, 4-24; xix, 1-20) are discussed in the study "Confirmation dans la sainte Ecriture" in the Dictionnaire de theologie catholique, col. 975-102 6. The author, Mgr. Ruch, establishes that the communication of the Holy Spirit then made "consecrates the disciple as a prophet of the New Times and enables him to bear witness to the Messiah according as circumstances dictate or the Saviour wills". Being meant for all, "The ministry for which the gift of the Spirit makes the recipient apt carries no hierarchic grade, but involves nevertheless a participation in public functions. Does not the witness, as such, speak in public and for the public?" The extraordinary graces, such as the gift of tongues are merely accidental effects; they are not received by all "because all do not need them in order to bear witness", but they were given to some "because the words and works of the public man should, at the outset more especially, be confirmed by the power of God". The fact is that in the confirmed, as such, the confession of faith has rather the significance of an act of cultus than that of the gift of prophecy

155 "In a sense all the sacraments bring some participation of the priesthood of Christ because they dispense some of its fruits; not all of them however give the power to do or to receive anything from the cultus of which Christ is priest, but those only that impress a character on the soul" (St. Thomas, III, q. 63, a. 6, ad 1) If it be admitted that the two texts of the Apocalypse: "He hath made us a kingdom and priests to God and his Father" (I. 6) and "thou hast made us to our God a kingdom and priests" (v. 10) refer, not to each particular soul but to the Christian people as a whole, we could say, as Cajetan does, that in these texts the word "priests" is already taken in its proper sense to designate the power of order. cf. Cajetan, Jentaculum tertium. The same applies to 1 Peter ii. 9. While 1 Peter ii. 5 would, on the contrary, designate the priesthood in the metaphorical sense.

156 The human nature of Christ is conjoined to the Person of the Word in the order of being. Incorporation with Christ makes us separated instruments of the Person of the Word in the order of being, and conjoined with Him only in the order of action.

157 "The sign of Christian Baptism, when it remains unaltered, suffices even among heretics to confer a consecration, though not participation in eternal life" (St. Augustine, Epist. XCV III, 5) To the three Consecrations which are characters we could, as we have said, link the physical modifications produced in the baptized by reception of the sacraments of Matrimony and Extreme Unction. Their negative role will be to prevent the valid repetition of these two sacraments during, respectively, the life of the spouses or the continuance of the same danger of death. Their positive role will be to serve as instruments of the divine omnipotence in the event of the reviviscence of these sacraments, and also to consecrate Christians temporarily or momentarily for the duties of marriage or the struggles of the death agony.

158 The consecrations of Baptism and of Confirmation are participations of the priesthood of Christ; but since they are conferred on all they cannot be degrees of a sacramental hierarchy. This latter begins only with the sacrament of Holy Order, and with it of course the differences of level. This said, it is easy to understand the words of a dissident Russian theologian: "The laity have their place and value in the Church as well as the clergy. The lay state is not to be defined negatively as the mere absence of ecclesiastical order—it is rather a special order, conferred in the sacrament of unction" (Discourse of P. Serge Bulgakov, to the Congress of Churches at Lausanne, 1927) Let us say with greater exactitude that the lay state involves, not the absence of the sacerdotal or sacramental power, but the absence of the power of Order. It supposes the first degrees of the sacramental power, but not the first degree of Order, which is the beginning of the hierarchy.

159 Denz., 852

160 ibid., 853, 920

161 ibid., 961

162 ibid., 938

163 ibid., 855

164 ibid., 920. 165 ibid., 852

166 ibid., 960, 964. According to the Reformers, ordination was not a sacrament conferring a sacramental power, a consecration, but a simple designation of ministers by the Church, ministers who could, at will, become laymen again. That consecration which the Protestants of the Reformation took away from the priests, the modern liberal Protestants take away from Jesus Himself. They no longer believe that He stands before God as the Priest of all mankind. It was, they say, only in the minds of certain of His disciples that he was the High Priest according to the order of Melchisedech, that His death was a redemptive sacrifice, that He has washed away our sins in His Blood, that the Last Supper is the memorial of a sacrifice. cf. A. Reville, Jesus de Nazareth, 1897, vol. II, p. 350, et seq.; A. Sabatier, La doctrine de l'expiation et son evolution historique, 1903; J. Reville, Les origines de l'eucharistie, 1908; Harnack, Das Wesen des Christentums, 1920 p. 98 et seq. This last is not the least categorical, but the most adroit, of them all: "If we penetrate into history we recognize that the world's salvation comes from the sufferings of the just and the innocent, in the sense that it is not words but acts, nor even acts but acts of oblation, nor even acts of oblation but only the voluntary gift of life itself, which decides the great moments of historical progress. In this sense, I believe that in so far as any theory of substitution can seem acceptable to us, few among us will fail to recognize the inner justice and truth of a drama such as that of Isaiah l III: Surely he hath borne our infirmities and carried our sorrows. None hath greater love than he who lays down his life for his friends. That is how the death of Christ was understood from the beginning. The more delicate is a man's moral sense the more surely he will discover in history, whenever some great thing is done, the part played by the suffering of substitution; and the more lessons he will know how to draw from it. Did Luther in his cloister fight only for himself, was it not for all of us that he inwardly battled and bled in the cause of the religion confided to his hands? But in the Cross of Jesus Christ mankind could recognize the power of a purity and of a love so proven by death that it could never be forgotten, and the experience marked a new epoch in our history."

167 Denz., 852

168 The deacon is the extraordinary minister and the priest the ordinary minister of "solemn" Baptism, that is to say of Baptism conferred according to the prescriptions and ceremonies of the ritual (Cod. Jur. Can., can. 737, §2; 738, §1; 741)

169 Contra Epistolam Parmeniani, lib. II, no. 28

170 cf. P. Batiffol, L'Eglise naissante et le catholicisme, Paris 1911, p. 351

171 "Hoc sacramentum datur principaliter ad actus aliquos agendos. Et ideo, secundum diversitatem actuum, oportet quod ordinis sacramentum distinguatur," (St. Thomas, Suppl., q. 37, a. 1, ad 1) "Tota enim plenitudo sacramento hujus est in uno ordine, scilicet sacerdotio, sed in aliis est quaedam participatio ordinis" (ibid., ad 2)

172 The Council of Trent did not intend to define that all three of these Orders are of divine institution, so that we cannot attempt to establish the fact by citing the words of the Council: "If any one shall say that there is not in the Catholic Church a hierarchy instituted by divine ordinance and comprising bishops, priests and ministers, let him be anathema" (Session XXIII, can. 6: Denz. 966) Nevertheless, there can be no doubt that this is the teaching of the Code of Canon Law: "By virtue of a divine institution, the sacred hierarchy comprises in the line of order bishops, priests and ministers..." (Can. 108 §3) See below Excursus II on some recent views on the sacrament of order

173 The term "Mystical Body" was first used in the ninth century to designate the sacramental Body, the eucharistic Body, of Christ; then, since the twelfth century, to designate its proper effect namely the "Body which is the Church", cf. Henri de Lubac, S. J., Corpus Mysticum, l'eucharistie et l'Eglise au moyen age, Paris 1944, p. 15.

174 The episcopate and the presbyterate, in which are equally exercised the principal act of the power of order, which is to consecrate the real Body of Christ, are often brought together under the name of the priesthood primi et secundi Gradus.

175 "In primitiva Ecclesia, propter paucitatem ministrorum, omnia inferiora ministeria diaconis committebantur.... nihilominus erant omnes praedictae potestates, sed implicite, in una diaconi potestate. Sed postea ampliatus est cultus divinus; et Ecclesia, quod implicite habebat in uno ordini, explicite tradidit in diversis. Et secundum hoc dicit Magister.... quod Ecclesia alios ordines sibi instituit" (St. Thomas, IV Sent., dist. 24, q. 2, a. 1, quae St. 2, ad 2: cf. Suppl., q. 37, a. 2, ad 2)

176 A letter written in 251 by Pope Cornelius to Fabrius, Bishop of Antioch, shows that the Roman Church then recognized priests, deacons, sub-deacons, acolytes, exorcists, lectors and doorkeepers. cf. Denz. 45.

177 It was the teaching of St. Thomas (Suppl., q. 37, a. 1 and 2) that the sub-diaconate and the Minor Orders were true degrees of the power of order. It would appear that such was also the teaching of the Council of Florence: when speaking of the way in which Orders are conferred, the Council mentions not only the presbyterate and diaconate but also the sub-diaconate and other Orders (Denz 701 ) But it would seem that the Church's intention has been modified since. It could be held that by the Apostolic Constitution on the Holy Orders of the Diaconate, Presbyterate and Episcopate (30 Nov. 1947), His Holiness Pope Pius XII, by returning to the primitive rite of the imposition of hands an essential and exclusive part in the ordination, also reduced to the rank of simple sacramentals the sub-diaconate and the Minor Orders, which are conferred without the imposition of hands. See Excursus II: Some Recent Views on the Sacrament of Order (no. 9)

178 In the first days of the Church we have to recognize, alongside the hierarchy, a missionary and itinerant organization composed of prophets, doctors, etc., and engaged in apostolic work. cf. P. Batiffol, Etudes d'histoire et de theologie positive, Paris 1920 p. 260

179 An indication of Jesus' intention to distinguish between bishops and priests later on, could be found in the two missions mentioned in the Gospel: that of the twelve Apostles, who were to be succeeded by bishops, and that of the seventy-two disciples, who were to be succeeded by simple priests. ("Cum sacerdotes succedant in locum septuagintaduorum discipulorum, episcopi vero in locum duodecim apostolorum, ut dicitur in glossa" St. Thomas, Contra Impugnantes Dei Cultum et Religionem) For the mission of the seventy-two was not merely transitory: "Behold I have given you power to tread upon serpents and scorpions and upon all the power of the enemy, and nothing shall hurt you" (Luke x. 19) Pere Lagrange writes: "But although the disciples had gone before Jesus on this occasion, they will have to carry on His work after Him. Hence the Master bestows on them as a permanent gift the power which they have just used so well. Before sending out His disciples He had already laid the foundations of the hierarchy involving the principle of obedience and discipline by which the Church is governed: 'He that heareth you, heareth Me, and He that despiseth you despiseth Me. And He that despiseth Me despiseth Him that sent Me’" (The Gospel of Jesus Christ, London 1938, vol. II, p. 6)

180 J. Tixeront, L'ordre et les ordinations, Paris 1925, p. 61. According to Batiffol the name of "presbyters" would, at the outset, have been used alike for laymen and for the ordained. The liturgical and social functions were reserved for deacons and for episcopoi. The episcopoi or presbyter-bishops had the power of bishops. They formed a college in each Church. At the death of the Apostles the plural episcopate was dismembered, so as to give birth to the sovereign episcopate of the bishop, and the subordinate priesthood of the priests. However, the plural episcopate subsisted for a long time at Alexandria: the whole presbyterium was composed of bishops; but only one of them, designated by election, exercised the power of ordaining. cf. Etudes d'histoire et de theologie positive, Paris 1920, pp. 266 and 280. But Duchesne observes that if things began in more than one place with the collegiate episcopate, the unitary episcopate was not unknown to the primitive institutions; we find it in the mother-church at Jerusalem, at Antioch, Rome, Lyons, Corinth, Athens, and in Crete (The Early History of the Church, London 1914, vol. I, pp. 63-9) See Excursus II, no. 5.

181 According to St. Clement, God sends Christ, who sends the Apostles, and these, having made trial of their first-fruits, institute them as bishops and deacons for the believers, laying down this rule, that after their death other tried men shall succeed in the same ministry. Those who have thus been placed in charge by the Apostles, or later on by other eminent persons with the approbation of the Church, cannot justly be deprived of the ministry (XLII, 2-4; XLIV, 2-3) Evidently then the community approves but does not institute, and hence it cannot dismiss. If Clement blames the Corinthians for having unjustly dismissed blameless presbyters, he nowhere says that he recognizes any right to dismiss unworthy presbyters. And even then a dismissal would deprive them of the exercise of their functions, not of the radical power to exercise them

182 De Sacramentis, lib. IV, cap. 4; P. L. XVI, col. 440. (It is well known that Dom Germain Morin restores the De Sacramentis to St. Ambrose.) This distinction, emphasized by St. Ambrose, between the words uttered by the priest on behalf of Jesus, and those he utters on behalf of the Church, corresponds to the two parts played by the priest in the celebration of Mass. As regards the validity of the sacrifice the priest at the moment of consecration is the minister, the instrument, through whom Christ Himself acts as true God and true Man. As regards the application of the sacrifice the priest acts as minister of the Church which partakes, according to her devotion, of the infinite value of the sacrifice it is as minister of the Church that he disposes, in a special measure, of the fruits of the sacrifice of the Mass, for various specified good intentions

183 "Penance and Extreme Unction prepare man worthily to receive the body of Christ" (St. Thomas, III, q. 65, a. 3) Note that a single power may have several distinct acts ordered to one another. Fire heats, and also expands. Thus the power of order, which is a power to consecrate, carries also a power to baptize, and—granting the jurisdiction of the Church—to absolve. The power to absolve, in its turn, has two subordinate acts: it is a power to take cognizance of the sin and then to pronounce the sentence that binds or looses. Hence the two keys—that is to say, the two powers—of the sacrament of Penance, the key of knowledge and the key of power. This traditional doctrine of the two keys, summed up by St. Thomas Aquinas (Suppl., q. 17, a. 2, ad I, art. 3: and IV Con. Gen., 72), is illustrated by Dante in the ninth Canto of the Purgatorio:.. "Trasse due chiavi. L'una era d'oro e l'altra d'argento: Pria con la bianca, e poscia con la gialla Fece alla porta si ch'io fui contento."

184 Protestants were for a long time obliged to maintain that according to this text sins are remitted by the simple preaching of the Gospel, and not by any judgment passed on the dispositions of the sinner, as happens in the sacrament of Penance. The Apostles preached; those who believed were forgiven, the others not. But, as Pere Lagrange notes, "What then becomes of the apostolic power to bind and to loose? We do not think that those exegetes who make a point of being critical will be very long content with this Lutheran subterfuge" (Evangile selon saint Jean, 1925, p. 516) Today it is much more readily granted that the Catholic interpretation is correct, but then the passage is supposed to have a flavour of paganism. When Protestantism comes to see that the Gospel that speaks of "worship in spirit and in truth", of the flesh "that profiteth nothing", is the same Gospel that speaks of the Word made flesh, of the water that regenerates, of the Body and Blood that is meat and drink, of the sentence that remits or retains sins, that is to say of the Incarnation, Baptism, the Eucharist and Penance, then it will either have to change some of its teaching or mutilate the text of St. John.

185 "The concession, the delegation, by which the Pope authorizes a simple priest to confer Confirmation and Minor Orders, is not meant to give the physical power to dispense these sacraments, but simply to furnish the necessary circumstances for their valid dispensing. In virtue of his episcopal power, the bishop has a divine title to confer Confirmation; the priest, in virtue of his sacerdotal power, can confer it if he is authorized so to do by the Sovereign Pontiff. The physical power of the priest cannot be validly exercised save in certain moral conditions—authorization, juridical delegation, and so forth—but the power of the bishop is free from any such restrictions. For example the priest as such has the physical power to administer the sacrament of Penance—but he can exercise it only if he has jurisdiction. Need we be astonished to find in the extraordinary minister of Confirmation what we find in the ordinary minister of Penance? Thus the sacerdotal power makes its possessor the ordinary minister of the Eucharist and of Penance, and the minister of Confirmation and Minor Orders extraordinarily, that is to say in dependence on delegation from the Sovereign Pontiff" (John of St. Thomas, III, q. 63; disp. 25, a. 2, no. 98; vol. IX, p. 345) The bishops are the ordinary ministers of Confirmation; for it was the Apostles, Peter, John Paul, who are represented in Acts as imposing hands: Peter and John on the Samaritans (v III), Paul on the Ephesians (xix) The delegation necessary to enable simple priests to confer Confirmation validly is generally possessed by the Oriental Catholics, and even, as I shall say further on by the Oriental dissidents. cf. below p. 506. The Decree Spiritus Sancti Munera issued by the Sacred Congregation for the Sacraments on 14 Sept. 1946 grants to parish priests, parochial vicars and certain other clergy the power of validly and licitly conferring the sacrament of Confirmation on those of the faithful who are in grave danger of death from illness (Acta Apo St. Sedis, 1946, pp. 349 et seq.)

186 Suppl, q. 37, a. 2.

187 The episcopal power is higher than the sacerdotal power as to the secondary act of the priest, which is to prepare the people of God to receive the Eucharist, but not as to the first act, which is to consecrate the Body of Christ (St. Thomas, IV Sent., dist. 24, q. 3, a. 2, quae St. I; cf. Suppl., q. 40, a. 4)

188 It is a debated question, whether the Pope can delegate a simple priest to confer not only the sub-diaconate and diaconate, but also the priesthood itself. It would seem that the answer is affirmative. See Excursus II, no. 7.

189 "On this point there can be no controversy, that the episcopate, envisaged as the plenitude of the priesthood, is and remains a sacrament. The question debated by the theologians is whether the episcopate is a sacrament adequately distinct from the simple priesthood, and whether it imprints on the soul a new character.... Many of the old theologians, while admitting that episcopal ordination extends and heightens the sacerdotal character by giving the bishop powers which the priest has not, nevertheless deny that the episcopate is an order distinct from the priesthood That was the view of the great scholastics; after the Council of Trent the Thomist school as a whole remained faithful to it.... But modern theologians and canonists, especially after Bellarmine, have taken up a position clearly opposed" (A. Michel, art. "Ordre", Dict. de theol. cath., col. 1383) The same author adds: "It is of no importance from a dogmatic standpoint whether one admits seven or eight orders," and in this connection he cites a passage from Benedict XIV (Epist. In postremo 20th Oct. 1756, §17): "Let no one forbid discussion as to whether the episcopate is an order distinct from the presbyterate, whether the character impressed by episcopal consecration differs from the presbyteral, or whether it is only an extension of it." See Excursus II, no. 3

190 That is to say, divino-human. All the acts that came from the human nature of Jesus can be called theandric. Even hypothetically supposing them not to have been supernaturalized by habitual grace, the divinity of His Person would give them a dignity that was infinite. But the term might be reserved for those acts alone which Christ's human nature produces as the instrument of His divinity.

191 In an address delivered in 1922, Karl Barth went so far as to declare with deep conviction, that according to the Catholics the priest is creator Creatoris (Parole de Dieu et parole humaine, Paris 1933, pp. 139 and 154. English trans. D. Horton, The Word of God and the Word of Man, London 1928, pp. 113 and 131)

192 "Character.... est qualitas permanens, ut instrumentum constituat hominem debito modo, id est ut homo ita sit ordinatus ut habeat sibi connaturalem et debitum concursum instrumentalem ad exercendum sacramentales effectus.... Hoc tamen non ponit in ipso activitatem per modum permanentis, sed tota activitas datur quando datur ei elevativus concursus ad instrumentaliter operandum.... non tamen ponenda est in Christo talis qualitas, quia illa solum constituit potentiam ministerialem respectu Christi; et ideo ipsa non debet esse in Christo, sed aliquid illa altius et excellentius. Igitur, habens characterem, ad producendam gratiam habet se sicut calamus praeparatus, qui est instrumentum proportionatum ad connaturale scribendi; aliae autem res quae elevari possunt a Deo ad causandam gratiam, habent se sicut calamus non praeparatus ad scribendum, vel sicut aliquid aliud ad id non proportionatum" (John of St. Thomas, III, q. 63; disp. 25, a. 2, nos. 122 and 144, vol. IX, pp. 350 and 356) The power that most resembles that of the priest is that of all baptized persons at the moment when they contract a sacramental marriage, since then, but in a more limited way, they become the mutual ministers of grace.

193 The Dialogue of St. Catherine of Siena, trans. Algar Thorold, London 1925, p. 246

194 The Christian cultus consists above all in the presence among men, thanks to the bloodless rite of the Mass, of the bloody sacrifice of the cross, and in the administration to each man of the greatest of the sacraments, that of the Eucharist. It consists secondarily in the administration of the sacraments preparatory either to the consecration of the Eucharist (sacrament of Order) or to the reception of the Eucharist (and here, as St. Thomas explains (III, q. 65, a. 3), we must put all the other sacraments, not even excluding Matrimony)

195 "The minister is compared to his master as an instrument to the principal agent.... But the instrument should be proportionate to the agent. Therefore Christ's ministers should be conformed to him.... Consequently Christ's ministers need to be men, and to share in his Godhead by a kind of spiritual power: since the instrument shares in the power of the principal agent" (St. Thomas, IV Con. Gent, cap. lxxiv, De Sacramento Ordinis)

196 "Once the nature of character is understood we must surely see that the doctrine of the three sacramental characters is implicitly contained in the two Pauline texts, Ephesians iv. 16, and Colossians ii. 19" (Bernardus Durst, Abbas Ord. St. Bened., "De Characteribus Sacramentalibus" Xenia Thomistica, 1925, vol. II, pp. 555 and 578)

197 It will always be so as regards women. Here recall the following points:

1. No woman can validly receive the sacrament of Order. cf. St. Thomas, Suppl., q. 39, a. 1. That is a provision of "divine law" revealed by way of the tradition and attested by the constant custom of the Church, so that "all the Fathers have condemned as heretics those who in various sects have admitted women to holy orders and to the priesthood" (Gotti, De Sacramento Ordinis, q. 3, dub. 1: Theologia, Bologna 1734, vol. XV, p. 73)

2. What are the reasons for this divine ordinance? Theologians have looked for them in Scripture and produce the well-known passages of St. Paul: "Let women keep silence in the churches: it is not permitted them to speak, but to be subject, as also the law saith" (1 Cor. xiv 34) "But I suffer not a woman to teach, nor to use authority over the man: but to be in silence"; (1 Tim. ii 12) These texts and others like them, should contain the answer to our question; but since on the other hand they incontestably refer to the historical and contingent situation of women in the ancient world, their interpretation is a delicate matter. St. Thomas does not overlook the fact. He does not use them to conclude to any spiritual inferiority in the woman. He knows that "in reality, in what concerns the things of the soul, the woman does not differ from the man, and it sometimes happens that the woman, in matters concerning the soul, is superior to many men" (Suppl., q. 39, a. I, ad 1) He knows that, after the example of Debora, a woman can occupy the highest rank in the government of temporal or political things. What he takes from St. Paul is that, things of the soul apart, the woman is, as regards exterior things, in a state of general subordination (mulier statum subjectionis habet) Gertrude von Le Fort, who has made a profound study of the true greatness of women, does not deny it; she contents herself with the remark that "The passive and receptive side of the feminine being, which antiquity took purely negatively, appears in the Christian order of grace as the positive thing that decides all"; she writes of the veil that "on earth it is the symbol of mystery", and also, "The symbol of femininity", that "all the great manifestations of feminine life make the woman appear as veiled" (Nova et vetera, 1938, p. 58) That does not mean that women are unfitted for external action in the temporal order or even in the religious—to those who cited St. Paul against her St. Teresa could but reply as the Lord directed her: "Tell them they are not to be guided by one part of Scripture alone, but to look at others; ask them if they suppose they will be able to tie My hands" (Spiritual Relations, in Complete Works of St. Teresa of Jesus, trans. A. Peers, London 1946, vol. I, p. 344) It does however mean that apart from the always possible case of an exceptional mission such as that of Joan of Arc, women have their own peculiar type of aptitude—which is, in general, veiled. When this observation, valid for all times though its importance may vary with the times, and implying nothing humiliating, is seen in relation to the general principles of sacramental theology, it enables St. Thomas to explain the suitability of the divine ordinance that reserves ordination for men. The sacraments, he says, being essentially signs, are not validly conferred save when their symbolism is safeguarded (q. 39, a. 1) just as Extreme Unction therefore, which should be given as a spiritual medicament (q. 30, a. 1) does not retain its symbolism, and is invalid, save when conferred on a sick person (q. 32, a. 1, ad 1): so Order, which confers a hierarchical superiority, retains neither its symbolism nor its validity save when applied to the man and not to the woman, who is, outwardly, in a state of subordination (q. 39, a. 1) Thus, for the things of the soul the woman is pronounced to be man's equal, but as to certain external activities she is, as such and in general, weaker; and that is enough to prevent the symbolism of the sacrament of Order being verified in her.

3. Was Our Lady a priest? That could be maintained, even while the sacerdotal character is denied to women. We should then say that she was priest in an eminent and untransmissible way, by reason of her divine maternity, without having any communicable priesthood, and without formally possessing the character of Order. Thus the plenitude of the sacerdotal power resides in Christ, but not the sacramental character, which is no more than a participation of it (St. Thomas, III, q. 68, a. 5) The two questions therefore have no necessary connection. But those who say, like St. Epiphanius, that Our Lady herself was not a priest, conclude from that, a fortiori, that no other woman can be so either. cf. Panarion, haer. 79; P. G. XLII, col. 744.

All Our Lady's privileges are a consequence of the great Gospel privilege which made her the worthy Mother of a saviour God; so that if we recognize priesthood in Our Lady this will be in virtue of that first privilege. The question is, are we so to recognize it? The priest is someone who is consecrated in order to give God to men and men to God in union with the redemptive sacrifice of the Cross. But according to St. Thomas (III, q. 63, a. 3) there are two sorts of consecration: first, that of the sacramental characters, which ensures the unbroken continuity of the Christian cultus in the line of validity (particularly that of the hierarchical character of order, which ensures the permanence of the redemptive sacrifice under the eucharistic species); and second, that of the grace and charity of Christ, more deep-reaching and more precious, to which the preceding consecration is ordered, and which ensures the sanctity of the cultus in spirit and in truth. Just as we distinguish in the Church two sorts of greatness, that of the hierarchy and that of charity, so also we may recognize (as does the Roman Catechism, pt. ii. ch. vii. nos. 23-4) two sorts of priesthood; the first external, reserved to certain individuals and conferred by the sacrament of Order (which we will call the hierarchic priesthood), and the second internal and common to all the faithful (Apoc. I. 5-6: 1 Pet. ii. 5) which we will, if the expression be permitted, call a priesthood of love. The question then is, how are we to accord the first kind of priesthood to Our Lady, and how could we not accord to her the second kind? Now, the doctrine concerning the Church and Our Lady which I have expounded in the second volume of the present work leads us to view Our Lady on Calvary as present as co-Redemptrix of the whole world, wholly hidden within the greatness of sanctity. In my view, therefore, it is the mystical and interior priesthood of love alone, which is fittingly accorded to Our Lady. As long as these distinctions have not been made there will continue to be conflict among theologians on this point, some denying Our Lady any kind of priesthood and others recognizing in her a priesthood of the most eminent kind. The history of this dispute has been dealt with almost exhaustively by Rene Laurentin (Marie, l'Eglise et le sacerdoce, Essai sur le developpement d'une idee religieuse (Sorbonne doctorate thesis), Paris 1952: vol. II (Etude theologique), 1953), who puts the solution to the problem with admirable clarity, especially in vol. I, pp. 651 ff. However, instead of following St. Thomas in distinguishing within the Church herself the ministerial greatness of the hierarchy and the terminal greatness of sanctity the author prefers to distinguish between virility and femininity, activity and passivity, even divine grace and human nature—all of which is less satisfactory. For what can be more active, more enterprising and more daring than co-redemptive love? And what does Our Lady's co-redemptive mediation mean if not her mystical priesthood at the foot of the cross? The theological problem once solved, there remains only the choice between two expressions—that of "co-redemptive mediation" and "mystical priesthood"—and if the second expression seems liable to become equivocal in the course of time, the obvious choice is the first If a magisterial definition is one day given on this subject, it will concern Our Lady's mediation, or mediatory intercession, either as co-Redemptrix in the acquiring of the graces of salvation or co-dispenser in the distribution of them, rather than her priesthood

198 "The Sacraments are universal and wholly divine in this sense also, that they sanctify man's physical as well as his moral and spiritual life; and more, they consecrate and bring back to God the elemental principles of the material world. Thus in Baptism the Holy Spirit, which in the beginning of creation 'moved upon the face of the waters" renews its hidden action on water as a primordial and representative element of the material world. In Confirmation and Anointing a pure product of vegetable life is consecrated to become a vehicle of the action of grace upon the human body.... etc." (Vladimir Soloviev, God, Man and the Church, the Spiritual Foundations of Life, trans. D. Attwater, J. Clarke and Co., London, p. 167)

199 These considerations are borrowed from Scheeben, Die Mysterien des Christentums, ch. v III: "The Mystery of the Church and the Sacraments", According to this theologian, character is, in us, distinguished from grace, as, in Christ, the substantial grace of union with the Word is distinguished from habitual grace. The character elevates our hypostasis by uniting us to the hypostasis of Christ, in us it is a similitude and a participation of what the hypostatic union is in Christ; but grace elevates our nature by bringing us into community of life with God. From this principle Scheeben deduces that if the hypostatic union is, in Christ, the root of habitual grace, the character is, in us, the root of sanctifying grace, not as containing it in a latent state but as morally demanding its presence in the soul. And when it supervenes in dependence on the character, grace is invested with a higher dignity, not only because it then adorns a member of Christ, but also because its gold enshrines the precious stone of the character, and because the robe of the child of God, when united to the seal of incorporation in the natural Son of God, shines out in greater splendour. So noble a thing is the character that it cannot be confined to any one of the powers of the soul as subject it overflows them all, reaches the soul's very substance and calls for the presence of grace throughout it. Scheeben profoundly concludes that in the Mystical Body the configuration to Christ resulting from the impression of the character has the same significance as the configuration of the members to the head in biology; in both cases the identity of configuration is the necessary condition of the unity of inner life and of outward action. But however seductive these views of Scheeben's may be, they clearly cannot all be reconciled with the positions taken up by John of St. Thomas and by St. Thomas himself. How does the matter look from their standpoint? No dignity of the hypostatic order can be communicated to any mere creature. Besides this grace of union, Christ possessed another incommunicable privilege; for, from the fact that it is really united to the Word and is an organ of the Divinity, habitual grace in Him has unique perfection: it is in the nature of capital grace, it becomes the source whence grace flows to all the members of Christ. But Christ is Head of the Church not only because He communicates sanctifying grace, but as High Priest and Founder of the Christian cultus. The sacerdotal power of Christ is a created quality residing not in the essence of His soul, nor in His will, but in His intelligence. Now it is in this sacerdotal power that the character makes us participate, and that is why its immediate subject is the intelligence. "Si ergo sacerdotium Christi debet esse aliquid ad intellectum pertinens, character qui est participatio talis sacerdotii, exequens ministerialiter id quod sacerdotium Christi principaliter, debet etiam ad intellectum pertinere", writes John of St. Thomas (III, q. 63, disp. 25, a. 4, no. 12; vol. IX, p. 369) St. Thomas says expressly that the character, from the fact that it is an instrumental virtue, cannot reside in the soul in the manner of grace (III, q. 63, a. 5, ad 1) The capital grace of Christ might, in a broad sense, be taken to cover both sanctifying grace and His sacerdotal power. "Character.... derivatur a sacerdotio Christi et potestate excellentiae quam, ex vi gratiae capitis, habet supra totam Ecclesiam; quae aliquid physicum est", writes John of St. Thomas once more (ibid., a. 2, no. 121, p. 350) Although it is the common effect of the three divine Persons, the character, being a participation in the priesthood of Christ, can be called "character of Christ," and since Christ is hypostatically united to the Word, it could be said that the character conforms us to the Word rather than to the Father and the Holy Spirit. But it is not superior to grace: it is referred to the priesthood of Christ and therefore to Christ as Man; whereas grace is an immediate participation of the divine nature: "In exemplaritate et participatione character respicit sacerdotium Christi, et consequenter Christum secundum quod homo; in quo differt a gratia, quae est immediata participatio naturae divinae" (ibid., a. 3, no. 4, p. 366) Can one say, after that, that grace is ennobled by the character as gold by a diamond? Following John of St. Thomas I prefer to say that what enriches grace is the sacramental modality it gains when conferred through the sacraments. We are conformed to Christ more by grace than by the sacramental character. The latter remains intact in hell. It will no longer be needed in heaven, where our exterior worship will have ceased, as St. Thomas says (III, q. 63, a. 5, ad 3); it will therefore not be partaken by all the elect. But in all the elect grace will have attained its sacramental flowering. Here, undoubtedly, we are in the presence of two great divergent conceptions of the character. We must choose. The one seems to admit a sort of participation in the hypostatic union and, in a way, to raise the order of the hierarchy above the order of sanctity. The other, that of St. Thomas, fully safeguards the primacy of the order of love in time and eternity

200 Matrimony is a sacrament only if contracted by the baptized. Baptism can, of course, be administered even by the unbaptized.

201 "The maternity of the Church in the strict sense is the prerogative, not of all her members, but only of the depositaries of her fecundity and of her pastoral power by which the children of the Church are begotten, cared for, educated. It belongs, in a word, to the fathers of the Church. We naturally call them fathers on account of their sex, since Christ ordained that the high functions of the Church should be carried out by men. But if we consider their place in the Church formally and on its supernatural side, if we look rather at their dignity than at their persons, then it is the character of maternity that specially appears in them. United to the God-man in a particular way in the Holy Spirit, they appear in fact as the intermediary by which the God-man, like a father, begets, cares for and educates his children. What precisely has to be taken into account from this standpoint, is not the multiplicity of their persons but the unity of their relation to Christ and to the Holy Spirit, a unity which finds its genuine expression in the jurisdictional dependence of all Christians with regard to the depository of the full pastoral powers" (M. J. Scheeben, op. cit., 80, p. 533)

202 For example, Isaac of l'Etoile

203 The above views the Church's motherhood from the standpoint of the greatness of the hierarchy; the motherhood arising from her sanctity is more mysterious yet.

204 In 1 Cor., Homil., xxi; P. G. LXI, col. 180.

205 In illud Vidi Dominum.... Homil., iv; P. G. LVI, col. 126

206 Epist., 208, 2 and 5.

207 "Dicimus in primis certum esse primos tres gradus esse divinae institutionis, nempe episcopatum, presbyteratum et diaconatum. Id definivit Concilium Tridentinum.... Hierarchia divina ordinatione instituta constans episcopis, presbyteris et ministris indicat clare episcopatum, presbyteratum et ministerium (quod saltem erit diaconatus), esse divinae institutionis" (Tractatus Canonicus de Sacra Ordinatione, Paris 1893, vol. I, no. 31, p. 18. Cf. vol. II, nos. 1148-50, pp. 301-2)

208 Stephanus Ehses, Acta Concilii Tridentini, Freiburg-i-B 1924, vol. IX, p. 5

209 ibid., pp. 228, 231. cf. p. 40

210 ibid., p. 602, n. 1

211 ibid. The final wording omitted the word "other" (p. 622)

212 ibid., p. 602, n. 1

213 ibid., p. 616, n. 6.

214 Paleotti, Acta Concilii Tridentini, ed. Gorres, vol. III, 1931, p. 691. Cited by H. Lermerz, S. J. De Sacramento Ordinis, Rome 1947, p. 86, no. 150.

215 Ehses, op. cit., p. 3; p. 4, n. 1; p. 32, n. 6; p. 40, n. 3 and 4; p. 49 etc

216 ibid., p. 228 p. 49

217 ibid., p. 4

218 ibid., pp. 55 et seq.

219 ibid., p. 54, lines 9-19. On p. 4, line 12 and p. 181 lines 33-5, the question arises of clerics exempted by the Pope from the jurisdiction of their bishops. A formula affirming the divine Institution of bishops and at the same time their dependence on the Sovereign Pontiff was to be proposed finally, only to be rejected (ibid., p. 107, note 2)

220 ibid., p. 622, n. 4, p. 623, lines 16-19

221 A. Michel, art. "Ordre", Dict. de theol. cath., cols. 1361-2. See the same texts from the same author in Hefele-Leclerq, Histoire des Conciles, vol. x, pt. I, pp. 491 and 493

222 ibid

223 Corrado Baisi, Il ministro straordinario degli ordini sacramentali, Rome 1935, p. 69

224 H. Lennerz, op. cit., p. 86, no. 150. We cannot follow theologians who hold the contrary view—for example St. Robert Bellarmine (De Clericis, cap. xiv): "The Catholic Church recognizes the distinction and teaches that under divine law the episcopate is greater than the presbyterate as regards either the power of order or jurisdiction. This is, in practice, the teaching of the Council of Trent, Session XX III, Chap. 4, and Canon 6."

225 According to St. Thomas (In IV Sent., d. 24, q. 3, a. 2, quae St. 2, and d. 25, q. 1, a. 2, ad 2), the episcopate supposes, apart from the power of jurisdiction, a power of order conferred by means of consecration and impossible to lose. But since this power is not related to the Eucharist it represents neither a sacrament nor a sacramental character: "An Order does not depend on the preceding Order as to its validity; but the episcopal power depends on the sacerdotal power since nobody can receive the first if he does not possess the second."

226 St. Robert Bellarmine, De Sacramento Ordinis, cap. 5: "Episcopal ordination is a sacrament.... The episcopate includes the priesthood in the scope of its concept and in its essence.... The full and perfect episcopal character is not a simple quality but comprises a twofold character.... It is impossible to ordain a bishop who either is not a priest already or does not receive at the same time the twofold ordination which is the essence of the episcopate."

227 The question was left open by Leo X III in his Apostolic Letter on Anglican Ordinations, 15 Sept. 1896: "This is not the place to go into the question whether the episcopate is complementary to the priesthood or an Order distinct from it, or the question whether the episcopate produces its effect when conferred per saltum, that is to say on a subject who is not a priest."

228 H. Lennerz, op. cit., p. 84, no. 147. See the texts which support this conclusion, though not all with equal force: pp. 23, 25, 26, 42, 43, 47, 55, 57, 62, 84, 85: nos. 43, 48, 50, 76, 79, 86, 97, 99, 100, 113, 148, 149. Lennerz's conclusion is much clearer than that of Tixeront, (L'ordre et les ordinations, etude de theologie historique, Paris 1925, p. 233): "Morin thinks that there is no example of a bishop consecrated without being ordained priest beforehand. Martene, Mabillon and D. Chardon are of a different opinion however.... These facts and texts seem to prove that on several occasions ordinands who had not previously received the priesthood have been consecrated bishops. But it should also be noted that many of these consecrations, at least, have been strongly censured or even considered null."

229 It does not follow that there are eight Orders. The seventh Order in the priesthood, which comprises two degrees: it is full in the superior degree and partial in the inferior degree. Moreover, the Council of Trent did not define the number of Orders.

230 In IV Sent., d. 24, q. 3, a. 2, quae St. 1 and 2: d. 25, q. 1, a. 2, ad 2

231 According to John of St. Thomas "The character is a power ordering men to the divine cultus, either by action or reception.... But three sacraments order men to action or reception. Therefore they imprint a character.... The sacrament of Order concerns action, for by it men are prepared to consecrate the Eucharist and to dispense to others this sacrament and the other sacraments, and all this is concerned with action" (III, q. 63, disp. 25, a. 6, no. 4; Vives ed., vol. ix, p. 381)

"Episcopal ordination", says St. Robert Bellarmine, "is a ceremony which imprints a spiritual character and confers grace; therefore it is a sacrament. That it imprints a character appears from the facts that (a) it is not repeatable, (b) it gives the power to confer Confirmation and Holy Orders" (De Sacramento Ordinis, lib. I, cap. 5) According to Bellarmine, it does not greatly matter whether the effect of episcopal consecration be the imprinting of a new character or simply the extension of the priestly character; the argument holds good in both cases. Further on, he proves that the diaconate is a sacrament, from the fact that it cannot be repeated. To those who claim that non-repeatability proves the existence of a consecration but not necessarily that of a sacramental character, he replies that "The non-repeatability of certain sacraments is the principal reason which allows Catholics to hold that they imprint a character" (ibid., lib. I, cap. 6

232 II-II, q. 185, a. 1, ad 2

233 Papal delegation can be given permanently and quasi a jure

234 Council of Trent, session xx III, cap. I, can. 1; Denz., 957 and 961.

235 op. cit., p. 96, nos. 102 and 163

236 ibid., p. 98, no. 167

237 Ehses, Acta Concilii Tridentini, vol. ix, p. 76, line 33. According to St. Augustine (De Haeresibus, no. 53), Aerius held, among other errors, that "There is no difference that distinguishes the priest from the bishop", St. Epiphanius (Adversus Haereses, bk. I, vol. I, haer. 75, P. G. XLII, col. 508 ) speaks of Aerius as a madman because he said that "The bishop and the priest are equal. How could this be possible? For the order of bishops has for its end the engendering of fathers."

238 Ehses, op. cit., vol. ix, p. 100, lines 35 et seq.

239 The Council of Trent anathematized, for example, those who should deny that the Church can institute a liturgical feast in honour of the Eucharist, or carry it in procession (session x III, canon 6: Denz., 888)

240 St. Jerome was cited at the Council of Trent by the Archbishop of Rossano, who was to become Pope Urban VII, and opposed definition of the superiority of bishops as jure divino. Cf. Ehses, op. cit., p. 55. These texts from St. Jerome will be found in Lennerz, op. cit., pp., 38-41, nos. 72-5

241 These replies were provided by Bellarmine, among others (De Clericis, cap. 15) Lennerz has the texts of St. John Chrysostom and St. Jerome maintaining that the names of "priest" and "bishop" were in fact used interchangeably, and also the texts of Theodoret (op. cit., pp. 26, 41, 46, nos. 50, 75, 85)

242 J. Lecuyer, "La grace de la consecration episcopate" in Revue des sciences philosophiques et theologiques, 1952, p. 404.

243 Texts in C. Baisi, op. cit., pp. 28-35

244 Cf. St. Thomas, III, q. 62, a. 11, ad 1.

245 Decretum Pro Armenis, Denz., 697

246 ibid., 701.

247 Louis Saltet, Les reordinations, Etude sur le sacrement de l 'ordre, Paris 1907, pp. 102-4. He is not sure whether the Council considered Constantine as truly bishop

248 ibid., p. 143

249 ibid., pp. 148-52

250 ibid., pp. 155-6

251 ibid., pp. 169-70

252 ibid., p. 183

253 ibid., pp. 239-244. We need not put too much weight on the text in which Innocent III declares valid the sacraments administered by even a sinful priest "provided that the Church recognizes it" (Denz., 424)

254 "From the origins of Christianity, there are two different traditions. That of Rome states that Baptism administered outside the Church can, under certain conditions, be valid and need not be repeated. The Asian tradition considered Baptism administered outside the Church as null, and also that administered inside the Church by ministers of a certain degree of unworthiness; and it admitted the repetition of such a Baptism. At this early date there was almost always question of Baptism alone; but these decisions were based upon an idea which could hardly fail to be extended, later, to the other sacraments.... The African Church first of all followed the Roman usage but later on adopted the Asian. In the middle of the third century under Pope Stephen a conflict arose between the Churches of Rome and Africa, and this was the baptismal controversy" (Saltet, op. cit., p. 387) In 692 the attitude of the Quinisext Council shows that "The Greek Church did not admit the reordination of heretics either. This conclusion is justified in the Greek theology of the succeeding period" (ibid., p. 58)

255 The Donatists having admitted that "he who leaves the Church loses not Baptism but the power of conferring it", St. Augustine answered that neither the one nor the other was lost: "These two things are in fact a sacrament. Both are given by way of a consecration, the one to him who is baptized, the other to him who is ordained. Thus it is forbidden, in the Catholica, to repeat either the one or the other" (Contra Epistolam Parmeniani, lib. ii, cap. 13, no. 28)

256 St. Thomas replies to the question "Can heretics and those who are excluded from the Church confer Orders?" (In IV Sent., d. 25, q. 1, a. 2) by enumerating four opinions: (1) They can confer Orders insofar as they are tolerated by the Church and not after their exclusion: (2) If they have been consecrated bishops within the Church, they retain the power to confer Orders, but the bishops ordained by them will not have this power: (3) They confer Orders validly, and even sacramental grace, on those who culpably have recourse to their good offices: (4) They validly confer Orders but not sacramental grace on those who culpably have recourse to them. This last view is the only correct one.

257 Saltet, op. cit., pp. 76-7

258 ibid., p. 267.

259 Cf. Leo X III in his Apostolic Letter on the subject of Anglican ordinations: "Since the Church has always held it a constant and inviolable principle that it is forbidden to repeat the sacrament of Order, it would be impossible for the Apostolic See to allow and tolerate in silence a custom of this kind."

260 "Is so general and protracted an obscuring of dogma admissible in the Church? These authors seem to have a somewhat original idea of the infallibility of the Pope and the Church in general. For my own part I believe that if in a matter of this kind the Pope made a mistake, and the bishops too, and that for so long a time, then it must be said that the Church made a mistake in her ordinary magisterium. Yet we know that the Church is infallible in her ordinary magisterium. Ergo..." (Baisi, op. cit., pp. 152-3) There was no obscuring of dogma here. But we are not obliged to adopt Baisi's theory that in the above-mentioned cases all the Popes' ordinations were valid

261op. cit., pp. 151-8

262Leo X III, Letter on Anglican Ordinations: "In his letter of 8th March 1554 to the Apostolic Legate, Julius III makes a formal distinction between those who, having been elevated in a regular manner and according to the rite, should be upheld in their orders, and those who, having not been elevated to Holy Orders, could be so elevated if they were worthy and fit. There is here a clear distinction of two real categories of men. To the first belong those who had really received Holy Orders, either before Henry's schism or after it, through ministers attached to error or schism, but according to the accustomed Catholic rite; to the second, those who, being ordained according to the rite of King Edward, had received an invalid ordination and therefore could in due course be raised to Holy Orders.... This principle provides the basis for the doctrine that all sacraments conferred according to the Catholic rite are valid even when the minister is a heretic or tin the case of Baptism] unbaptized."

263cf. Baisi, op. cit., p. 32.

264 The texts of these two Bulls were published and discussed by Baisi, op. cit., pp. 7-28 and 104-16.

265 cf. Yves Congar, O. P., "Faits, problemes et reflexions a propos du pouvoir d'Ordre et des rapports entre le presbyterat et l'episcopat", in Maison-Dieu, Paris 1948, no. 14, p. 114. See also Lennerz, op. cit., p. 146, no. 240.

266 Cf. V. Zubizaretta, O. C. E., Theologia Dogmatico-Scolastica, Bilbao 1928, vol. iv, p. 407. This is the explanation which I had Adopted

267 cf. E. Hugon, O. P., "Etudes recentes sur le sacrement de l'ordre", in Revue Thomiste, 1924, pp. 481-93. The Bull's importance is on the contrary emphasized by M. J. Gerlaud, O. P., "Le ministre extraordinaire du sacrement de l'ordre", in Revue Thomiste, 1931, pp. 874-85.

268 op. cit., p. 146, nos. 240 and 241

269 As opposed to Yves Congar, who writes in the article cited from Maison-Dieu, p. 125: "It is clear that if the episcopate and the presbyterate are strictly distinct Orders by virtue of divine institution, the acts proper to the bishop cannot be carried out by a simple priest who remains a simple priest, and it does not appear how a papal authorisation would change his quality of simple priest." My answer would be: "The power of confirming and ordaining of simple priests is in itself extraordinary and subject to limitation as to its validity; in removing the limitation, the Pope does not change its nature. The bishops' power of confirming and ordaining is in itself ordinary and not subject to limitation—and this is enough for us to declare, with the Council of Trent, that bishops have a power which they do not hold in common with priests. And this difference can be, as the Code of Canon Law envisages, of divine institution."

270 "When, for example, Stephen II, in 753, declares valid a baptism administered with wine..." (Yves Congar, ibid., pp. 120 and 121) I do not think that a Pope can declare such a Baptism valid: "If any one shall say that true and natural water is not a necessity for Baptism.... let him be anathema" (Council of Trent, session vii, De Baptismo, canon 2, Denz., 858) And I do not think that Stephen II did this. See the eleventh of the "Replies of Pope Stephen II", published under the year 754 by Mansi, vol. xii, col. 561 : "Si in vino quis, propterea quod aquam non inveniebat, omnino periclitantem infantem baptizavit, nulla ei exinde adscribitur culpa. (Infantes sic permaneant in ipso baptismo.) Nam si aqua adfuit praesens, ille presbyter excommunicetur, poentientiae submittatur, quia contra canonum sententiam agere praesumpsit." It is clear, as Mansi notes, that the words in parentheses, which do not agree grammatically with what goes before, are an interpolation; it appears to be due to the influence of the replies preceding and following this one, in which similar expressions are found: "in hoc baptismo permaneant," "in eo permaneant baptismo", and in which the Pope concludes to the validity of baptism given by unworthy or ignorant priests, provided it has been according to the rites of the Church.

271 "It would appear that because of the development of our theology and perhaps the demands of polemic also, we have been led to make too radical a distinction—and one which allows of no third alternative—between an order of things divinely determined and a discipline which is the legitimate field of a law which is purely positive and ecclesiastical, a law of circumstances and opportunity. But there is surely between them, and joining them, a considerable domain where realities stemming from Christ Himself are under the canonical power of the Church: an area in which many things represent neither formal determinations of Christ nor simple instances of a purely positive and variable law, but rather ecclesiastical traditions" (Congar, op. cit., p. 126) It will be agreed without difficulty that one and the same institution can stem, under one aspect, from divine and unchangeable law, and under another aspect, from canonical and changeable law. A little further on (p. 127), we read "Moreover, since the Middle Ages were not dominated, as we are, by the idea of revelation as closed at the deaths of the Apostles, and had not reached in this matter ideas as clear-cut as ours, they took a freer and larger view of the inspirational role of the Holy spirit in the life of the Church. "But these formal distinctions between the power of order and the power of jurisdiction, divine law and canon law, the deposit of God's revelation and its unfolding by the Church, are all medieval

272 Billuart, De Sacramento Ordinis, dissert. 1, a. 3, 1: Brunet's edition, vol. vii, p. 320; Lennerz, op. cit., p. 116, no. 185

273 Billuart, Lennerz, etc. Also Baisi op. cit., p. 51, where he writes of Cajetan "Ha pero la veramente strana idea che il diaconato non sia stato immediatamente istituito dagli apostoli", Now Cajetan says exactly the opposite

274 Cajetan, Opuscula, vol. I, tract. x1" De Modo Tradendi seu Suscipiendi sacros Ordina",

275 A. A. S., xl, 1948, pp. 5-7

276 Denz., 695

277 Denz., 701.

278 P. Galtier, art. "Imposition des Mains", in Dict. de theol. cath., cols. 1408-12. Lennerz is more hesitant (op. cit., p. 138, no. 225): Did the Council of Florence wish to give an authoritative teaching, though not necessarily an infallible one? Did it intend simply to sum up the doctrine of the Latin theologians? "What was the true intention of the Council? It is scarcely possible to answer with certitude."

279 "The physical composition of the sacrament may be considered also as comprising the signification which embraces the whole which is composed of things and of words; so that the two composing extremes are things and words on the one hand and the signification on the other" (John of St. Thomas, III, q. 60, prol. to disp. 22; Vives ed. vol. ix, p. 2)

280 IV Sent., d. 24, q. 2, a. 1, quae St. 2, ad 2

281 ibid., quae St. I, ad 2

282 ibid., quae St. 3

283 Denz., 701. The Council of Trent made no direct pronouncement: "If anyone shall say that apart from the priesthood there are not other Orders in the Catholic Church, some Major and some Minor, by which the priesthood is approached as by degrees, let him be anathema" (Denz., 962)

284 De Sacramento Ordinis, dissert. I, a. 3, 2—vol. vii, p. 321

285 Opuscula, vol. I, tract. xi, "De Modo Tradendi seu Suscipiendi Sacros Ordines",

286 A historical expose of this problem will be found in Lennerz, op. cit., pp. 117-30, nos. 188-209. It envisages the subdiaconate and the Minor Orders as simple sacramentals. This is my conclusion also, but I would make two reservations: (1) According to St. Thomas these Orders, while they are of ecclesiastical institution, could be sacraments, representing the deployment of the divine powers of the diaconate: (2) In the past of the Latin Church they have probably been true sacraments

287 By the grace of union with a divine Person, Christ is the Head of the Church radically and presuppositively; by the habitual grace that results therefrom He is the Head formally and proximately. He exerts a twofold action on the body of the Church: He vivifies it as Saviour and as Priest, and He rules it as King.

First, from the fact that Christ is God and that the habitual grace that exists in Him is the instrument of the divine omnipotence, it is invested with such eminence, superiority and plenitude, that it can be poured out on all men: somewhat after the manner of heat, which has its source in a fire and nevertheless passes over in an univocal and homogeneous manner into everything in its reach To designate this quality of Christ's grace, theologians, borrowing an image from St. Paul, call it capital grace, "gratia capitalis, hoc est influxiva in omnes" (Cajetan, In III, q. 8, a. 5, no. 2) This derivation of capital grace is to be understood in two ways: it means that the merit of Christ's Passion is applicable to all men; and it means besides that a wholly spiritual virtue really emanates from Christ to touch all hearts: "Derivatio qua a capite.... derivatur ad nos omnis gratia est duplex, scilicet meritoria et instrumentalis physica" (John of St. Thomas, III, q. 8; disp. 10, a. 1, no. 21; vol. V III, p. 255)

Next, from the fact that Christ is God and the source not of grace alone, but also of truth—"Grace and truth came by Jesus Christ" (John, I. 17)—He is not content with vivifying the Church from within, He wills also to direct it from without, as King. In the Old Law, observes St. Thomas, the legislator and the priest, Moses and Aaron, remained distinct, but in the New Law the two are united in Jesus "The fountain of all grace, wherefore it is said in Isaias: 'The Lord is our judge, the Lord is our lawgiver, the Lord is our King; He will come and save us’" (III, q. 22, a. 1, ad 3)

288 Three kingships can be distinguished in Christ: one divine, the second spiritual, the third temporal. The second, the only one in which the Church participates, is the only one to be considered here. See below, Excursus III, The Three Kingships of Christ. We try to define here the precise reason for the kingship of Christ in so far as it is distinct from His priesthood.

289 cf. St. Thomas, III, q. 7, a. 8.

290 Protestantism, whose essential method it is to oppose when it ought to subordinate cannot help seeing a conflict between the kingly power of Christ and its ministerial participation: "The Roman Catholic dogma of the infallibility of the Pope jeopardises the kingship of Christ in a way that makes it impossible for me to recognize the Church where this dogma is in force" (Karl Barth, Credo, London 1936, p. 197)

291 St. Thomas, III, q. 8, a. 6; q. 64, a. 4, ad 3.

292 III, q. 8, a. 6; and ad 3

293 The efficient cause is to be divided into instrumental cause and principal cause. The latter subdivides into first and second cause. The second cause and the instrumental cause have this in common that they act only when moved by a higher agent. But the motion of the higher agent serves only to bring the second cause into action, which latter then passes to act of itself and produces an effect of the same order as itself; it is thus that our faculties are moved to exert themselves, our intelligence to understand, our will to will. In the case of an instrument, however, the motion of the superior agent is not assimilated and elaborated, but simply transmitted, so that the effect is always better than the instrument and conforms to the purpose of the superior agent: the song of a violin is the song that is willed by the artist, not by the violin. "Causa secunda principalis et instrumentum indigent motione superioris ad agendum, sed in causa instrumentali esse motam est causa praecisa agendi; in causa vero principali est concausa vel conditio requisita," (John of St. Thomas, Cursus Philos., 1, q. 26, a. 1; ed. Veves vol. II, p. 439)

294 cf. L. Billot, S. J., De Ecclesia Christi, Rome 1921, vol. I, q. 13; th. 26, p. 546.

295 The adjective "apostolic" retains a more extended sense.

296 cf. Cajetan, in the opusculum he wrote on the 12th October 1511, on the eve of the Reformation. "Apostoli inter se possunt comparari dupliciter. Primo inquantum apostoli, et sic omnes fuerunt aequales. Alio modo inquantum oves Christi, ab eo hic corporali conversatione separatae, et sic Petrus solus est pastor, et reliqui apostoli oves sub illius cura" (De Comparatione Auctoritatis Papae et Concilii, ed. Pollet, Rome 1936, cap. III, no. 23) So also John of t. Thomas: "Apostolis esse datam parem auctoritatem quasi extraordinariam et delegatam in ratione apostolatus, non tamen aequalem in ratione ordinariae potestatis ad gubernandam Ecclesiam" (In II-II, q. I to 7; disp. 1, a. 3, no. 22; vol. VII, p. 187)

297 In the large sense the pastoral power comprises the apostolate and the pontificate. In the restricted sense it signifies the pontificate only

298 John XXII, on October 23rd, 1327, condemned the proposition of Marsilius of Padua and of John of Janduno, affirming the equality of all the Apostles, Peter included: "The Blessed Apostle Peter had no more authority than the other Apostles, and was not their head. Christ left no head for His Church and chose no one for His Vicar" (Denz. 496)

299 Even supposing that this second Epistle is not by St. Peter (on this cf. J. Chaine, Les Epitres catholiques, Paris 1939), the text would still show how the inspired author thought of the Apostles.

300 St. Thomas, II-II, q. 33, a. 4, ad. 2.

301 Retract., lib. I, cap. xxiv, 1.

302 Comment. ad Galatas, cap. I, lect. 1

303 III, q. 64, a. 4.

304 Denz. 844, 996, 2088 . Christ instituted the chief sacraments, such as Baptism and the Eucharist, in detail, "in individuo", He could deal with the rest in a more general way, leaving the Church a certain latitude for the more concrete determination, even modification in the course of time, of such particulars as their matter and their form and so forth

305 St. Thomas, III, q. 64, a. 1, 2, 3; Suppl., q. 29, a. 3. The Council of Trent defines that the sacrament of Extreme Unction was "promulgated by the Apostle St. James" (Denz. 926), and that, as St. Paul indicates, Christ merited by His passion the grace that sanctifies spouses (Denz. 969)

306 "Licet prophetis ea quae Deus facturus erat circa salutem humani generis, in generali relevaverit, quaedam tamen specialia apostoli, circa hoc, cognoverunt, quae prophetae non cognoverant" (St. Thomas, I, q. 57, a. 5, ad 3) "Quaedam explicite cognita sunt a posterioribus, quae a prioribus non cognoscebantur explicite" (II-II, q. 1, a. 7)

307 cf. "Le 'messianisme' de Mickiewicz", in Exigences chretiennes en politique, Paris 1945, pp. 76 et seq.

308 I-II, q. 106, a. 4, ad 2.

309 Jesus had also said: "But the Paraclete, the Holy Ghost, whom the Father will send in my name, he will teach you all things, and bring all things to your mind, whatsoever I shall have said to you" (John xiv. 26) This text, like those just cited, can be understood in two ways: either (1) as we understand it here, of a teaching of the Spirit communicated to the Apostles as depositaries of the extraordinary jurisdiction—the Spirit will teach them truths which, without new revelations, could not be gathered from the revelation already made by Jesus; or (2) of a teaching of the Spirit communicated to the Apostles as depositaries of the permanent jurisdiction. The Holy Spirit will not then bring new revelations, but infallible assistance in proposing and unfolding, through all future ages, the deposit of Christian revelation which had been integrally entrusted (Denz. 1836) to the Apostles. On these two possible interpretations, see for instance M. J. Lagrange, O. P., Evangile selon saint Jean, Paris 1925, pp. 392, 420, 421. The Gospel text seems to me to authorize both interpretations at once, the second not being alien to the first but subordinated to, and in line with it. The assistance of the Holy Spirit to manifest a new revelation entails the assistance of the Holy Spirit to preserve it. And, indeed, this same Spirit was to be with the Apostles "for ever" (John xiv. 16), which seems to indicate, Lagrange observes, that He will assist "The collectivity of the disciples". He is given to the Apostles inasmuch as they had to preach to all nations till the end of the world (Matt. xxv III. 19-20) It would be possible to cite other texts bearing several literal meanings subordinated to each other: thus the power of binding and loosing given to Peter and the other Apostles covers several distinct powers linked together in dependence St. Thomas formulated the principle: "Since the literal sense is that which the author intends, and since the Author of Holy Writ is God, who by one act comprehends all things by His intellect, it is not unfitting (as Augustine says) if, even according to the literal sense, one word in Holy Writ should have several interpretations" (I, q. 1, a. 10) 310 If the Son declares to the Apostles that He knows not the day or hour of the end of the world (Mark x III. 32), it means that He has no mission to reveal it to them (Acts I. 7) The text of the Acts throws light on that of the Gospel, as Bossuet has well shown in Meditations sur l'Evangile (the Saviour's last week, 78 th day) 311 "Docuit autem Spiritus sanctus apostolos omnem veritatem de his quae pertinent ad necessitatem salutis, scilicet de credendis et agendis. Non tamen docuit eos de omnibus futuris eventibus; hoc enim ad eos non pertinebat" (St. Thomas, I-II, q. 106, a. 4. ad 2)

312 "In their capacity as supreme masters of the plenary and definitive revelation, and foundations of the Church for ever, the Apostles, according to the traditional theology, had the special privilege of receiving, by way of an infused light, an explicit knowledge of divine revelation, a knowledge superior to that enjoyed or to be enjoyed by all theologians, and indeed the entire Church, till the consummation of the world. All the dogmas which the Church has defined, or will define in the future, were therefore found in the minds of the Apostles, not merely in a mediate, virtual or implicit manner, but immediately, formally, explicitly. Their knowledge of the revealed deposit was not due, like ours, to partial and human concepts containing implicitly or virtually a much wider meaning than they express, and requiring time and labour for the gradual unfolding and explanation of their content. It came from a divine or infused light, a simple supernatural act of understanding actualizing and illuminating at one sole moment the whole virtuality of the revealed idea" (F. Marin-Sola, O. P., L'evolution homogene du dogme catholique 1924, vol. I, p. 57) Here are the chief theses of John of St. Thomas on this subject, with indications of their degree of certitude: (1) it is of faith, on account of Ephesians III. 4, that the Apostles, doctors of the law of grace and our masters, understood the mysteries of the faith much more perfectly than the prophets and the patriarchs; (2) it is absolutely certain—the contrary, in the common view, would be an "error" concerning the faith—that the Church of today believes nothing that was not clearly and distinctly revealed to the Apostles before their death; (3) it is probable, and this is the express thought of St. Thomas, that on the day of Pentecost the Apostles knew, with speculative knowledge, all the truths of salvation to be believed and observed, so that from that moment on nothing new was revealed to them; (4) if the Apostles had, from the day of Pentecost onward, a perfect speculative knowledge of the mysteries of the faith, that does not imply that henceforth they had full practical knowledge (II-II, q. 1; disp. 6, a. 2; vol. VII, p. 120 seq.)

313II-II, q. 1, a. 7, ad 4

314The doctrine that credits the Apostles with a thus explicit knowledge of the whole of the revealed deposit is regarded as extravagant by M. R. Draguet in his article "L'evolution des dogmes", Encyclopedie Apologetique, Paris 1937, pp. 1179 and 1190 The author of the article does not think it possible that the Apostles should not have proclaimed all that they knew explicitly. However, that very thing was true of Christ, their Master. He appeals to Irenaeus and Tertullian. They, however, say that the Apostles had a perfect knowledge of revelation, that they knew all, and were ignorant of nothing, in Christ's doctrine.

315On 2 Cor. xii. 4: "And I know such a man.... that he was caught up into paradise, and heard secret words, which it is not granted to man to utter", Pere Allo writes: "It means, not that he is forbidden, like the adepts of pagan initiations, to speak of it with uninitiated people such as the Corinthians, but that it was impossible for any human language or any human concepts to express such mysteries, that such expression is not 'permitted' him by the exigencies of thought and language in this present life" (Seconde epitre aux Corinthiens, Paris 1937, p. 306 ) See also on Apocalypse x. 4 "Seal up the things which the seven thunders have spoken, and write them not", the same author notes: "John received a command from above to keep back, locked up in his memory, the supernatural revelations he had received but in such a way that he could neither recall nor express them in any satisfying manner. One thinks at once of those 'unutterable words' that Paul heard in his rapture. This powerlessness may itself be felt as a divine command by the prophet." (Apocalypse, Paris 1933, p. 140)

316F. Marin-Sola, O. P., op. cit., vol. I, p. 60

317Contra Haereses lib. III, cap. I, no. 1; P. G. vol. VII, col. 844

318 ibid., cap. iv, no. 1; col. 855

319De Praescriptione, xxii. 2, 3, 8. To establish the ignorance of the Apostles the heretics naturally brought forward the conflict of Antioch, where Peter was rebuked by Paul (Gal. ii. 11) Tertullian answers first that Paul himself preached no other Gospel than did the other Apostles, and next that Peter erred in practical conduct, not in doctrine; the Apostles "criticised as unsuitable for certain times, persons and circumstances, various practices which they allowed themselves with due regard to times, persons and circumstances". It is as if Peter should criticise Paul for having circumcised Timothy in spite of his own prohibition of circumcision (ibid., xxiv. 3)

320 ibid., xxv. 1; xxvii. 1

321H. Clerissac, O. P., Le mystere de l'Eglise Paris 1918: English translation, The Mystery of the Church, London 1937, p. 69. The Church is already contemplative inasmuch as she infallibly proclaims the intellectual meaning of the divine message. But she is contemplative in a still more noble way when she cleaves by a lively faith and the gift of wisdom to the deep content of this message. In the first case we have a prophetic grace; in the second a sanctifying grace

322 St. Thomas, I, q. 1, a. 8, ad 2. "Super revelatione facta apostolis de fide Unitatis et Trinitatis, fundatur tota fides Ecclesiae" (II-II, q. 174, a. 6) Those Doctors who work at bringing into clearer light the riches contained in the revealed deposit might well have to be aided by special illuminations. In connection with the conversion narrative which opens the De Trinitate of St. Hilary, E. Mersch writes:",.. We shall see that.... Providence seems more than once to have made use of visions and inner experiences, not indeed to teach men any new doctrine concerning the life of Christ in the soul but in order to aid them in understanding what the scriptures have said upon this subject" (The Whole Christ, p. 291)

323"the ancient prophets, "writes St. Thomas, "were sent to establish the faith and to amend morals.... Today the faith is already established, since the promises have been fulfilled in Christ. But prophecy that aims at amendment of morals has not ceased, nor will it ever cease" (Comm. in Matt., cap. xi) He explains elsewhere that the prophecies that dealt with the deposit of divine faith were varied by becoming more explicit with the passage of time, while those dealing with human conduct had to be varied according to circumstances, for the people began to go astray when prophecy ceased: "And that is why in every age men have been divinely instructed about what should be done, as the salvation of the elect might require" (II-II, q. 174, a. 6) The passage quoted in our text refers to St. Matthew xi. 13: "For all the prophets and the law prophesied until John." On which St. Thomas writes: "The line of prophets who predicted the coming of Christ could go no further than John who pointed to Christ Himself with his finger. But, as St. Jerome notes, these words do not mean that after John the Baptist there would be no more prophets, since we read in the Acts of the Apostles that Agabus and the four daughters of Philip prophesied. St. John the Evangelist even wrote a prophetic book on the end of the Church. And no times have lacked those endowed with the spirit of prophecy, not indeed to introduce any new doctrine of faith, but to direct men's conduct" (ibid., ad 3) To these prophecies of general utility we must add those with some particular aim such as the enlightenment of an individual soul. The Thomist theologians remain faithful to these indications of St. Thomas. Summing up the doctrine of the Salmanticenses on the point Pere Congar writes: "The private revelations that God grants in the Church do not bear on speculative truths not already contained in the common revelation made to the Prophets and Apostles; they concern practice, understood however in a very broad sense, into which would enter not only the decisions to be taken or answers to be given, or again the line of conduct to be followed in religious foundations, but the right ordering of worship and the soul's attitude towards God. This conviction that the revelationes quae modo in Ecclesia fiunt are of a practical character and introduce no new credenda is characteristic of the Thomists in this matter. For them, the revelation of the mystery of God is closed: God intervenes indeed in the life of souls, but it is either to direct their individual or social action or to make them penetrate His mysteries in the way that best favours the life of Charity", ("La credibilite des revelations privees", in Vie spirituelle, 1st October, 1937, [34]) Suarez on the contrary enters on a path that would lead one to admit that private revelations can provide theology not only with "probable" data, but even with "certain" principles (ibid. [40])

324At the end of his Justification of the Good (trans. Duddington, London 1918), p. 468, V. Soloviev writes: "In the old Israel there had existed [besides the High Priest and the King] a third supreme calling, that of the Prophet. Abolished by Christianity in theory, it practically disappeared from the stage of history and came forward in exceptional cases only, for the most part in a distorted form. Hence all the anomalies of mediaeval and modern history. The restoration of the prophetic calling does not rest with the will of man, but a reminder of its purely moral significance is very opportune in our day.... The true Prophet is a social worker who is absolutely independent, and neither fears, nor submits to, anything external. Side by side with the representatives of absolute authority and absolute power, there must be in human society representatives of absolute freedom.... The man who has complete freedom, both external and inward, is one who is not inwardly bound by anything external, and in the last resort knows of no other standard of judgment and conduct than the good will and the pure conscience.... These three services can be best distinguished by the fact that the office of the Priest derives its main force from pious devotion to the true traditions of the past; the office of the King, from a correct understanding of the true needs of the present, and the office of the Prophet from the faith in the true vision of the future." On which we may remark: (1) that the prophetic function, taken in the strict sense, has not been abolished, either in theory or in practice, by Christianity; (2) that the prophets cannot be the organ of an absolute freedom—a freedom even from the revelation already received; (3) that the liberty of prophecy is to be distinguished from the liberty of charity or the liberty of the children of God, which liberties likewise make short work of habits of tepidity in their entourage; (4) that it is not allowable to consider priest, king, and prophet as three callings of equal rank corresponding to the interests of past, present and future. Soloviev did not realise that Christianity, making a sharp distinction between the spiritual and the temporal, has worked out the idea of spiritual kingship, equivalent to prophecy in the broadest sense, which includes, without destroying, all legitimate particular forms of prophecy. The kingship, for us, remains superior to these particular forms of prophecy. Christ remains King; He is Prophet no longer, at any rate in the sense in which the ancients took this word.

325 Before Pentecost the Apostles themselves had been taught orally by Jesus. So also St. Paul was instructed by the other Apostles on the details of the Resurrection of Our Lord (1 Cor. xv. 3), and probably, as Pere Allo and many others believe, on the Eucharist. cf. Premiere epitre aux Corinthiens 1935, p. 277, 309 et seq. cf. below, p. 499, note 1. Such teaching, to be infallible, presupposes, as I have said, the assistance of a prophetic light. That is why I oppose the way of teaching or of witness to the way of pure prophecy.

326 cf. the commentary of M. J. Lagrange.

327 These, in sum, are Berdiaeff's ideas: "Religious revelation is not merely something which is done for us, it demands our co-operation; it is something spiritual and catastrophic which is accomplished within our being; if we had not ourselves lived through the experience of what others call divine revelation it would have no meaning for us" (N. Berdiaeff, Freedom and the Spirit, trans. O. F. Clarke, London 1935, p. 93) "Our spiritual experience is that of St. Paul and it belongs to one and the same spiritual world, whatever differences there may be between us" (p. 95) "Revelation is a catastrophic transformation of consciousness, a radical modification of its Structure, almost, one might say, a creation of new organs of being with functions in another world.... In the piercing light of revelation the barriers of consciousness dissolve, and its hard crust is melted in the fire of revelation. The conscious is raised to the level of the supra-conscious and is widened and deepened to an unlimited extent" (p. 96) "Revelation is the fire which proceeds from the divine world, which kindles our souls, reshapes our consciousness and removes its limitations.... Revelation is impossible without that fact of spiritual experience which we call faith, just as faith is impossible without that fact of the spiritual world which we call revelation" (pp. 102, 103 ) "Christian truth is revealed in a dynamic and creative process in the world which is still unfinished nor can it be finished before the end of time. The revelation of Christian truth to man demands an eternally dynamic state of consciousness and an eternal creative tension of spirit" (p. 113) "Even Christianity itself has its degrees of revelation, and the history of Christianity has its special epochs.... There are different periods of Christianity not only in the life of individuals but also in world history. There are different degrees of development of consciousness and manifestations of spirituality, which are by no means due to different individual achievement in the way of sanctity. There is a perfection and sanctity of spirit, and also a perfection and sanctity of soul, an esoteric and an exoteric consciousness" (p. 113) "But the New Testament revelation is still hampered by unregenerate human nature and by pagan forms of consciousness. The spiritual world has not definitely entered into the natural. The infinite remains imprisoned within the finite" (p. 113) "The idea of heaven and hell is a conception which reduces the spiritual life to the sphere of naturalism.... The kingdom of God is the life of the spirit and hell is only a form of spiritual experience" (pp. 324, 325) "There is no hell as an objective thing, that is a completely atheist idea and to admit it amounts to denying God" (De la destination de l'homme, Paris 1935, p. 346) "Christianity, as a human phenomenon, has inherited all the complexes of carnal and psychic life which have been revealed by psychopathology: sadism and masochism, torture inflicted on oneself and others. These complexes have even poisoned Christian doctrine itself; they are rediscoverable in the conception of the tortures of hell. A spiritual purification is indispensable" (Destin de l'homme dans le monde actuel, Paris 1936, p. 97) Was then Jesus Himself a victim of these complexes?—Note that Berdiaeff distinguishes (see above: "There is a perfection and sanctity, etc.") the sanctity of the soul, compatible with an exoteric consciousness and so partially materialised, from the sanctity of the spirit, which is esoteric. And so, to that extent, he distinguishes the order of charity from the order of prophecy. His errors lie in that (1) He does not always or exactly distinguish them; for example, when he holds that an ardent faith is impossible for one who has not received the prophetic revelation, or that our spiritual experience is of the same nature as the revelation made to Paul: (2) He does not realise that a lively faith, independently of any prophetic light, is capable of introducing the believer to the overwhelming significance of the revelation made to the Apostles and received by simple preaching: (3) He misappreciates the exceptional excellence and definitive value of this apostolic revelation: (4) He believes in consequence that new revelations—not simply new developments of the Gospel revelation—are still needed at each stage of the spiritual progress of mankind: (5) He wants to transform into an opposition between prophecy and the magisterium the opposition between the heroic virtues of the saints and the mediocrity of the mass of ordinary Christians, the ardours of love and the coldness of egoism: (6) The attach he continually directs against the dogma of an eternal hell are noteworthy for their violence, not so much because they are always worthy of consideration (some are disconcertingly ingenuous), but because they come from a man who—unlike the usual adversaries of the dogma—believes profoundly in the existence of God, in the personal immortality of the human soul, in the incomprehensible malice of sin, and in the tragic sense of existence. This is not the place to answer them; for only a thorough exposition of the revealed teaching would suffice to dissipate all these misconceptions. I will content myself with three observations. First, when we realise that it was God Himself who willed to be nailed to a cross in the midst of men in order to save them from sin, we become less disposed to minimise the tragic character of the consequences of sin. Secondly, the mystery of evil, even in its supreme and most disturbing realisation, is but an infinite of the created order, whereas the mystery of God is an infinite of the uncreated order; and faith finds more substance in the second mystery than is needed to resolve the first Thirdly, it is a nobler thing to believe, with divine faith and fear of heart, the whole Gospel revelation of the goodness and severity of God, than to assume the role of a prophet in order to deliver mankind from the chains that Jesus has laid on it.

328 "The spiritual constitution of man is flexible and dynamic so that it is impossible to regard as in any sense finally true that which belongs to a spiritual constitution of a finite and mediocre type. The supremacy of the finite indicates a bourgeois spirit in the religious life" (Berdiaeff, Freedom and the Spirit, p. 93) "It is simply a form of materialism to regard revelation as authority" (p. 94) "Thus Christianity in its development passes through a sort of legalistic phase, a kind of 'Judaeo-paganism' where law predominates. The spirit of the prophets is not seldom denied, and so Christianity is transformed into a rigid and static system of theological doctrines, canons and external organization. We picture the Church as a finished building, spire and all" (p. 114) "Even the mystery of grace is naturalized, objectified, and rationalized by being assimilated to the forces operating in the natural world—a process clearly apparent in the systematizing of Catholic theology" (p. 114) Berdiaeff writes elsewhere: "There are two concepts of Christianity, and they can be conventionally qualified as respectively conservative and creative. What chiefly distinguishes them is the fact that for one the religious subject is immutable, while for the other it is open to change; for the one it is passive, for the other, active" ("Deux concepts du christianisme, a propos da controverses sur l'element ancien et nouveau dans le christianisme", Feuille centrale de Zofingue, Geneva 1936, no. 3, p. 183) Catholicism is an exclusively conservative Christianity, claiming to be the sole orthodoxy, and constrained to disregard the mutability and activity of the religious subject. "In sum, the religious subject with a consciousness of average normality is considered as immutable. The Thomist philosophy of common sense energetically maintains this thesis" (p. 184) "Prophetism rises up against the power of social collectivism, which expresses itself especially in sacrificings and sacramentalism" (p. 187) It goes without saying that both the Church and Thomism—of which Berdiaeff generally speaks with surprising incomprehension—energetically repudiate what they are said to "energetically maintain" and neither accept nor consecrate as final truth anything "that corresponds only to a spiritual constitution of a mediocre type", nor consider the "average religious subject" as immutable, nor take a vulgar consciousness for a normal one, mediocrity for a law, the relative for an absolute, nor invest the socio-temporal order with any of the privileges of the socio-spiritual. This I say without in any way denying Berdiaeff's great and moving desire to serve God, nor the justice and penetration of many of his views on the march of history and the struggle of our times. In virtue of this last fact, but of this alone, he represents strikingly something we may call today—in a secular sense that would apply to a Joseph de Maistre or a Leon Bloy—by the name of prophet; that is to say a man sent, not, to be sure, to bring us any new doctrine of the faith, but to orientate the movement of history "ad humanorum actuum directionem".

If, on the point here in question, we wish to compare the doctrines of Karl Barth and of Berdiaeff, we note (1) that Barth, unlike Berdiaeff, forcibly distinguishes the revelation made by God to the Apostles, "a unique revelation, made once and for all irrevocable, not to be repeated, since the Cross of Calvary is not to be repeated" (Revelation, Eglise, Theologie, Paris 1934, p. 13), from the witness they have given to it, from the message they have transmitted, that is to say from Holy Scripture. (In this dogma of the unicity and immutability of the Christian revelation Berdiaeff would doubtless recognize "The side of Barthianism that seems reactionary"): (2) that Barth will have nothing to do with the idea of a Church carrying this first witness of the Apostles infallibly down the centuries, of a divinely assisted pastoral power: "One sole fact makes the Church a Church, namely that man listens because God has spoken, and speaks; and he hears what God has said to him and repeats it. Where this fact is absent, where in its place there functions only some consecrated system, or where some religious community acts, where, in whatever sense, there is too much confidence in man and too little confidence in God, there the Church does not exist" (ibid., p. 27) Here Berdiaeff would doubtless congratulate Barthianism for being "revolutionary", for rejecting "all the false theophanies of the world", for recognizing "The sin of all earthly incarnations even that of the life of the Church". cf. Deux concepts du christianisme.... loc cit., p. 202.

329Denz., 1978

330Contra Haereses, lib. III, cap. I, no. 1; cap. x III, no. 3; P. G. VII, col. 845 and 912. c£ M. J. Lagrange, O. P., Histoire ancienne du cannon du Nouveau Testament, Paris 1933, p. 46

331Adversus Marcionem, lib. IV, cap. ii and v; P. L. II, col. 363 and 367. cf. Lagrange, loc. cit., p. 50

332"Johannes et similiter quilibet apostolus, Ecclesia erat.... Ex quo namque constat apostolorum aliquem scripsisse ad doctrinam Ecclesiae, Ecclesiae auctoritatem habet" (Cajetan, De Comparatione Auctoritatu Papae et Concilii, cap. iv, no. 54)

333" He resists Peter, which supposes that the latter was invested with authority and passed among the faithful as his superior; and he resists him to his face, without pausing before a pre-eminence which might seem to demand more deference, even obedience. If he seems to be somewhat overhasty, not wholly unruffled in his attitude to Peter, that was because the latter was in fact to be blamed. According to Cornely this circumstance gave Paul an excellent opportunity to demonstrate that he had not only been recognized in the Council as the equal of the Apostles, but that he had behaved as an equal of the prince of the Apostles himself, equal as regards the apostolate at any rate, if not as regards the government of the whole Church, a thing not here in question. The text would indicate rather that Paul, assured of the truth of his Gospel, did not hesitate to challenge the ascendancy of Peter.... while awaiting an opportunity to prove to him, and through him to the Galatians, that he was right in so doing" (M. J. Lagrange, O. P., Epitre aux Galates, Paris 1918, p. 41) Even if we follow the nuance proposed by Lagrange rather than that indicated by Cornely, the remark of St. Thomas Aquinas, who sees something more here than a fraternal correction of Peter by Paul, remains valid.

334In his De Comparatione Auctoritatis Papae et Concilii seu Ecclesiae Universalis, Cajetan writes: "The Apostles may be compared one with another in two ways: first, as Apostles (and thus they were all equal) and second, as Christ's sheep, separated from physical contact with Him (and thus Peter alone is shepherd and the other Apostles are committed to his care)" (no. 23) "Peter was made universal vicar of Jesus Christ; the other Apostles were made legates or delegates of Jesus Christ, in accordance with St. Paul's words in 2 Cor. v. 20: 'For Christ therefore we are ambassadors [legatio], God as it were exhorting by us' and in Ephes. vi. 20: '.... the mystery of the gospel, for which I am an ambassador [legatio] in a chain., That is the very sense of the word Apostle, which is derived from 'mission" and it is only by extension that they are called vicars in the Preface of the Apostles" (no. 37) Peter's power differs from that of the Apostles "by its very essence. For the authority given to the Apostles in common was an executive power, and St. Thomas calls it the power of governing, which implies execution. But the authority given to Peter—who was made Pope by Christ's words Feed my sheep—in his own right, is a preceptive power, which St. Thomas calls the authority to rule.... It is the power to execute, not the imperium, which is given to the Apostles, and that is why the Preface of the Apostles calls them not vicars in the absolute sense but vicars of the work of Christ, which means vicars for doing the work of Christ" (no. 40) "Paul is Peter's equal only in a certain manner—that is, as to execution (for the defence of the faith, for example)" (no. 41)

Cajetan's distinction was to be taken up again by St. Robert Bellarmine (De Romano Pontifice, bk. I. ch. 11): "by reason of the power of government which was in them, all the Apostles are at the foundation of the Church in this sense, that they were all heads, directors and pastors of the universal Church, yet not as Peter was. They had the highest and widest power, but as apostles (those sent) or legates, while Peter possessed it as ordinary pastor. And in addition, they had the fullness of power in such a way that Peter was their head and they were dependent upon him, and not the other way round."

335De Comparatione Auctoritas Papae et Concilii, no. 39.

336ibid

337It was not simply the ordinary power of the episcopate, but also the extraordinary power of the apostolate, which was to emanate as of right from Peter's power, but which nevertheless Our Lord bestowed immediately on the other Apostles. I interpret Cajetan's thought as follows: "Peter alone was Vicar of Jesus Christ; he alone received immediately from Christ the regular power of jurisdiction, so that normally the others would receive their power from him and be subordinated to him and yet the Master of all rights, Jesus Christ, gave the other Apostles by delegation an executive power of jurisdiction which made them Peter's equals", (De Comparatione Auctoritatis Papae et Concilii, cap. iv, no. 55) Following St. Thomas, Cajetan carefully distinguishes their executive power, in which the Apostles equal Peter, from the preceptive power, in which Peter is their superior.

338 "Apostolus [Paulus] fuit par Petro in executione auctoritatis, non autem in auctoritate regiminis" (Comm. ad Galatas cap. ii, lect. 3)

339 "Erat papa excedens in auctoritate regiminis, sicut de Petri auctoritate dictum est, quia illius erat successor, et Jesu Christi vicarius ipse, non Johannes" (De Comparatione Auctoritatis Papae et Concilii, cap. iv, no. 53) cf. further on p. 383, note 3.

340 "The authority given in common to the Apostles in virtue of the apostolate was executive. St. Thomas speaks of authority to administer (gubernare), for who says administer says execute. On the other hand the authority given to Peter alone, who was made Pope by these words of Christ: 'Feed my sheep" is a preceptive power: St. Thomas speaks of authority to rule (regiminis) That is why St. Thomas writes in his commentary on Galatians ii. 11, that Paul was Peter's equal in execution, not in authority to rule He writes also in his commentary on I Corinthians xii. 28, that what was entrusted to the Apostles was 'Ecclesiae regimen" that is to say, execution; but not 'auctoritas regiminis" that is to say the power of command, the imperium" (Cajetan, De Comparatione Auctoritatis Papae et Concilii, cap. III, no. 40)

341 St. Thomas, II-II, q. 33, a. 4, ad 2.

342It goes without saying that the debate which put Peter and Paul in opposition (Gal. ii. 11) did not bear on any point of faith (Paul brought no Gospel other than that of the other Apostles, (Gal. ii. 2) but on the opportuneness of a certain practical application (Paul himself, in other circumstances, made concessions to the Judaizers just as Peter did, for example when he circumcised Timothy (Acts xvi. 3) Peter's error, says Tertullian, concerned his action, not his teaching, conversationis fuit vitium, non praedicationis (De Praescript., XX III, 10) But Peter's misjudged conduct could, in the given circumstances, disturb the faith of the Christians, and that is why Paul withstood him to his face. The incident thus compels us to distinguish, in respect of Peter himself, an infallible assistance given him in matters of faith, and a fallible assistance in prudential applications. With all the more reason it obliges us to distinguish infallibility from impeccability.

343It is by extension, remarks Cajetan, that the delegated and extraordinary power of the Apostles is called vicarious. Properly speaking the Apostles were the "legates", that is to say the "delegates" of Christ. In the Mass, the Preface of the Apostles calls them not vicars simply, but vicars of Christ's work—"quos operis tui vicarios eidem contulisti praeesse pastores"—that is to say envoys, in the name of Christ, to carry out His work temporarily, not to rule permanently (De Comparatione Auctoritatis Papae et Concilii, cap. iv, no. 46)

344 "To withstand him to his face in public exceeds the limits of fraternal correction, and Paul would not have done it had he not been, in some way, Peter's equal in the defence of the faith. When the faith is imperilled prelates ought to be checked by their subjects, even publicly. Hence Paul, who was Peter's subject, took him up publicly on account of a threatened scandal in a matter of faith" (II-II, q. 33, a. 4, "Utrum quis teneatur corrigere praelatum suum", ad 2. cf. p. 383, note 2) The expression "when the faith is imperilled" here applies to the case in which a practical measure is seen to be disastrous and calculated to trouble the faith of the simple. In my Primaute de Pierre dans la perspective protestante et dans la perspective catholique, Paris, 1953, pp. 70-83, I have developed this viewpoint further in the course of establishing that Peter received from Christ (as pastor of all Christ's sheep, the Apostles included) (1) A truly transapostolic privilege: (2) of the jurisdictional order, which was (3) meant for the founding of the Church, not episodically, as in the case of a workman who lays foundations, but continuously, as in the case of the rock on which the weight of a building rests, and is, in consequence, (4) enduring.

345 Homil. in Evang., lib. II, homil. 29; P. L. LXXVI, col. 1215

346 "Although they had the Holy Spirit who brought them the grace proper to their own persons, the disciples received the Holy Spirit once more on the day of Pentecost, bringing them grace for all that concerned the promulgation of the faith and the salvation of others" (St. Thomas, IV Sent., dist. 7, q. 1, a. 2, quae St. 2)

347 Encyclical Quamquam Pluries, 15th August, 1889

348 "Were the Apostles greater than John? In merit, no. But for the sake of the New Testament they proclaimed, yes [non merito, sed officio Novi Testamenti]. In this sense it is said (Matt. xi. 11) that the least in the kingdom of heaven is greater than he" (St. Thomas, Comm., in Matt., III, 11) John is inferior to the least in the kingdom, not absolutely, universaliter, but because of the times in which he lived, tempore (ibid., xi. 11)

349 Comm. in Rom., V III, 23, lect. 5.

350 Comm. ad Ephes., I, 8, lect. 3

351 M. J. Lagrange, O. P., Evangile selon saint Matthieu, Paris 1923, p. 381

352 B. Allo, O. P., Premiere epitre aux Corinthiens, Paris 1935, p. 134

353 St. Cyril of Alexandria, Glaphyr. in Genes., lib. V III P. G., LXIX col. 361

354 Comm. in 1 Cor., VI, 3.

355 Comm. in Matt., XIX. 28.

356 De Veritate q. 24, a. 9.

357 Comm. ad Gal., II, 11, lect. 3.

358 Contra Duas Epist. Pelag., lib. III, cap. vi, no. 15

359 Sermo CXXXV, cap vii, no. 8

360 St. Thomas, II-II, q. 188, a. 6

361 Erik Peterson, Der Martyrer und die Kirche, Hochland 1936-7, p. 385

362 According to the Catechism of the Council of Trent the "ecclesiastical power is two-fold. power of order and power of jurisdiction. The power of order is concerned with the true body of Christ in the Holy Eucharist. The power of jurisdiction is wholly concerned with the mystical body of Christ; and its end is to govern and direct the Christian people, and to lead them to eternal and heavenly beatitude" (part II, cap. vi) The power of order "does not cover only the virtue and power of consecrating the Eucharist; it prepares souls for it, makes them ready to receive it, and includes everything that in any way relates to the Eucharist" (cap. vii) The power of jurisdiction enables the bishops to "rule not only the other ministers of the Church but also the faithful, and requires them to watch over the salvation of all with the greatest care and vigilance" it has its fullest scope in the Roman Pontiff, who, by divine right, is "father and ruler of all the faithful, and all the bishops and dignitaries whatsoever their duties and powers", and who "presides over the universal Church as the successor of Peter, as the true and legitimate Vicar of Christ our Lord" (caps. xxvi and xxv III)

363The privileges constituting the extraordinary authority possessed by the Apostles as founders of the Church, and thus related to the Church in becoming, were not needed in their successors, who had not the duty of founding the Church.... The other power, that of ruling and governing the Church, concerns the conservation of the Church, and rests on the power of order given to the Apostles. This power had to pass to their successors and to remain in the Church" (John of St. Thomas, II-II, q. 1-7; disp. r, a. 3, nos. 12-13; vol. VII, p. 181)

364 The ancients distinguished power (pouvoir, potestas) from potency (puissance, potentia) St. Thomas writes: "Power properly designates an active potency with a certain pre-eminence" (IV Sent. dist. 24, q. 1, a. 1, quae St. 2, ad 3) So also Francis of Vittoria: "The word power has not altogether the same meaning as the word potency. Matter, the senses, the intelligence, the will, are potencies, not powers. On the other hand, the magistracy, the priesthood, all governments [imperia] are powers rather than potencies. As St. Thomas explains, power adds to potency the notion of preeminence, of authority" (Reflectiones Theologicae, De Potestate Ecclesiae, ed. P. Getino, Madrid 1934, P 7)

365 "Ad duo, quorum unum est causa alterius, una potestas ordinatur; sicut in igne calor ad calefaciendum et dissolvendum" (Suppl. q. 17, a. 2, ad 1)

366 Revealed doctrine, says the Vatican Council, "has been entrusted to the Spouse of Christ, to be faithfully guarded and infallibly declared" (Denz. 1800

367 The Roman Pontiff, says the Vatican Council once more, "possesses the plenary and supreme power of jurisdiction over the universal Church, not only as regards matters of faith and morals, but also as regards the discipline and government of the Church throughout the world" (Denz. 1831) This power can legislate not only in matters of discipline, but also, as Pius IX said, in matters of doctrine (Denz. 8684) That is why I prefer to call it legislative rather than disciplinary. It covers not only laws strictly so-called but also all measures of ecclesiastical polity. The power we call "canonical" or "legislative" corresponds to the "power of jurisdiction" as defined by those theologians who, following Billot, do not consider the infallible magisterium as a "jurisdictional power"; provided we add that this power gives laws not only in disciplinary matters, but also in doctrinal or magisterial. It covers all that St. Thomas (IV Sent., dist. 19, q. 1, a. 1, quae St. 3; cf. Suppl., q. 19, a. 3) calls, with precision, the power of jurisdiction in the canonical forum. He then opposes it to the power of order, which directly opens the gates of heaven: "Alia clavis est quae non directe se extendit ad ipsum coelum, sed mediante militante Ecclesia, per quam aliquis ad coelum vadit, dum per eam aliquis excluditur vel admittitur ad consortium Ecclesiae militantis per excommunicationem et absolutionem [ab excommunicatione]; et haec vocatur clavis jurisdictionis in foro causarum; et ideo hanc etiam non sacerdotes habere possunt.... non proprie dicitur clavis coeli, sed quaedam dispositio ad ipsum."

368 Theologians remark that finite knowledge divides in the first place into speculative and practical, but that infinite knowledge, which studies things only in so far as they are known by divine revelation (immediate or mediate), is above the division into speculative and practical (Cajetan, In I, q. 1, a. 4, no. III)

369 The Vatican Council speaks of the "doctrine concerning faith or morals" (Denz. 1839) So also Cardinal Gasparri in his Catholic Catechism, question 152: "We are bound in conscience to receive other doctrinal decrees concerning faith or morals that are issued by the Apostolic See either directly or through the Roman Congregations, because of the obedience we owe to the Apostolic See, which in this way too exercises an authority given to it by Christ."

370 The Vatican Council proclaims the supreme jurisdiction of the Roman Pontiff over the universal Church not only in matters of faith and morals, but also in matters concerning the discipline and government of the Church (Denz. 1827 and 181)

371 Most authors content themselves with opposing a magisterial power, endowed with absolute infallibility, to a disciplinary power always without it. But, given the express declarations of the Church relating to the magisterial acts of the Roman Congregations (Denz. 1684 and 200 8 ), the magisterial power is not always endowed with an absolute infallibility

372 God. Jur. can., can. 108 §3

373 Obedience which further on we shall call "ecclesiastical faith", After the Jansenist error several theologians consider that points defined by the Church as infallible but not as revealed are the object of a special assent for which they reserve the name of "ecclesiastical faith", I think, with the ancients, that these points are believed already with divine faith. However, it is not yet of faith that these points are of faith: that, for the moment, is only a theological opinion, a mode of explaining the assent we give them

374 Auctoritas autem Ecclesiae est ministra objecti fidei" (Cajetan, In II-II, q. 1, a. 1, no. x)

375 If I myself shift something out of its place, there is an immediacy of the subject, of the suppositum; if I displace it with a stick, there is merely an immediacy of virtue, of effort, of power

376 loc. cit. The First Truth, says Cajetan, a little further on, is the very reason for believing, "ipsa ratio credendi"; the pronouncement of the Church is the condition by which the first Truth proposes and explains to us what He is Himself, and what else is to be believed, "conditio qua Veritas prima proponit et explicat seipsam, et alia credenda." This condition is necessarily required, not to provide a basis for faith pure and simple, nor yet, for example, for the faith of the first man, or of the angels before their fall, but to establish normally our faith, as we are today (ibid., q. 5, a. 3, no. 1)

377 In his treatise De Ecclesia Christi, Rome 1921, pp. 330-1, Billot affirms that the magisterium, strictly and formally as such, carries with it no right to demand assent. Against that we must set the fact that to speak as a master is not merely to speak, but to speak with authority, as St. Thomas notes after Aristotle, "oportet addiscentem credere" (II-II, q. 2, a. 3) However this may be, the divine magisterium, the only one we are now considering, lays an obligation of itself on all men once the revelation has been adequately proposed to them. It is not confined to "proposing, explaining defining" the truth revealed. It proposes, explains and defines it with authority, that is to say jurisdictionally. Billot does not include the magisterium under jurisdiction "quia aliud est proponere, exponere, definire veritatem revelatam, quod pertinet ad magisterium; aliud vero regere imperio actus subditorum, quod pertinet ad jurisdictionem." But to propose the revealed truth with authority to all men—is that anything else than "regere imperio actus subditorum"? In the De Ecclesia Sacramentis, Rome 1895, vol. II, p. 398, the same author wrote: "Ecclesia docens, non nudum exercet magisterium, quantumvis infallible, sed veram jurisdictionem doctrinalem, vere ligando fideles ad credendum id quod in canonibus seu decretis fidei proponitur. Cum autem obligatio quae inde enascitur, non ecclesiastici juris sit, sed divini, dicendum remanet quod in hujusmodi, Ecclesia ligat ex potestati instrumentali. "Consequently the faithful are bound to believe (1) by an obligation of divine law to obey the infallible revelation, an obligation common to all men (2) by an obligation of divine law to obey the doctrinal jurisdiction of the Church; (3) by an obligation of ecclesiastical law. Thus all jurisdictional character is refused to the infallible magisterium, but only to annex to it a "true doctrinal jurisdiction" also obliging under divine law, and this—a new difficulty—of the strictly instrumental order. Would it not be preferable to say simply that, when the Christian revelation has been sufficiently proposed to men, they are bound to believe with an assent of supernatural faith, having for "foundation" the uncreated authority of God, and for necessary "condition" the infallible magisterium, that is to say the created authority of the Church, bringing the object of faith before them? "Revelatio divina est ratio formalis objecti fidei; auctoritas autem Ecclesiae est ministra objecti fidei" (Cajetan, in II-II q. 1, a. 1, no. x)

378 Palmieri, who rightly maintains that the power of teaching is jurisdictional, draws the conclusion, not without some hesitation, that in virtue of this power the Church can prescribe purely interior acts: "Etiamsi habeatur ratio tantum actus mere interioris fidei, advertere licet non admodum firmum esse fundamentum cui innititure sententia negans [Ecclesiam posse praecipere talem actum].... Cum ergo jurisdictio Ecclesiae sit aItioris ordinis quam politica.... non videtur ad solos exteriores actus restringenda" (De Romano Pontifice cum Prolegomeno de Ecclesia, Rome 1877, p. 158)

379 III, q. 8, a. 6.

380 II, q. 39, a. 3.

381 Denz., 469

382 ibid., 694

383 ibid., 1822

384 ibid., 1824

385 ibid., 1827

386 ibid., 1831

387 ibid., 1826

388 ibid., 1822

389 ibid., 1832

390 Collectio Lacensis, vol. VII, cols. 568 and 570.

391 De Romano Pontifice, p. 156.

392 Ius Decretalium, Rome 1901, vol. III, p. 5.

393 Summa Apologetica de Ecclesia, Ratisbon 1906, p. 389

394 De Ecclesia Catholica, Paris 1925, p. 334

395 English ed., London 1936, p. 101

396 More recently, Pere J. H. Nicolas (Revue Thomiste 1946, p. 425) has shown a preference for the bipartite division

397 De Ecclesia Christi, Rome 1887, p. 60.

398 loc. cit., p. 334.

399 See Franzelin, De Divina Traditione et Scriptura, Rome 1875, p. 128; Billot, loc. cit., P. 429

400 loc. cit., pp. 458-460. On the "instrumental" jurisdiction, see below, p. 170

401 "Omnis creata veritas defectibilis est, nisi quatenus per Veritatem increatam rectificatur. Unde, neque hominis neque angeli testimonio assentire, infallibiliter in veritatem duceret, nisi quantum, in eis, loquentis Dei testimonium consideratur" (De Veritate q. 14, a. 8) It is the first argument propounded by P. Marin-Sola in his book L'evolution homogene du dogme catholique vol. I, to show that "ecclesiastical faith"—if by that we understand, as do most modern theologians, adhesion to truths defined by the Church as infallible, but not defined as revealed—is, in reality, "of the same species as divine faith in the articles of faith" (p. 423), that "ecclesiastical faith is a divine faith and neither human nor intermediary" (p. 422), that "The object assigned in our days to ecclesiastical faith can be wholly defined as of divine faith" (p. 401 ) Since ecclesiastical faith, thus understood, embraces truths which "without being formally contained in the revealed deposit are nevertheless in necessary connection with it, or indispensable to its preservation" (p. 403 ), P. Marin-Sola would not have us imagine that "connected with and relative to the deposit mean outside the deposit, something that is no part of it, which is alien to it, though necessary for its conservation" (p. 439) He explains that "The object of the Church's infallibility is not the revelation and other things not revealed, but the revelation and its related truths—related truths which the Church neither creates nor invents, but discovers and defines. They were already in the revealed deposit, as St. Thomas indicates by giving them the classic name of revelabilia, things discoverable in the primitive deposit. "But it has been remarked that the meaning of revelabilia In I, q. 1, a. 3, is somewhat different from that taken by Gardeil and Marin-Sola, following numerous ancient commentators: "Revelabile means knowable by revelation, just as intelligibile or sensible means knowable by intelligence or sense" (cf. M. R. Gagnebet, O. P., "Un essai sur le probleme theologique", Revue Thomiste, 1939, no, 1, p. 137)

402 I-II, q. 100, a. 8.

403 St. Thomas, I-II, q. 100 a. 8, ad 3, and comm. of Cajetan; cf. I-II, q. 94, a. 5, ad 2. St. Thomas explains Peter's punishment of Ananias and Sapphira in a similar way: "Petrus autem non propria auctoritate vel manu Ananiam et Sapphiram interfecit, sed magis divinam sententiam de eorum morte promulgavit" (II-II, q. 64, a. 4, ad 1)

404 Similarly we might say that the law of nature that forbids the dead to come to life again does not cease to be true even when God, acting with a higher power, effects the resurrection of a dead man.

405 L. Billot, S. J., De Ecclesia Christi, p. 459. A superior who dispenses, says St. Thomas, "determinat id quod cadebat sub obligatione deliberationis humanae, quae non potuit omnia circumspicere" (II-II, q. 88, a. 10, ad 2)

406 Then we should have to recognize, as many contemporary theologians do, two jurisdictional powers: one that belongs properly to the Church and is limited to the ecclesiastical or canonical forum, and one that is instrumental and extends to the divine forum. That presents several difficulties. (1) To be strictly instrumental is characteristic of the power of order; the power of jurisdiction acts, on the contrary, by way of outward proposition, now as a pure condition, now as a true intermediary cause. R. M. Schultes, O. P., who refers us to van Noort, writes: "Potestas ordinis est pure et stricte instrumentalis; potestas jurisdictionis, licet sit originis divinae et supernaturalis, non est mere instrumentalis sed vero modo principalis" (De Ecclesia Catholica, p. 334) (2) If, in the sacrament of Penance, the sentence of the priest acts instrumentally to remit sin, that is precisely because it is an act of the power of order: "oportet igitur," says St. Thomas, "quod potestas ordinis se extendat ed remissionem peccatorum per dispensationem illorum sacramentorum quae ordinatur ad peccati remissionem: cujusmodi sunt baptismus et poenitentia" (IV Contra Gentes cap. lxxiv) (3) The Church intervenes in the divine forum by the exercise of the infallible magisterium. That is certainly a jurisdictional power. But it is not instrumental. For faith is grounded immediately, with a supposital immediacy, on the divine authority itself. Further, if the magisterium needs to be safeguarded against error by the divine assistance, that is precisely because it is not an instrumental power. (4) It is useless to superimpose on the infallible magisterium, as Billot does (De Ecclesiae Sacramentis, vol. II, p. 398), "a true doctrinal jurisdiction" of an "instrumental" character whereby the teaching Church would add to the divine obligation to believe the revelation, a second obligation under divine law (cf. Excursus IV, "Is There an Instrumental Jurisdiction?" below, p. 170)

407 "Auctoritate superioris dispensantis fit ut hoc quod continebatur sub voto non contineatur, inquantum determinatur in hoc casu hoc non esse congruam materiam voti. Et ideo cum praelatus Ecclesiae dispensat in voto, non dispensat in praecepto juris naturalis, vel divini; sed determinat id quod cadebat sub obligatione deliberationis humanae, quae non potuit omnia circumspicere" (St. Thomas, II-II, q. 88, a. 10, ad 2)

408 A case of dissolution of a consummated non-sacramental marriage is provided for in the scriptural revelation itself, God declaring, not simply through an infallibly assisted jurisdictional power, but by the voice of the divinely inspired Apostle St. Paul, that a marriage between pagans can be dissolved when, one of the spouses being converted to the faith, the other refuses to cohabit according to the law of the Gospel (1 Cor. vii. 12-16)

409 The Council of Trent defines that non—consummated sacramental marriage is dissolved by solemn religious profession: "Si quis dixerit, matrimonium ratum, non consummatum, per solemnem religionis professionem alterius conjugum non dirimi, anathema sit" (Denz. 976)

410Thus if oaten breads are inadvertently mixed with wheaten, an act of consecration would be void of effect.

411Encyclical Immortale Dei, 1st Nov. 1885

412Denz. 1504

413The hierarchical powers are an extrinsic efficient cause of the Church taken as existing in the mode common to all Christians; and an intrinsic efficient cause of the Church taken as comprehending both hierarchy and faithful.

414"the attitude to be taken up by the faithful towards the contumacious sinner supposes that the Church has pronounced a sentence of exclusion, the excommunication with which Jewish society was well acquainted, and which could be pronounced only by the proper authorities" (M. J. Lagrange, O. P., Evangile selon St. Matthieu, 1927, p. 355)

415"the passage from the singular to the plural is very significant. It means at least that the power is not given to every Christian...; it is entrusted to those to whom Jesus is speaking, and if they do not represent the faithful at large, as they do when He speaks in the singular, it is therefore given to these disciples, already invested with such great powers at the opening of their mission, and destined by that very fact to be dispensers of the authority entrusted first to Peter. Jerome therefore grasped the full meaning of the text: Potestatem tribuit apostolis, ut sciant qui a talibus condemnantur, humanam sententiam divina sententia corroborari" (M. J. Lagrange, O. P., Evangile selon saint Matthieu, p. 355) The meaning of binding and loosing can be restricted to the sacramental power of absolution, as Lagrange restricts it here; but we may leave it its general significance applicable both to the sacramental and jurisdictional powers. Here is the passage from St. Jerome: "The revolted brother might reply in secret or think in his heart: if you reject me, I reject you; if you condemn me, I condemn you. So Jesus gives His own power to the Apostles; those they condemn will }now that a divine sentence ratifies the human, that all that is bound on earth will be likewise bound in Heaven" (Comm. in Evang. Matt.; P. L. VII col. 131)

416Zigliara considers "power and society as genera; and civil and religious society, and civil and religious power as the species" (Propaedeutica ad Sacram Theologiam, Rome 1903, p. 390) Billot attributes the power of government to the Church inasmuch as it resembles other human societies, and the powers of order and magisterium inasmuch as it is supernatural and differs from other societies (De Ecclesia Christi p. 327)

417Cf. A. Gratieux, A. S. Khomiakou et le mouvement slavophile, Paris 1939, vol. II, Les doctrines, p. 105, note 1

418 "It was Christ Our Lord who instituted and formed the Church; and therefore, when we would know her nature, the first thing to do is to ask what it was that Christ wished and did" (Leo X III, Satis Cognitum 29th June 1896)

419 "the Only-begotten Son of God established on earth a society called the Church..." (Leo X III, Immortale Dei, 15th Nov. 1885)

420L. Billot, S. J., De Ecclesia Christi pp. 454-457. This author however does not sufficiently indicate that the likeness between canon law and civil law is only analogical.

421Denz. 1841

422Against Montesquieu, who attributes the legislative and judicial powers to distinct juridical principles, Zigliara remarks that if it is prudent in practice to entrust the exercise of legislative, executive, judicial and coercive functions to different hands, that should not tempt us to overlook their essential connection (Summa Philosophica, Paris 1895, vol. III, Jus Naturae, lib. II, cap. ii, a. 5 and 6, pp. 234 and 245)

423Denz., 1505

424II-II, q. 64, disp. 12, a. 1; vol. VII, p. 513

425The things called spiritual in speculative theology are divided by the canonists into things spiritual (spirituale) such as grace and the virtues, and things annexed (spirituali annexum), such as rites, feasts, ecclesiastical benefices (Codex Juris Canonici, can. 1553, §1, 1)

426The word is used by Leo X III, who protests in this connection in the Immortale Dei, against the usurpation of governments: "De ipsis rebus, quae sunt mixti juris, per se statuunt gubernatores rei civilis arbitratu suo, in eoque genere sanctissimas Ecclesiae leges superbe contemnunt. Quare ad jurisdictionem suam trahunt matrimonia christianorum, decernendo etiam de maritali vinculo, de unitate, de stabilitate conjugii."

427Pius IX and Leo XIII absolutely forbade Italian Catholics to take part in the political elections.

428J. Maritain, Questions de conscience, 1938, p. 189, note 1. The author remarks that here we have the first application of the passage of the Encyclical Pascendi condemning the error which declares that "every Catholic, because he is also a citizen, has the right and the duty, without considering the authority of the Church, without taking her wishes, counsels, commandments into account, and even despising her reprimands, to seek the public good in whatever manner he considers best" (Denz., 2092 ) There is another application of the same passage which we shall deal with farther on, when the Church intervenes "solely for the formation of the moral consciences of the citizens, by reminding them of the rules of conduct they should follow. Then we have an act of the religious authority which, in itself, is purely spiritual, leaving the initiative and practical decision, the judicium practicum bearing on the political act, to the conscience of the citizens thus instructed". In the first case the intervention of the Church is the modern form of the potestas indirecta in temporalibus, ratione peccati. cf. infra, p. 209, n. 2

429 ibid. pp. 184 and 194. The expression "civic Catholic action" is here taken in its strict sense to designate not the whole sphere of Christian political action, but only the occasional entries of the spiritual into politic. cf. infra, p. 199, n. 1

430Suarez, De Legibus, lib. I, cap. v III, nos. 4 and 5.

431God. Jur Can., can. 501, 1, cf. infra, p. 603, n. 2.

432" Mulier non habet neque clavem ordinis nec clavem jurisdictionis. Sed mulieri commititur aliquis usus clavium, sicut habere correptionem in subditas mulieres" (St. Thomas, iv. Sent., d. 19, Q. 1, Quaest 3, ad 4.

433 "La theologie moehlerienne de l'unite et les theologiens pravoslavs," in L'Eglise est une, hommage a Moehler, Paris 1939, p. 280.

4341 p. 284

435 L'ideal monastique et la vie chretienne des premiers jours, 2nd ed., Paris 1914, p. 34. cf. p. 38: "In Simon there was the weak and mortal man, the timid Galilean who trembled at the voice of the maidservant, and there was the proclaimer of the divinity of Christ, the confirmer of his brethren, the supreme shepherd of all the lambs and sheep. And in every parish priest there is the man who is weak as we are, sinful as we are, lacking this or that quality even more perhaps than we do. But with this we have nothing to do; it disappears, blotted out by the light that on the day of his election shone from Christ's countenance upon his. Our faith should look at him thus transfigured. Otherwise it will not take us long to fall out even with the most accomplished head of the community; for, once more, man is always man, nothing to be very proud of, omnis homo mendax." these words recall the doctrine of the Cautelas: "Let the second caution be that thou never consider thy superior as less than if he were God, be the superior who he may, for to thee he stands in the place of God.... Keep thyself therefore with great vigilance from considering his character, his ways or his habits or any of his other characteristics, for, if thou do this, thou wilt do thyself the harm of exchanging divine obedience for human, by being moved, or not being moved, only by the visible characteristics of thy superior, instead of by the invisible God whom thou servest in his person" (Cautions in Complete Works of St. John of the Cross, ed. A. Peers, London 1943, vol. III, p. 224)

436 loc. cit., pp. 289 and 279.

437 p. 287.

438 p. 281.

439 p. 283

440 p. 290.

441p. 291.

442p, 289

443p. 291

444p. 290

445p. 294

446 Emmanuel Mounier remarks aptly: "When applied to the Church and to the State (and other human powers) respectively' the word authority, contrary to Bakunin's view, denotes things essentially distinct, merely analogous, with an analogy of proportionality, since the ends and origins of the said authorities are supernatural in the one case and natural in the other. An orthodoxy, or an orthopraxy implying an Orthodoxy, imposed by an exclusively temporal power, are altogether intolerable things" ("Anarchie et personnalisme", Esprit, 1st April 1937, p. 141)

447 On this text of Matthew's, see the Commentary of St. John Chrysostom, Homil. 33, P. G. LVII, col. 389: "Let us therefore blush when we ourselves perversely become wolves to our foes. While we remain sheep we have the victory; and even if myriads of wolves surround us we are the stronger. As soon as we become wolves we are beaten. The Shepherd leaves us. He feeds sheep' rot wolves. He turns away from you and goes. You will not allow Him to make His power seen."

448 P. Batiffol, Le catholicisme de saint Augustin, 1920, p. 335

449 cf., p. 260

450 "All things, by desiring their own perfection, desire God Himself; inasmuch as the perfections of all things are so many similitudes of the divine essence. of those things that seek God some know Him as He is in Himself, and this belongs to the rational creature" (St. Thomas, I, q. 6. a. I, ad 2)

451 St. Thomas, Ethic. ad Nic., lib. I, lect. 1

452 ibid

453 De Virtutibus in Communi, a 9

454 I-II, q. 21, a. 4, ad 3. The "difference of level between the plane on which man lives his personal life and the plane he occupies as part of a social body.... explains why personality seeks social life and tends always to travel beyond it." From the society of the family he passes to civil society, and in the heart of civil society "he feels the need of clubs and fellowships that will interest his intellectual and moral life. These he enters of his own free choice and they assist the soul in its efforts to ascend to a higher level. In the end these also fail to satisfy and they cramp the soul which is obliged to pass beyond them. Above the level of civil society man crosses the threshold of supernatural reality and enters a society which is the mystical body of an incarnate God, and whose office is to lead him to his spiritual perfection and to full liberty of autonomy and eternal welfare" (Jacques Maritain, Freedom in the Modern World, trans. R. O'Sullivan, K. C., London 1935, p. 51)

455 The human soul is "by its nature capable of grace, from the sole fact that it was created in the image of God it is capable of God by grace, as Augustine says" (St. Thomas, I-II, q. 113, a. 10) cf. St. Augustine, De Trinitate, lib. XIV, 12: "Eo quippe ipso imago ejus est, quo ejus capax est..."

456 St. Thomas, De Virtutibus in Communi, a. 9

457 "Character habet rationem signi per comparationem ad sacramentum sensibile a quo imprimitur", (St. Thomas, III, q. 63, a. 2, ad 4; cf. a. I, ad 2)

458 St. Thomas, De Virtutibus in Communi, a. 9. "There is a specific difference between the infused moral virtues whereby men behave well as fellow-citizens with the saints and members of the household of God, and the acquired virtues, whereby men behave well in human affairs" (I-II, q. 63, a. 4)

459 Jacques Maritain, Questions de Conscience, 1938, pp. 184 and 194. cf. Humanisme integral (True Humanism, London 1938, p. 293): "There is on the temporal plane.... with regard to the spiritual order, a zone of questions which, in themselves (e. g. "mixed questions" touching marriage, education etc.) or in the circumstances of the case' include a reference to that order: while affecting the earthly city, they also directly concern the good of souls and that of the Mystical Body; the Christian, as a member of that Body, has to consider them primarily and above all, not in reference to the temporal order and the good of the earthly city (which moreover suffers detriment if higher values are violated) ' but as they affect the supra-temporal good of the human person and the common good of the Church of Christ." We speak of a "civic Catholic action" in the strict sense. The Abbe Daniel Lallement's book, Principes catholiques d'action civique (Paris 1935), which sums up "The teachings of the Catholic Church concerning politics", contains, besides those concerned with civic Catholic action, some principles concerning the civic secular action of Catholics and envisaging their temporal thought and activities. cf. above p. 186, n. 5.

460 "Dostoievski was the prophet of the Russian-Orthodox theocratic idea, of the religious light that comes from the Ea St.... With this false theocratic idea there is bound up in Dostoievski an equally false conception of the State, an inadequate notion of its independent value, of the value of a State not theocratic but temporal, receiving its religious justification from itself, not from outside, in an immanent and not transcendent way.... This false anarchism, this will to find no religious meaning in an independent State, are present in Dostoievski. They represent a typically Russian trait; perhaps they reveal a Russian malady" (N. Berdiaeff, L'Esprit de Dostoievski, Paris ' pp. 251-253)

461 Anarchism was anti-theist in Proudhon, who did not deny God's existence, but treated Him as an enemy ("Dieu, c'est le mal"), atheist in Bakunin ("If God really existed we should have to warn Him off"), Christian in Tolstoy ("Every Church, as a Church, has always been and cannot help being.... directly opposed to the doctrine of Christ"; "Christianity, properly understood, destroys the State; this was understood from the outset and explains why Christ was crucified")

462 In his commentary on the text in which St. Paul recommends the Christians of Rome to obey the still-pagan authorities of the City, Expositio Quorumdam Propositionem ex Epistola ad Romanos, propos. 72: "The Apostle knew that some would be proud enough to think that since they were called by the Lord to liberty on becoming Christians, they would no longer have to conform to the laws here below, nor submit to the authorities set over temporal things. But if we are composed of soul and body, then, as long as we live this temporal life we shall have need of temporal things to maintain it. We must therefore in that respect obey the authorities, that is to say the men who are placed in office to govern human things. But in so far as we believe in God and are called to His kingdom, we are not to obey those who would destroy the gift of God that leads us to eternal life. If therefore anyone thinks that just because he is a Christian he is exempt from paying the taxes and from duly honouring those to whom the government is entrusted, he is the victim of a grievous error. And if anyone on the contrary considers that the authorities set over temporal things have any power over his faith, he falls into a worse error. Here we must do what the Saviour commanded and give to Caesar what is Caesar's and to God what is God's. And although indeed we are called to a kingdom on which the temporal authorities have no power, yet while we remain in this present life and are not yet come to the age when all principality and power will disappear, we must bear with our condition, and respect the order of human things, doing nothing deceitfully, and obeying, even in this very matter, not so much men as God who ordains it."

463 St. Thomas, II-II, q. 66 ' a. 1. We are not concerned here with the dominion of man over man which is realized in a command (imperando) not by utilization (utendo), and which is subdivided according as it is directed to free subjects or to slaves. cf. I, q. 96, a. 2 and 4.

464 The consecration of the Emperor and of kings aimed at making them princes of Christendom not vassals of the pontifical state; and St. Thomas's expression about "reges vassalli Ecclesiae" (Quodlibet, 12, q. 13, a. 19, ad 2) either refers to some particular kings or is to be taken in a broad sense.

465 The whole question of the real immunities by which ecclesiastical goods (res) were, in ancient canon law, declared exempt from civil charges and taxations, depends, in the last analysis, upon the supernatural character of the personality of the Church, on account of which it may be said that these real immunities (and other ecclesiastical immunities) have their origin in the divine law. "In the eyes of our ancestors," wrote L. Choupin, "The goods of the Church were the goods of God Himself, and, as such, were wholly withdrawn from the power of princes, and free, consequently from secular taxation. Severe ecclesiastical penalties sanctioned this immunity, and in spite of resistance here and there, it was generally recognized," ("Immunites ecclesiastiques", in the Dict. apol. de la foi catholique, col. 619) Since the political society of the Middle Ages recognized the supernatural character of the Church, she appeared in all eyes in the light of a public utility—in this instance of a super-eminent sort. Ecclesiastical goods were thus entitled, like those of the public domain, to exemption from taxation. This right to exemption could and should be recognized even by states that no longer live under a "consecrational," regime like that of the Middle Ages, and politically tolerate all religions. Pere Choupin writes in the same article: "Man's religious aspirations are unquestionably his most indispensable aspirations: any thing that serves them is of genuine public utility. Hence ecclesiastical goods properly so-called, church buildings, chapels, convents presbyteries, seminaries and so forth, are earmarked for a public service. Is it not therefore merely just and equitable to exempt them from taxation? In England, in America, some part of the goods of the Church, notably the buildings dedicated to public worship, are not subject to tax. Nothing could be more legitimate: it is an excellent example of impartiality, of true liberalism, on the part of Protestant states. The Church, by promoting religion, contributes much to the prosperity of the State. "Let us add that the present Code of Canon Law says nothing about real immunities in fiscal matters: the question is left to be settled in the various Concordats. As for the local immunities, they comprised in the old Canon Law: a. the right of asylum, known to pagans, securing by common consent the inviolability of certain criminals taking refuge in the sacred places: they could not be seized by the secular arm save by permission of the ecclesiastical authorities, who would thus protect them against revengeful violence; b. interdiction of profane acts, prohibiting civil demonstrations in sacred places. There is a trace of this last immunity in Canon 1160 of the Code: "Holy places are exempt from the jurisdiction of the civil authority, and the legitimate authority of the Church is to be freely exercised there." This provision aims at protecting the dignity of public worship by reserving the wholly spiritual jurisdiction of the Church. No more than in the foregoing cases does it propose to deprive the State of its dominium altum and transfer it to the Church.

466 When they affirm that the real immunity is of divine right, they do so, says Choupin, "in the sense that the State cannot, of its own authority, lay burdens upon ecclesiastical property: for that needs the consent of the Church which, by divine law, is a perfect society" (loc. cit., col. 618) But they affirm at the same time that the Church is bound to recognize the just demands of the State in matters of dominium altum. See the note following.

467 To prevent too great a concentration of goods, the Old Law provided that every fifty years, the jubilee years, everybody should regain possession of his landed property (Lev. xxv. 13) To justify this legal provision St. Thomas explains that if the sale of land were unregulated it would pass into the hands of a few and large areas would be depopulated. And he cites a text of Aristotle's affirming the necessity of ordering possessions in view of the common good (I-II, q. 105, a. 2, ad 3) Commenting on this passage of St. Thomas, Cajetan remarks that when the laws of a country determine a reasonable maximum size of individual holdings of land, these laws, being just, will be recognized by the Church; so that the Church would be bound to sell any surplus land which might come into her possession (In I-II, q. 105, a. 2) We must of course remember, adds Cajetan, that some ecclesiastical goods that might seem superfluous if enjoyed only by the ministers of the Church are not so in reality, and remain legitimate if we have regard to the charitable works performed by these ministers (In II-II, q. 32, a. 5, no. 5) However, even when the revenues are distributed in charity, properties that are too large may be justly limited, since the mode of exploitation then tends to become less personal, less human, and, in the long run, less fruitful. It was on the eve of the Reformation that Cajetan remarked that the goods of the Church were not to be increased indefinitely (the Commentary on the Secunda Secundae was finished in 1511) At this period, wrote Grisar, "in virtue of the pious donations that had accumulated in the course of centuries, the Church had become too wealthy. Thus, in the diocese of Worms, about three-fourths of all property belonged to ecclesiastical proprietors" (Luther, St. Louis and London 1930, p. 125)

468 Jacques Maritain, True Humanism, pp. 290-291

469 "In an intermediate sense.... the word knowledge is taken in opposition to the highest regions of our understanding. In this sense it means science in contradistinction to wisdom, and has to do with the less exalted regions of our understanding. We do not describe botanical or linguistic knowledge as wisdom, but as science Wisdom is knowledge through the highest sources and in the deepest and simplest sense. But knowledge or science in this second sense means knowing in detail and by proximate or apparent causes. In this sense we speak of 'science, or the special sciences’" (J. Maritain, Science et sagesse (Science and Wisdom, London 1940, pp. 4-5) The distinction between science and wisdom, the lower and the higher reason, is indicated by St. Thomas (I, q. 79, a. 9) who borrowed it from St. Augustine (De Trinitate, books XII-XIV) On the various meanings of this opposition in St. Augustine, see Henri-Irenee Marrou, Saint Augustin et la fin de la culture antique, 938, pp. 370 and 563.

470 According to St. Augustine and St. Thomas, human acts, at least if considered in relation to the natural end of man are 'in the concrete' always either good or bad, never indifferent. And Pius X declares that the Christian "no matter what he is doing, even in the temporal order, has no right to neglect those goods that surpass nature, nay, the laws of Christian wisdom oblige him to direct them all towards the Sovereign Good as towards his last end; now all his actions, as morally good or bad, that is to say as conforming or not conforming to natural and divine law, fall under the judgment and jurisdiction of the Church" (Encyclical Singulari Quadam, 24 Sept. 1912) Theologians observe however that in a very particular sense, that is, with respect to the supernatural end of man, there can be concrete acts which are neither good nor bad, that is to say neither meritorious nor culpable: for example, the alms given out of pure natural compassion by those who voluntarily remain in a state of mortal sin. But such alms, nevertheless, are ethically good.

471 As regards the true, St. Thomas writes: "Even as regards those truths about God which human reason could have discovered, it was necessary that man should be taught by a divine revelation; because the truth about God such as reason could discover would only be known by a few, and that after a long time, and with the admixture of many errors" (I, q. I, a. 2) The same might be said of truths relating to the soul and to the conduct of human life. In his Apostolic Letter Tuas Libenter of 21 Dec. 1863, Pius IX recalled that although the natural disciplines rest on their own principles, known by reason, it is important that Catholics who cultivate them should always keep divine revelation before their eyes as a guiding-star, veluti rectricem stellam (Denz. 1681) As regards the good, St. Thomas writes: "In the state of wounded nature man falls short of what he could do by his nature, so that he is unable to fulfil it by his own natural powers. Yet he.... can accomplish some particular good, as to build dwellings, plant vineyards and the like; yet he cannot do all the good natural to him so as to fall short in nothing.... so that he needs a gratuitous strength superadded to natural strength.... in order to be healed" (I-II, q. 109, a. 2)

472 On the authentic way in which an inferior activity can be sublimated, that is to say superelevated, but not changed or robbed of its essence, by a superior one, as instinct in man can be sublimated by spirit, see T. L. Peniso, La conscience religieuse: Essai systematique suivi D'illustrations Paris, 1935, p. 110.

473 We shall therefore not say, with Francis of Vittoria, that "The Church in its entirety is a single body, civil society and spiritual society not making two bodies but one," (Relectio Prior, De Potestate Ecclesiae, edit. Getino, Madrid-Valencia 1934, vol. II, p. 74) Vittoria clearly distinguishes the temporal and spiritual powers, but he encloses both in the Church. We shall return further on to the medieval tendency to include the secular Christendom and the State in the Church. It is strong in Soloviev. It must be admitted, writes Fr. S. Tiszkiewicz, S. J., that "Soloviev, in spite of his enthusiasm for the principle of the Papacy had, at the time he wrote Russia and the Universal Church no very clear idea of the divino-humanity of the Church. As regards the human element in the Church we find an exaggeration, a reduplication; there are, as it were, two bodies: on the one hand the social body proper to the Church as distinct from other societies, a visible body with the Pope at its head, and on the other the Christian State, governed by an ideal monarch, the State being almost a part of the Church. We are far from Moehler's Symbolik, which brings out so strongly the supra-national character of Christianity." The same author adds: "VIadimir Soloviev has done us much harm in the eyes of the Orthodox.... His theocracy presents Catholicism in a light that makes it unacceptable to them. But we must pardon him this ill service..." ("La theologie moehlerienne de l'unite et les theologies pravoslaves", in L'Eglise est une, hommage a Moehler, Paris 1939, pp. 276 and 290)

474 "Duplex est causa agens, principalis et instrumentalis. Principalis quidem operatur per virtutem suae formae cui assimilatur effectus.... Causa vero instrumentalis non agit per virtutem suae formae, sed solum per motum quo movetur a principali agente: unde effectus non assimilatur instrumento, sed principali agenti" (St. Thomas, III, q. 62, a. 1) Cajetan explains how the autonomy of principal causes can subsist under the motion of the first cause, without which they would be reduced to the state of instruments: "Non enim cause secunda movet ob hoc praecise quia movetur, sed etiam ex virtute propria.... Stat causam secundam necessario moveri a prima, et cum hoc, ipsum moveri modificari ex natura causae secundae; et sic movere causae secundae provenit non ex moveri tantum, sed ex moveri et modo proprio ipsius causae secundae" (In I, q. 19, a. 8, no. xiv) John of St. Thomas thus describes an intermediate end: "Habet veram rationem finis etiam non ultimus (sic), sed participatam, in quo rationem medii aliquo modo induit; simpliciter tamen habet rationem finis, quia simpliciter est appetibile, licet participative: sicut substantia creata est ens per se, participative tamen ab increata" (Cursus Phil., Phil. Nat., I pars, Vives ed., vol. II, q. 13, a. 1, p. 242) Further on he thus distinguishes the principal cause and the instrument: "Propria et formalis ratio causae instrumentalis, ut distinguitur a principali, consistit in eo quod operetur ut motum a principali agente, si 'ut motum' dicat totam virtutem et rationem operandi; non vero si dicat solam concausam cooperantem vel conditionem requisitam" (ibid., vol. II, q. 26, a. 1, p. 439)

475 This light is supernatural only quoad modum

476 It has been remarked that the passage of the Encyclical Pascendi condemning the error that "every Catholic, because also a citizen, has the right and the duty to pursue the public good in whatever way seems best to him, without troubling about the authority of the Church, or taking account of her wishes, counsels, commands, and even despising her reprimands" (Denz., 2092 ), can be applied under two different heads. First, under the special head of the "defence of the altar" of the immediate defence of the spiritual, including interests ordinarily temporal, but become hic et nunc, spiritual; "The Church herself here takes the initiative in the Christian's political act or refusal", and this kind of intervention engages "civic Catholic action", a branch of Catholic action. Secondly under the head of the moral formation of the citizen's conscience. cf. Jacques Maritain, True Humanism, p. 293: "With regard to the temporal order itself [there is] a zone of truths connected with the revealed truths of which the Church is the depositary, and which directs from above Christian thought and temporal activity; thus the Encyclicals of Leo X III and Pius XI have elaborated the principles of a Christian political, social and economic wisdom, which does not descend to particular determinations of the concrete, but which is like a theological firmament for the doctrines and more particular activities engaged in the contingencies of the temporal sphere." cf. above, p. 186, n. 4.

477 "To make Christianity an abstraction, to put God and Christ on one side while I work in the things of the world, is to cut myself in two halves: one Christian half for the things of eternal life,—and for the things of time a pagan or semi-Christian, or neutral half, i. e. something infinitely feeble, or idolatrous of the nation, or the race, or the State, or of bourgeois prosperity, or the antibourgeois revolution, or science, or art, made into final ends. Such a division of self is only too frequent in practice.... When we take note of what it represents in reality, when we apply the light of the intelligence to the formula, we see that it represents a death-dealing absurdity.... In reality, the justice of the Gospel and the life of Christ within us, want the whole of us, to take complete possession of us, to impregnate all we are and all we do, in the secular as well as in the spiritual order. Action is an epiphany of being. If grace takes hold of us and remakes us in the depths of our being, it is so that all our actions should feel its effects and be illuminated by it" (Jacques Maritain, True Humanism, pp. 289-290)

478 If it is needful to distinguish two moments in the process of the penetration of the spiritual into the temporal, it is because "with regard to a work which is to descend to the last contingent realizations demanded by the service of the temporal common good, the competence of an essentially spiritual activity quickly finds its limits. There is such a thing as a judgment of Catholicism on the relations between art and literature on the one hand and ethics and the moral capacities of normal men on the other; but this judgment will not tell me what to think about Joyce's books or Rimbaud's poems as works of art. There is such a thing as a judgment of Catholicism on the duty of working for international peace and on the principles of social justice; but this judgment will not tell me what to think about the forty-hours' week or the constitution of the United Nations. It is for me to judge as a Catholic (as far as possible with a Catholic mind, rather than with a Catholic party mind), but with no pretence to speak for Catholicism, nor to commit other Catholics as Catholics. It is not simply because the Church does not wish to be entangled and compromised in temporal matters that this distinction is to be made; it is because differentiations are involved that are bound up with the nature of things, and it is these that account for the Church's attitude. And it is finally because the honesty and integrity of the action—spiritual action on the temporal plane, temporal action on its own temporal plane—suffer from the neglect of these differentiations" (Jacques Maritain, Questions de Conscience, p. 182) cf. True Humanism, p. 291: "If I turn towards men to speak and act among them, it can be said that on the first or spiritual plane of action I come among them as a Christian—as such, and in so far I engage Christ's Church; and that on the second or temporal plane of action I do not act as a Christian as such, but I should act as one who is a Christian, engaging only myself, not the Church, but engaging my whole self, not amputated or inanimate—engaging myself who am a Christian, who am in the world and work in the world without being of the world, who by my faith, my baptism, and my confirmation, tiny as I may be, have the vocation of infusing into the world, wheresoever I be, a sap and savour of Christianity", cf. in this connection Cardinal Gasparri's distinction made in his letter "E noto", to the Archbishops and Bishops of Italy on the subject of the clergy and politics, 2nd October 1922: "Assuredly the bishops and clergy, as private Citizens, are not to be denied the right to have their personal political opinions and preferences, as long as they do no wrong to an upright conscience and to the interests of religion. It is not less evident that as bishops and clergy they should hold themselves completely aloof from party struggles, and above all purely political competition. Practically speaking, it is true, it is not always easy to draw a precise line. It will not therefore be easy to determine in every particular case in what circumstances a given activity should engage the private citizen only, or the man whose duty gives him a public character. In doubtful cases, as also in those where the action of the bishop and clergy might compromise the religious interests they have in charge, the enlightened zeal of a good pastor of souls will not hesitate to abstain".

479 "the Almighty, therefore, has appointed the charge of the human race between two powers, the ecclesiastical and the civil, the one being set over divine, and the other over human things. Each in its kind is supreme, each has fixed limits within which it is contained, limits which are defined by the nature and special object of the province of each, so that there is, we may say, an orbit traced out within which the action of each is brought into play by its own native right" (Leo X III, Encyclical Immortale Dei, 1st Nov. 1885)

480 The celebrated formula of Hugh of St. Victor, reproduced in part in the Bull Unam Sanctam, relates to an historic moment in the relations between the Church and European culture

481 "Those who say that Christ's doctrine is harmful to the Republic, let them give us an army composed of soldiers comparable to those who profess the doctrine of Christ; let them give us citizens, husbands and wives, fathers and children, masters and servants, rulers and judges, taxpayers and tax-collectors like those who profess the doctrine of Christ. Then let them dare to say that this doctrine is contrary to the Republic! Rather let them not hesitate to admit that if only it be obeyed it is the great salvation of the Republic; [magnam si obtemperetur salutem esse reipublicae] (Epist. cxxxv III 15) cf. the apostrophe to the Church in the De Moribus Ecclesiae Catholicae, lib. I, cap. xxx, 63: Thou bringest into the bond of mutual charity every relationship of kindred, and every alliance of affinity. Thou teachest servants to cleave to their masters from delight in their task rather than from the necessity of their position. Thou renderest masters forbearing to their servants from a regard to God their common Master, and more disposed to advise than to compel. Thou unitest citizen to citizen, nation to nation, yea, man to man, from the recollection of their first parents, not only in society but in fraternity. Thou teachest kings to seek the good of their peoples; thou counsellest peoples to be subject to their kings. Thou teachest carefully to whom honour is due, to whom regard, to whom reverence, to whom fear, to whom consolation, to whom admonition, to whom encouragement, to whom discipline, to whom rebuke, to whom punishment; showing both how all are not due to all, and how to all love is due, and how injury is due to none."

482 On the remedies which the Church might provide for the pacification of the world Pius XI writes in the Encyclical Ubi Arcano Dei, that she has an inexhaustible capacity to cut out of human life and domestic and civil society the plague spot of materialism, which has already wrought so much damage there, and to replace it by Christian spiritual discipline of the immortal souls of men, which is so much more powerful than mere philosophy; the capacity also to unite among themselves all classes of citizens, and indeed the whole people, in a sentiment of higher benevolence and in a kind of brotherhood, to defend the dignity of each particular man...; the capacity lastly to see that all shall be inwardly informed by God's teachings and laws, so that the minds of all men, private persons and rulers, even the public institutions themselves, shall be penetrated by a sense of religious duty.... When therefore states and peoples shall hold it as their sacred duty to rule their political life at home and abroad by the teachings and laws of Jesus Christ, then indeed they will be able to enjoy an inward peace, to live together in mutual confidence, and settle peacefully all conflicts that may arise., cf. also the great words of Pius XI in his discourse of the 24th December 1938: We would remind all and each that only that is truly and fully human which is Christian, and that what is anti-Christian is inhuman; whether it concern the common dignity of the human race, or the dignity, liberty and integrity of the individual, for whom, saving the necessary coordinations and co-operations, society exists, even as the individual man is ordered to God, Creator and Saviour to whom all should cry out: Deus meus es Tu; and also: Dilexit me et tradidit semet ipsum pro me!" (Doc. Cath., 20th January 1939) That international good faith, respect for neighbours and for the inviolability of the human person are not hindrances to a realist politics, but are, on the contrary, the supreme political values, so that politics should regain its place among the moral sciences; that these political values are dependent on religion "teaching man the bonds that unite him to God"—one cannot but congratulate the statesman who said all this and meant it as Mr. Roosevelt did in his speeches of October 1937 and January 1939.

483 cf. also St. Luke iv, 5-6: "And the devil led him into a high mountain, and showed him all the kingdoms of the world in a moment of time. And he said to him: To thee I will give all this power, and the glory of them; for to me they are delivered, and to whom I will I give them."

484 It was natural for the angels to turn towards God as the principle of their natural being; but it was not natural for them to turn to God as the object of supernatural beatitude; and it was this that enabled them to sin (St. Thomas, I, q. 63, a. 1, ad 3. cf. De Malo, q. 16, a. 3.)

485 Paul Claudel, "A la Trace de Dieu" Positions et Propositions, 1934, vol. II, p. 83. cf. pp. 79-32: "Riviere remarks, along with many others, that the Church accommodates herself indifferently to all regimes, provided they only leave her free to follow her own divine vocation. But he cannot refrain from putting his finger on a very significant fact: that since the beginning the Church has always and everywhere had difficulties with all forms of society and State, even those that seem to borrow their own constitutive principles from her. Whether she deals with Roman or Byzantine Emperors, or barbarian princes, feudal chieftains, or communes, or Christian kings, with the revolution or the Emperor Napoleon, or Louis-Philippe, or Victor Emmanuel, or the French Republic, or the Czars, or the Bolsheviks, or the Protestant sovereigns, or the Chinese or the Indians, Japanese, Arabs, Turks, Redskins, or the savages of Africa or Oceania, there is always something that does not go smoothly and ends in disputes, persecutions, and martyrdoms.... Behind the provisional forms of the State lie the great natural principles on which human societies rest—honour, family, fatherland, property—and religion will not accept even these without reserve and without control; she knows how easily they can run amok, she declares that she is greater and stronger than they are, she denies their a priori character, she believes that all their value comes from God and that no human relation can have any weight in the balance against the sacred bond that unites the creature to its Creator. When such an idea was introduced into the oriental societies, entirely based on the despotism of the family, we can understand that they trembled to their foundations." Not that there is any anti-social principle in Christianity. "We ought rather to say that it contains an architectonic principle so energetic and so vast that no actual society is capable of wholly containing and coming to terms with it." (An English translation of this essay appears in Ways and Crossways, London 1933, p. 89)

486 I am convinced of the capital importance of the distinction between two conceptions' two Christian realizations of the temporal: the "sacral" or consecrational Christian conception' and the "profane" or secular Christian conception—a distinction which lies at the heart of Maritain's True Humanism.

487 To want to preserve or restore as it stood the medieval use of this word "Christendom", designating a complete temporal organization, would be to want to stop the historical clock, or put it back.

488 The expression "Christian world" is not necessarily a contradiction as some Barthians maintain; St. Augustine had already noted that in Scripture "The world" is taken now in a good, now in a bad, sense (Opus Imperfect., Contra Julianum, lib. IV, 18) However, I do not regard a Christian cultural complex, a Christian world, as something simple and unmixed: it comprises divine and sanctifying influences no doubt, but also man's part, and the devil's part. The Church alone is wholly pure; the devil has no part in her; but he has, unfortunately, in her children.

489 Speaking of the heathens and the Jews, St. Thomas declares that they cannot be forced to believe "quia credere voluntatis est" (II-II, q. 10, a. 8) That applies to all who are born of dissidents

490 In his allocution to Italian jurists of 6 Dec. 1953 (A. A. S., 1953, p. 794), His Holiness Pope Pius XII poses the problem of the civil toleration of diverse religious forms in a new way, and in terms of a world community of peoples: "The duty of keeping a check on moral and religious aberration cannot be an ultimate norm of action. It should be subordinated to norms which are of a higher and more general order and which, in certain circumstances, permit—and even cause to appear as the better course—the non-prevention of error for the sake of the promotion of a greater good." (The italics are in the text.)

491 Jacques Maritain, True Humanism pp. 200-201. Cf. p. 160: the error of theological liberalism would be to pretend "that because all human opinions of whatever kind have a right to be taught and propagated, the commonweal should be obliged to recognize as licit for each spiritual group the law worked out for that group according to its own principles". But, says Maritain, "that is not my meaning. To me this principle signifies that in order to avoid greater evils (which would be the ruin of the community's peace and lead to the petrifaction—or the disintegration of consciences) the commonweal could and should tolerate (to tolerate is not to approve) ways of worship more or less distant from the truth: ritus infidelium sunt tolerandi was the teaching of St. Thomas (I-II, 10, 11); ways of worship and thus also ways of conceiving the meaning of life and modes of behaviour; and that in consequence the commonwealth would decide to accord to the various spiritual groups which live within it the juridical status which the city itself in its political wisdom adapts on the one hand to their condition, and, on the other, to the general line of legislation leading towards the virtuous life, and to the prescriptions of the moral law, towards whose fulfilment in the fullest obtainable degree it should endeavour to direct this diversity of forms. Thus it is towards the perfection of the natural law and of Christian rectitude that the pluriform juridical structure of the city would be orientated, even in its most imperfect stages and those which are farthest from the ideal of Christian ethics. The positive pole of its direction would be integral Christianity, the various degrees which are more or less remote or diverted from this end being ordered according to its political wisdom. Thus the commonwealth would be vitally Christian, and the various non-Christian spiritual groups included in it would enjoy a just liberty." And again in Freedom in the Modern World, p. 65, note 1, having recalled the formula attributed by Montalembert to the Catholic opponents of liberalism, and later attributed (wrongly) by Jules Ferry to Veuillot: 'When I am the weaker, I claim freedom from you since it is your principle; when I am the stronger, I take it from you, since that is my principle" Maritain adds: "No one assuredly professes such a doctrine. If one is to make sure, however, of being no party to it without falling into the error of Montalembert himself, in order in other words to effect a real reconciliation between non-Liberalism and Liberty and not to rest in the use of expedients or in the order of intention only, it is, we think, difficult to avoid recourse to a solution of the pluralist type that is sketched here." The notion of the "State vitally Christian" has been opposed to that of the "State decoratively Christian" by the same author in The Rights of Man and Natural Law, p. 16 (Les droits de l'homme et la loi naturelle, 1942) We are not to accept the errors of Montalembert or those of Donoso Cortes, for whom (1) the Church is compatible with monarchy only; (2) the Church considers almsgiving as an adequate solution to the social problem; (3) the Church and the Army are today the two representatives of European civilization (see my article "Pourquoi Joseph de Maistre et Donoso Cortes ne sont pas nos maitres", in Nova et vetera, 1949, p. 193) For Lamennais, see Jacques Maritain's searching critique of his errors in Raison et Raisons, Paris 1947, pp. 280-3.

492 Questions de conscience, p. 203

493 Printed in Vie Intellectuelle, August 1939, under the title of "Qui est mon prochain?"

494 On the actual mode of co-operation between the Church and the State in a secular regime, see the clarification provided by Jacques Maritain in Man and the State, Chicago 1951, pp. 171-9.

495 See Maritain, op. cit., p. 161: "The stock phrase"recourse to the secular arm,' that is, to civil law, to enforce, in certain circumstances dealing with the public order and the temporal domain, a canonic regulation concerning the members of the Church, means something quite different from the concept of the political power as being the secular arm or instrument of the Church. In a pluralistic society it is but normal that the particular regulations of an autonomous body may be sanctioned by civil law, from the civil society's own viewpoint, when the interests of the common good are concerned."

496 True Humanism, p. 166.

497 Montesquieu has said that the Romans subjected religion to the State. The contrary, said Fustel de Coulanges, is nearer the truth: "At Rome, as at Sparta and Athens, the State was enslaved to religion.... This state and this religion were so completely fused together that it was impossible not only to conceive a conflict between them, but even to distinguish one from the other," (La cite antique, p. 194) ibid., p. 257: "It was at the time of Cicero that it began to be believed that religion was useful to the government; but by then religion was already dead in souls."

498 Einfluss des Christentums auf das Corpus Juris Civilis, Vienna 1937, pp. 5-7.

499 In China and Japan, the distinction becomes possible between "religious ceremonies" and "political ceremonies" between a "religious cult" and a "purely civil cult," given to the portraits of one's ancestors and images of Confucius—a distinction which, carried a little further, makes possible a solution to the "rites controversy".

500 St. Thomas, II-II, q. 10, a. 10

501 See Jacques Maritain, Man and the State, p. 160

502 Expositio Quarumdam Propositionum ex Epistola ad Romanos, propos. 72 (see above, p. 200, n. 1)

503 No. 7. St. Thomas, who cites this text, following Gratian (assigning it to St. Ambrose), opposes it to the rule that Christians have to follow in the medieval regime (II-II, q. 12, a. 2, obj. 1)

504 If, as Cicero would have it, the republic, the city, should be defined by justice, the ancients never knew any republic, since true justice is not to be found save in the republic of which Christ is the Founder and Protector (lib. II, cap. xxi, 4) But "to adopt more acceptable definitions [probabiliores], it may be said that they knew a kind of republic, which was better administered by the first Romans than by their descendants" (ibid.) This republic was made of the union of those who, still far from God, sought a peace which was not blameworthy, the peace of Babylon (lib. XIX, cap. xxvi), necessary to the City of God, which will not hesitate to obey the laws of the earthly city (ibid., cap xvii) cf. Epistle cxxxv III, 17: "God thus showed, in the magnificent and illustrious Empire of the Romans, all that the civil virtues could do, even without the true religion [quantum valerent civiles etiam sine vera religione virtutem], so that it might be understood that when this last should arrive, men would become citizens of another City whose king is truth, whose law is charity, and whose mode is eternity."

505 Lib. IV, cap. Iv

506 L'augustinisme politique, p. 4. cf. Gustave Schnurer, Kirche und Kultur im Mittelalter, 3rd ed., Paderborn 1936, vol. I, p. 69. "St. Augustine considers the Roman state, in the measure in which it was founded historically on the cult of false gods, as a representative of the civitas terrena. But he no more denies all right and all worth to the State properly so-called than he does to the Roman state." In short, the terrestrial city is decomposed into the temporal or political city, and the mystical or diabolical city.

507 "Non autem recte dicuntur ea bona non esse, quae concupiscit haec civitas [terrena], quando est et ipsa in suo genere humano melior. Concupiscit enim terrenam quamdam pro rebus infimis pacem: ad eam namque desiderat pervenire bellando.... Hanc pacem requirunt laboriosa bella; hanc adipiscitur quae putatur gloriosa victoria. Quando autem vincunt qui causa justiore pugnabant, quis dubitet gratulandam esse victoriam et provenisse optabilem pacem? Haec bona sunt, et sine dubio Dei dona sunt. Sed si, neglectis melioribus, quae ad supernam pertinent civitatem, ubi erit victoria in aeterna et summa pace secura, bona ista sic concupiscuntur, et, vel sola esse credantur, vel his quae meliora creduntur, amplius diligantur, necesse est miseria consequatur et quae inerat augeatur" (lib. XV, cap. iv)

508 To those who try to explain the appalling cruelty of the German wars against the Slavs by the fact that the Slavs, who were pagans, could not but seem to Christians as without rights and excluded from the world order, Karl Erdmann replies that the sole text of Otto I which we possess makes no allusion to the paganism of his adversaries. He adds that the Chronicles are no tenderer to the Polish Slavs, who were Christians. What was then taken into consideration was not religion whether pagan or Christian, nor yet the character of Slav or German, but citizenship of the Empire, and when the Emperor had to mediate, he tried first to establish on which side lay the right (Die Entstehung des Kreuzzugsgedankens, Stuttgart 1935, pp. 91-94) About the same time the Chronicle of Salerno speaks of repeated alliances between Christians and Moslems, and it attributes a defeat suffered by the Salernites to the fact that they had broken their pledged word to the Moslems (ibid., p. 98)

509 II-II, q. 10, a. 10

510 II-II, q. 12, a. 2: "Infidelitas secundum seipsam non repugnat dominio."

511 That is, the Pope as head or protector of the temporal order.

512 In II-II, q. 66, a. 8. The five Dominicans—among them Peter of Cordoba and Antony de Montesinos—whom Cajetan, then General of the Order, sent towards the end of 1509 to San Domingo were truly apostolic men. cf. Touron, Histoire generale de l'Amerique depuis sa decouverte, Paris 1769, vol. I, p. 213

513 "De Indis Recenter Inventis", sect. I, no. 7 (De Indis et de Jure Belli Relectiones, Carnegie Institution of Washington 1917, p. 226)

514 ibid., no. 19, p. 229

515 Cited by Marcel Brion, Bartholome de Las Casas, Paris 1927, p. 238. Already, at the Council of Constance when the Teutonic Order preached a "Crusade" against Poland and Lithuania, still partly pagan, the Poles had opposed the thesis, affirming the right of all peoples, even pagan' to their territorial independence' and proclaimed that Christ's doctrine ought to be spread abroad by means compatible with charity. cf. O. Halecki, La Pologne de 963 a 1914, Paris 1933, p. 101. The baneful state of mind into which the military Orders sank would make a useful historical study.

516 One can see in J. Dutilleul, Dict. de theol. cath., art. "Esclavage", col. 486-503, how this traditional doctrine was alternately proclaimed and obscured in the deplorable history of slavery in America.

517 "Jews are bondsmen of the princes by civil bondage which does not exclude the order of natural and divine law" (St. Thomas, II-II, q. 10, a. 12, ad 3; and III, q. 68, a. 10, ad 2)

518 II-II, q. 10, a. 12, III, q. 68, a. 10.

519 On condition, says Scotus, "that the thing is done prudently, so that the children are not killed beforehand by their parents, and can receive a Christian education. And further", he adds, "I believe that it would be a religious act to force the parents themselves, minis et terroribus, to receive baptism and to fulfil their obligations, for, even if they were not sincere, it would be a lesser evil for them to be unable to conform to an illicit religion with impunity, than to observe it freely. And their children, being well brought up, would, at the third or fourth generation, be true Christians" (IV Sent., dist. 4, q. 9, no. 2) In No. 1, Scotus at first denies, in agreement with the whole of tradition, that the young children of Jews and infidels can be baptized in spite of their parents. But he goes on to say that this interdiction is valid only for private persons: it does not concern the prince, whose authority will outweigh that of the parents when it is a question of applying a divine law. Note that Scotus, argumentation (1) supposes bad faith in the unbelievers, and, (2) disregards the intangibility of natural rights by the prince.

520 Reproduced in the Decretals, lib. VII, tit. I, cap 1.

521 "The opinion of St. Thomas," says Benedict XIV, "has prevailed in the tribunals, and it is the commonest among theologians and canonists" (Denz. 1482) It is curious to note how the doctrine of St. Thomas, faithfully explained by Capreolus (IV Sent., dist. 5 and 6), is attenuated in several of his best disciples. Cajetan, for example, granting hypothetically the legitimacy of serfdom, considers that the children of serfs (and of Jews who are serfs of the Church), since they can be taken from their parents and sold, can similarly be baptized in spite of their parents; but, he adds, God would not have the Church resort to such means, and that is all that St. Thomas meant (In II-II, q. 10, a. 12, nos. 8-10) Francis of Vittoria says that Christians would not go beyond their rights in baptizing the children of infidels against their parents, wishes, provided there was no scandal and no danger of apostasy; in this sense, he holds, Scotus is in the right. Everybody grants that in wartime the infidels may be killed and their children taken from them; why then not baptized? However, adds Vittoria, the two conditions indicated are unrealizable in practice. Would not the Saracens be scandalized and say that Christianity prevailed by violence, and not by miracles? And how avoid the peril of apostasy if the children are left within reach of their parents? To take them away altogether could not be done without endangering life, and a return to Islam would be always to be feared. So that absolutely speaking, not doubtless as a matter of natural right, but at any rate on the authority of the Church, we must answer with St. Thomas, that the children of unbelievers are not to be baptized against the will of their parents (In II-II, q. 10, a. 12, nos. 8-10) St. Thomas then, as we see, affirms, much more clearly than his commentators, the inviolability of the rights of parents even as against Christian princes.

522 Epist., lib. X III, epist. 12; P. L. LXXVII, 1267: "….suas illi magis quam Dei causas probantur attendere."

523 It must, I am afraid, be added that the sixth national Council of Toledo, held in 638, by desire of King Chintila, gave thanks to God in its third Canon inasmuch as the King had just issued an edict ordering all the Jews to quit Spain, so that there should be none but Catholics in the land; in agreement with the King and the nobles the Council prescribed that all future kings should keep these ordinances in force (Hefele-Leclerq, Histoire des conciles, vol. III, p. 279) In fact the Jews were to occupy a privileged place in Arab Spain, and this continued for some time under the first Christian kings.

524 These texts are recorded in the Decretals: the first in lib. V, tit. vi, cap. ix; the second in lib. III, tit. xlii, cap. III.

525 II-II, q. 10, a. 8. Here again some of St. Thomas, disciples are hardly faithful to him. Vittoria begins by distinguishing unbelievers who are not subject to Christian princes, or who have voluntarily submitted to them on condition that their religion should be respected: neither class is to be constrained to Baptism. As to unbelievers who are subject to a Christian prince, by right, for example, of a just war, Vittoria agrees with Scotus that taking the action in itself, the prince would do well to force them, minis et terroribus et verberibus, to accept, to hold, and to defend the faith; but he adds that speaking absolutely, on account of the difficulties that would result, such action ought to be avoided. One feels the presence of the principle that became famous in the days of the Reformation: cujus regio illius religio. "I do not know", he says, "whether it is a good thing that the Saracens have been compelled to the faith in our days, and have been given the choice between conversion and banishment from Spain. They have often chosen conversion, and that is why there are so many bad Christians. I should not hesitate to declare that if a whole city, such as Constantinople, came to the faith, and if there remained only thirty or forty persons refusing conversion, they ought to be compelled to follow the majority. And I should not hesitate to say likewise, that if the Grand Turk were converted to the faith, he could constrain his subjects, under penalties, to become Christians.... All that of course on condition that the constraint led neither to dissimulation or to some greater evil" (In II-II, q. 10, a. 8, nos. 3-6) Billuart, on the contrary, was to be faithful to his master: "Unbelievers who have never had the faith, whether they are, or are not, subjects of Christian princes, are in no wise to be compelled to believe" (De Fide, dissert. 5, a. 2) To return to the case proposed by Vittoria, of a city which, with the exception of a small minority, should seek incorporation with a Christendom of the medieval type, there would be two ways of being just to the minority: either recourse to religious pluralism; or to expatriation, conceived however as an expropriation serving public utility, and indemnified.

526 Session XIV, De Poenitentia, cap. II

527 Karl Erdmann cites, among others, Firmicus Maternus and Bruno of Querfurt (Die Enstehung des Kreuzzugsgedankens pp. 4 and 97)

528 And she acted so, he says, not only in the case of pagans, but even at times in that of heretics (II-II, q. 10, a. 11)

529 Sacrilege against the Eucharist is not merely the gravest of sacrileges that can be committed against holy things; it is, says Cajetan, "The gravest of all sacrileges, since it is a direct offence against the humanity of Christ contained in this sacrament; so that if we look at the species of the sin it is worse to injure the Eucharist than it is to assassinate the Pope" (In II-II, q. 99, a. 4, no. 8)

530 The Crypto-Jews, who at times amounted to notable fractions of Jewry, so well understood how to pass themselves off for non-Jews, that many peoples took them for Christians (or Mohammedans) This is what we learn, says Sombart, concerning Jews of Hispano-Portuguese origin who inhabited the South of France during the fifteenth and sixteenth centuries and even later (and this applies equally to the Marranos of the Iberian peninsula and elsewhere): they obeyed all the external practices of the Catholic religion; their births, marriages and deaths were entered on the registers of the Church; and they were given the Christian sacraments of Baptism, Marriage and Extreme Unction. Some even became priests (The Jews and Modern Capitalism, London 1913, pp 8-9) In his Letter concerning Apostasy, Maimonides had justified the Jews who simulated conversion to Islam; he was imitated by many Rabbis. cf. Felix Vernet, "Juifs et chretiens", in Dict. apolog. de la foi cathol., col. 1677 and 1679

531 Felix Vernet, loc. cit., col. 1713-1714. Note that a Christian legislation, while supporting Christianity, had to be careful nevertheless not to put any premium on conversion.

532 loc. cit., col. 1714

533 loc. cit., col. 1727. Pere Bonsirven is also severe on the Visigothic laws: "They were almost all carried or confirmed in the Councils of Toledo' which amounted to the Parliament of the kingdom. We have here a very clear case of the subjection of the Church to the political power, a deplorable example of the handing over of spiritual arms to the State. Several unfortunate consequences followed. The bishops often had to make or sanction canons which contradicted principles as essential as that of freedom of belief and respect for consciences. They made themselves the servants of a political order that was barbarous, and, when all is said and done, antichristian. The result was, not to increase the number of the faithful, but to dilute them with innumerable hypocrites. Thus they inaugurated a regime of supervision of consciences, a spiritual police, wholly contrary to that spirit of liberty which ought to characterize a religion of the spirit. Did they not thereby open the door to the Spanish Inquisition, which took over and enslaved the ecclesiastical power for the benefit of the political? Did they not also sow on Spanish soil the first seeds of that fanatical and intolerant spirit which time and again has ravaged the Peninsula?" (Notes taken at the Conferences on Judaism, held at the Institut Catholique de Paris, VIIth conference.)

534 "The official expulsion of the Jews from Spain and Portugal," writes Sombart, "did not at once put an end to their history in those countries. Many Jews remained as pretended Christians (Marranos), and it was only under the pressure of the Inquisition, whose severity increased under Philip III, that they were obliged to leave the country; many of the Spanish and Portuguese Jews did not emigrate till well into the sixteenth century and towards its end." Many Jews likewise remained in England after the expulsion of 1290, and were still there till the time of their more or less official return under Cromwell. Sombart, as is well known, was struck by the parallelism he saw between the displacement of the Jews on the one side and that of the economic centre of gravity of Europe on the other (The Jews and Modern Capitalism, London 1913, ch. ii, pp. 13 et seq.)

535 Cf. St. Thomas, II-II, q. 10, a. 5.

536 It was only later that it acquired the sense of "perfidy," when the Jews were accused of insincere conversions and treasonable relations with the enemies of the Christians. cf. Vernet, loc. cit., col. 1733. On the philological meaning of the expression and the custom of omitting the genuflexion in the prayer for the Jews on Good Friday since the ninth century, see Erik Peterson, "Perfidia judaica", in Ephemerides Liturgicae, 1936, p. 296 et seq. This omission, due perhaps to a mere liturgical displacement, has been interpreted as a protest against the sacrilegious genuflexions of the Praetorium, for which the primary responsibility was placed on the Jews.

537 "Aliquod bonum quod ex eis provenit" (II-II, q. 10, a. 11)

538 M. J. Lagrange, O. P. Epitre aux Romains, 1916, p. 284.

539 "It is a statement of fact. Paul, seeing himself repulsed by the Jews, turned to the Gentiles (Acts x III, 45-48), who are put in the way of salvation all the sooner. And if the Jews had been converted en masse would they have consented to renounce their law? Would Christianity have been freed from national observances, and so become a suitable religion for the Gentiles? The learned of our day are entirely in agreement with Paul, that the refusal of the Jews facilitated the entry of the Gentiles." Lagrange, op. cit., p. 275.

540 That is a traditional view. It is found in St. Augustine: "Today, if the Jews are dispersed through all nations and lands, that is due to God's design; so that if the idols, altars, sacred groves and temples are destroyed all over the earth and the sacrifices forbidden, it could still be seen from the Jewish books that all this was prophesied long ago; and although the prophecies, fulfilled in the Christian religion, may be read also in our own holy books, no one can accuse us of having composed them ourselves after the event" (De Civitate Dei, lib. IV, cap. xxxiv) In St. Thomas we find: "The books of the Jews are witnesses everywhere for Christ and the Church, for when the heathen read them in the Jewish books they could not imagine that the prophecies concerning Christ had been fabricated by the Christian preachers" (In Epist. ad Rom., cap. xi, lect. 2) cf. Pascal: "They lovingly and faithfully preserved this book in which Moses declares that they have been ungrateful to God all their lives, that he knows that they will be still more so after his death; but that he calls heaven and earth to witness against them, and that he has done all he can to teach them" (Pensees) Reduced to essentials, this argument means that on the religious plane Israel appears to have fallen from the high part marked out for it by the prophecies, and that this spiritual downfall visibly influences its historical and worldly destinies. But if Israel survives the dispersion, it is because it is destined, by divine decree, to re-integration.

541 They were forbidden to carry the Bible or the Ark in procession in the ghetto. At Rome they were obliged to listen to a Christian sermon on the Old Testament (F. Vernet, loc. cit., col. 1739 and 1738) cf. the remark of Erik Peterson, (Le mystere des Juifs et des Gentils, Paris, pp. 54 and 72) who connects this preaching with that of Stephen during his martyrdom.

542 "Two canons of the Decretals, lib. V, tit. vi, caps. III and vii, the one taken from St. Gregory the Great, the other from Pope Alexander III (1180), rule that, although the Jews are not to be disturbed in the possession of their synagogues, they must not build any more. Alexander authorises the necessary repairs and rebuilding, provided that the synagogues are not made larger or richer than in the pa St. Paul IV decreed that they could have only one synagogue in each town or place they inhabited. The Popes did not hesitate to dispense, when they judged it useful, from the prescriptions of the Decretals and of Paul IV. Basnage tells us that in his time there were nine synagogues at Rome, nineteen in the Roman Campagna, thirty-six in the March of Ancona, twelve in the Patrimony of St. Peter, eleven at Bologna and thirteen in the Romandiola" (F. Vernet, loc. cit., col. 1739)

543 ibid., col. 1691.

544 Fourth Council, canon 57, cited above, p. 229

545 "The Decretals, lib. V, tit. vi, cap. ix, contain, under the name of Clement III (119), a Bull which could be called the charter of Jewish liberties. It forbids baptism without consent, wounding killing, interference with their goods and their good customs, disturbance of the celebration of their feasts, exaction of forced services above existing usage, restriction or invasion of their cemeteries or exhumation of their dead obtentu pecuniae. All this under pain of excommunication. The first phrase ' Sicut Judaeis.... ' and the greater part of the provisions of this Bull were borrowed from Gregory the Great. It seems, from the Formulary of Marino of Eboli, that the first Pope who promulgated it in its complete form was Nicholas II (d. 1061 ) It was renewed by Calixtus II, Eugenius III, Alexander III, Clement III, Celestine III, Innocent III, Honorius III, Gregory IX, Innocent IV, Urban IV, Gregory X, Nicholas III, Honorius IV, Nicholas IV, Clement VI, Urban V, Boniface IX, Martin V, Eugenius IV, and perhaps others" (F. Vernet, loc. cit., col. 1736)

546 Canon 65 of the Fourth Council of Toledo, in 633. cf. Hefele-Leclerc, Histoire des conciles, vol. III, p. 275. This canon is inserted in the Decretum, part II, cause 17, q. 4, c. 31. The bracketing of Jews with Saracens did not hold good always and everywhere. Alexander III, for example, wrote to the Bishops of Spain: "The position of the Jews is not the same as that of the Saracens. These latter persecute the Christians, turn them out of their towns and lands, and it is quite proper to fight them. But the Jews are everywhere disposed to obey" (Decretum II, cause 23, q. 8, c. 11)

547 Canon 69 of the Fourth Council of the Lateran, in 1215. cf. Histoire des conciles, vol. V, p. 1387. Inserted in the Decretals, lib. V, tit. vi, cap. xvi; cf. cap. xv III.... "In spite of these prohibitions, frequently renewed, and finally by Benedict XIV, they sometimes became farmers of the taxes, toll collectors, treasurers to the princes, their representatives at foreign courts, magistrates in the South of France, and so on" (F. Vernet, op. cit., col. 1743)

548 Decretals, cap. ii. (F. Vernet, loc. cit., col. 1742) Following B. Lazare the author does not agree that the Jews were forced to live by usury (col. 1696)

549 Canon 26 of the Third Lateran Council, in 1179. cf. Histoire des conciles, vol. V, p. 1105; and Decretals, cap. V. "It would be more dangerous for unbelievers to have dominion or authority over the faithful than that they should be allowed to employ them in some craft. Wherefore the Church permits Christians to work on the land of the Jews because this does not entail their living with them" (St. Thomas, II-II, q. 10, a. 10, ad 3)

550 Decretals, cap. xix. cf. St. Thomas, II-II, q. 10, a. 10.

551 Canon 68 of the Fourth Council of the Lateran: Decretals, cap. xv. At the end of the De Regimine Judaeorum St. Thomas notes how this provision agrees with that of the Jewish law.

552 F. Vernet, loc. cit., col. 1740. "The institution appeared in Italy in the eleventh century; in the thirteenth the Emperor Frederick II put the Jews in a special quarter in his capital at Palermo. The closed Jewry was set up in Spain in 1412" (Joseph Bonsirven, Conferences sur le Judaisme, IXth Conference)

553 "It knew not what it did; but its rulers knew very well that they were opting against God. In one of those acts of freewill which settle the destinies of a community, the priests of Israel, the evil guardians of the vine, the slayers of the prophets, opted for the world from motives of political prudence, and the whole people was thenceforth bound by this option—until it should change it of itself" (Jacques Maritain, Questions de Conscience, p. 61) cf. Bourdaloue's sermon on scandals: "But sins, you will tell me, are personal.... I agree.... But scandal [in the sense of 'leading astray'] is an exception. Why? Because scandal is not a purely personal sin but a kind of original sin"—which spills over and communicates itself to others.

554 In our own day, Sombart, without accepting the data of theology, tries to interpret the economic life of the Jews in the light of their religion.

555 During the first Crusade the Jews along the Rhine, reduced to desperate straits by bands of adventurers, appealed for help to the Emperor who protected them for a consideration, and they were called the serfs of the Imperial Household. In the course of time the right to hold the Jews was granted, sometimes to towns, sometimes to nobles. Their dependence on the Emperor, writes S. Deploige, "became stricter, their freedom to come and go was gradually reduced, and unauthorised emigration was punished by general confiscation. The exchequer moreover made increased demands on them, and even their proprietary rights over their goods was ultimately questioned. In the thirteenth century this evolution had reached its term." In St. Thomas' time the theory of the civil bondage of the Jews w as firmly entrenched in public law. St. Thomas accepts the principle but would moderate the application: the "necessaria vitae subsidia" are not to be taken from them, and they are not to be irritated by exactions greater than those of the past (F. Vernet, loc. cit., col. 1745-1746) Note that only the first and last points of the De Regimine Judaeorum treat of the relations of the prince with the Jews as such: the rest treat of the relations of the prince with usurers, and apply as against the Cahorsines and the Lombards.

556 "Although Christian piety welcomes the Jews, subjected by their own fault to a perpetual servitude..." This celebrated passage opens the decree of Innocent III forbidding the Jews to have Christian nurses for their children, on account of the ill-treatment inflicted on them (Decretals, lib. V, tit. vi, cap. x III) St. Thomas refers to this text at the beginning of the De Regimine Judaeorum, where he seems to withhold his opinion: "Licet, ut jura dicunt, Judaei, merito culpae suae, sint vel essent perpetuae servituti addicti..."; and elsewhere, for example II-II, q. 10, a. 11, ad 3.

557 In this passage St. Paul turns to the Bible itself to prove that what was always foreseen in the divine plan was not one perpetual covenant, but two successive covenants: first that of "slaves" or of the spirit of fear, and then that of "sons" or of the spirit of liberty. The two cannot live side by side, for the first will injure the second; and one must cast out the other as in Scripture the son of the free-woman cast out the son of the bond-woman: cf. M. J. Lagrange, O. P., Epitre aux Galates, 1918, pp. 118-122. To this thought, the Epistle to the Romans adds the prophecy relating to the later destinies of Israel, its character as people of God in spite of, and even in the midst of, its straying, and the announcement of its general return to the faith.

558 "A theory, famous in Germany in the twelfth century, and recorded in the Schwabenspiegel, refers this bondage to a Roman origin: Titus gave Jewish prisoners to the Imperial treasury and they remained the property, the slaves, of the Empire. That is a mere historical fantasy long ago discarded" (F. Vernet, loc. cit., col. 1745) It is to be found in Francis of Vittoria, In II-II, q. 10, a. 12, no. 16: Christendom, the heir of the Roman Empire, triumphed over the Jews by the arms and in the persons of the Emperors Titus and Vespasian.

559 It was at the time of the Reformation, when Jewish activity became more dangerous, that the Popes took the strictest measures against them. In 1555 Paul IV obliged all the Jews in the Pontifical State to sell all their real estate; and condemned them, moreover, to the seclusion of the ghetto. In 1569 St. Pius V extended this last ordinance to the whole of Christendom; and, a new departure, expelled the Jews from all his States except Rome and Ancona. In 1581 Gregory XIII decreed that for certain offences the Jews could be punished by the Inquisition: "Practically speaking, the Inquisition hardly took notice of anything save re-Judaizing and ownership of the Talmud; it was the former alone, or almost so, that prompted the severities of the Inquisition of Spain; while proceedings against the Talmud bore rather on the book, which was burnt, than on persons." Sixtus V was more lenient. In 1586 he repealed the edict of expulsion. He revalidated the ordinances made in the past in favour of the Jewish bankers in Rome and tolerated lending at very high rates of interest. Clement VIII tried to revive the tradition of Paul IV and of St. Pius V. He suppressed usury. He expelled the Jews again; but had to rescind this decision three months later. After his time the Popes attempted no further expulsions (F. Vernet, loc. cit., cols. 1702, 1729, 1731) On the subject of the "surprising permission" granted by Clement VII to the bankers of Imola, to lend at upwards of thirty or forty per cent, the same author recalls that the Pope was in great need of money to cope with the lamentable situation created by the sack of Rome in 1527; and he adds: "If his benevolent measures towards Israel are to be thus explained, as is probably the case, and if they were spontaneous, his gratitude was extreme; if they were forced on him by the lenders, they imposed conditions that were truly draconian" (ibid., col. 1701 )

560 In his conferences on Judaism, in which he strongly insists on the wrongs inflicted by Christians on the Jews, Pere Bonsirven would not have them made the ground for a judgment on the general conduct of the Church. He sums the matter up in four points, following the preamble of the Bull of Pope Martin V:" (1) The Church considers the Jews as unbelievers whose obstinacy she deplores; (2) she wishes their rights and privileges to be respected; (3) she works to defend the faith of her own children against them; (4) and does her best to convert them without infringing their liberty" (Seventh Conference) A little further on, dealing with the legislation of the Fourth Lateran Council, he writes: "On the whole these laws, with all their discriminations, so painful to us now, were simply part of the measures which a Christian society then took to safeguard its members, their faith and their dignity. Various historians have rightly observed that these legislations were inspired by the spirit and letter of the Mosaic codes, since for the Christians of this period the Old Testament was still a compendium of divine ordinances valid for all time. It is equally right to remark that the majority of the limitations on the liberty of foreigners were similarly imposed by the traditional Jewish law, as we find it in the Talmud, on Gentiles and on pagans, as threatening the religion and life of the Jews. And it has to be added that many of these prescriptions were often lost sight of and violated in practice, and had to be promulgated anew. It was not only people and princes who made light of ecclesiastical prohibitions; several Popes either abrogated precautions taken by their predecessors, or took no notice of them" (Eleventh Conference)

561 Jacques Maritain, Questions de conscience, p. 85. Since the ghetto became obligatory only towards the fifteenth century the author here employs the word "as symbolic of a certain politico-juridical conception".

562 The "emancipation of the Jews effected by the French Revolution is a fact which civilised peoples, if they want to remain civilised, will have to take for granted. In itself, it was a just thing (responding to an aspiration that was, in reality, Christian) But the rationalist and optimist bourgeois ideology—unaware of the mystery of Israel as of all supra-individual realities, and usurping the name, noble in itself, of liberalism—hoped that it would extinguish the Jewish problem, a hope quickly proved vain. It seems that the times on which we are entering are called to another experiment. It would be fundamentally different from the medieval one but would correspond to it analogically, and would temporalise, if I may so put it, and proportion to a secular type of civilisation, a problem which the Middle Ages looked at from a consecrational standpoint." As opposed to a "parody of the medieval solution", we must envisage "a Christian pluralist regime based on the dignity of human persons and complete equality of civic rights, which would grant a special statute on the one hand to various spiritual families (and therefore to the Jews), and on the other to national minorities not easy to assimilate (and here again we should find the Jews)"

(J. Maritain, Questions de conscience, pp. 86-90) The State of Israel was proclaimed on the 14th May 1948. See also my book Destinees d'lsrael, Paris P. U. F., 1945.

563 I say "in principle", since, as St. Thomas remarks, for fear of greater evils the Church may allow Christian princes to tolerate even the rites of heretics when these are very numerous (II-II, q.. 10, a. 11)

564 "La tradition francaise et la chretiente," in Vigile, no. 1, 193l, p. 68

565 II, q. 10, a. 10: "Cum ipsi Judaei sint servi Ecclesiae". cf. a. 12, ad 3: "Judaei sunt servi principum."

566 ibid., a. 11

567 Quodl. 12, q. 13, a. 19, ad 2

568 Denz., 469. He said himself that he neither desired to confuse the two powers nor to pretend that the King of France held his kingdom from him. I have cited above a text of Francis of Vittoria according to which the spiritual and the civil societies make up the single body of the Church, p. 206, n. 1.

569 "If the Ecclesia is the society of Christians as under the jurisdiction of the hierarchy, the Christianitas is the society of Christians as subject to the jurisdiction of temporal rulers" (Jean Rupp, L'Idee de chretiente dans la pensee pontificale, des origines a Innocent III, Paris 1939, p. 127)

570 As I have just said, the Eastern Church was not yet given up as hopelessly schismatical. And even today we term it not "schismatic", but "dissident",

571 Did the bishops, meeting at Compiegne to sit in judgment on Louis the Pious "already feel that they could depose the Emperor? Apparently not" (H. X. Arquilliere, L'Augustinisme politique, p. 129)

572 Cf. St. Thomas, I-II, q. 91, a. 4; q. 96, a. 2

573 "With the absolute ambition, the ingenuous courage of childhood, Christendom set to work to raise an immense stronghold, at whose summit God should be enthroned. It prepared a throne for Him on earth because it loved Him. Thus All human beings were stamped and ordered, protected and sealed by the sign of consecration, at least in the love that made them living." In a secular regime the temporal unity "will not be, as was the consecrational unity of mediaeval Christendom, a maximal one; it will be, on the contrary, minimal, its core of formation and organization in the life of the person not being on the highest level of the latter's supra-temporal interests, but on the plane of the temporal itself. And it is for this reason that this temporal or cultural unity does not, in itself, require a unity of faith and religion, and that it can be Christian while including non-Christians in its circle" (J. Maritain, True Humanism, pp. 7 and 165)

574 II, q. 12, a. 2 sed contra. The text is in the Decretum, Part II, cause 15, q. 6, c. 4.

575 II-II q. 10, a. 10.

576 The celebrated formula of St. Ambrose: Imperator intra Ecclesiam, non supra Ecclesiam est, undoubtedly calls for explanation. It is as one of the faithful that the Emperor is in the Church. As Emperor he is neither "within," nor "above" the Church; he is "outside" and "below" the Church understood in the proper sense. St. Ambrose himself regarded the priesthood and the Empire as two distinct powers, consequently exterior to each other, the second being subordinated to the first But if the Church is taken as synonymous with Christendom it is true that the Emperor, as such, is in the Church, in Christendom. On the thought of St. Ambrose see Pierre Batiffol, Le siege apostolique, Paris 1924, p. 81.

577 "Hoc nullo modo permitti debet." That is on account of the peril to the faith of the weaker subjects; and of the contempt of unbelieving princes for the faith, should they learn of the faults of the faithful (this last is St. Paul's reason when he forbids Christians to carry mutual accusation before pagan tribunals) (II-II, q. 10, a. 10)

578 "The dominion of Caesar, before the division of believers and unbelievers, was not annulled by the conversion of some Christians [aliquorum] to the faith" (ibid., ad 2)

579 Q 12, a. 2, ad 1. Cf. above, p. 224

580 The title of Arquilliere's book, Paris 1934

581 De Regimine Christiano, 1301-2, ed. H. X. Arquilliere, Paris 1926, pp. 232-233

582 "Nam spiritualis potestas terrenam potestatem et instituere habet, ut sit, et judicare habet, si bona non fuerit" (P. L. CLXXVI, 418) The same formula occurs, hardly modified, in the Bull Unam Sanctum: "Nam veritate testante, spiritualis potestas terrenam potestatem instituere habet, et judicare si bona non fuerit" (Denz., 469)

583 Cf. St. Thomas, In IV Sent., dist. 24, q. 1, a. 1, quae St. 3, ad 3. "The royal anointing did not exactly create the royal right: it partly presupposed it; it was not the absolute sign of legitimacy that it necessarily was for the theocracy, of the Old Testament. The prince who received it already occupied the throne, and exercised kingly functions" (H. Clerissac, O. P. "Jeanne d'Arc, messagere de la politique divine", Chroniques du roseau d'or, no. 2, Paris 1926, p. 5) See Maritain, Man and the State, Chicago 1953, p. 130: "A great deal of confusion had.... occurred in the Middle Ages because the solemn anointing or coronation of the king, by sanctioning from the sacred heights of the supernatural order his right to command in the natural order, conveyed to him, as servant or secular arm of the Church, a reflection of the supernatural royal virtues, bounty, justice, and the paternal love of Christ, Head of the Church. From this point of view the Middle Ages might regard the king as the image of Christ. But in the natural order, which is the order of political life, he was not the image of Christ, he was the image of the people. Theologians, especially in the Thomist lineage, were able clearly to make that distinction. But medieval common consciousness remained enmeshed in an ambivalent idea of the Prince."

584 "I excommunicate and bind under anathema, Henry who is called King and all his abettors.... I forbid him once more the kingdom of Germany and Italy and take away from him all power and royal dignity, I forbid any Christian to obey him as his king and I absolve from all oaths past and future which have been or shall be taken to him as a king" (H. X. Arquilliere, Saint Gregoire VII, Essai sur sa conception du pouvoir pontifical, Paris 1934, p. 193)

585 II, q. 10, a. 10. St. Thomas refers to the passage of St. Matthew (xvii. 24-27) on the "children who are free", (We know that in fact this incident referred to a debt to the Temple and not to the Roman Treasury) Cf. above p. 244.

586 ibid. Even then, however, the Church herself, and as such, cannot have recourse to arms

587 We may recall the words inscribed by Cardinal Lavigerie on the front of the Cathedral of Algiers: Ecclesia Christi moriendo, non occidendo, triumphavit. Or again, the words of Thomas Becket: Non est dei ecclesia custodienda more castrorum.

588 We shall not yet concern ourselves with the historical sense of the distinction in St. Bernard and then in Boniface V III who uses it in the Bull Unam Sanctam: "Both swords—the spiritual and the material—are in the hands of the Church: one to be drawn by the Church, the other for the Church; one by the hand of the priest, the other by the hand of kings and warriors, but at a sign from the priest and under his direction" (Denz. 469. See below pp. 323)

589 That is, sensible, corporal, as opposed to moral penalties; as to their end all canonical penalties (corporal or moral) are spiritual.

590 In connection with the heretic delivered to the secular arm, the same author writes a little earlier: "In this case the lay judge does not punish the religious offence merely because it wrongs the religious society, but also because it harms civil society, and thus the penalty is inflicted, not in the name of the Church, but in the name of the State. "Here we have a mere nuance of thought, or rather of expression. The lay judge could punish heresy by death, solely because it harmed civil society by destroying the faith, the supreme value of a consecrational society.

591 Dict. apol. de la foi cath., art. "Heresie", col. 452

592 L. Choupin thus sums up this opinion: "The right of the sword belongs to the Church in a mediate manner, in such a way that the Church has the right to turn to a Christian prince and oblige him to apply this penalty to the guilty, whom she points out to him. Then the Church would be exercising this power not of herself and directly, but mediately' by the secular arm. The civil power' for its part, would be doing a simple good office in the name of the Church: it would be pronouncing sentence and applying capital punishment, not in its own name but in that of the Church. The act is always attributed to the principal agent, not to the mandatory who executes it" (loc. cit., col. 448)

593 He cites St. Robert Bellarmine. But there is a big difference between Suarez, thesis—"Prima assertio catholica: quod, pro haeresi, poena mortis justa sit, et ex potestate Ecclesiae," (De Fide, disp. 23, s. L, no. 2)—and that of Bellarmine—"Nos igitur ostendemus, haereticos incorrigibiles ac praesertim relapsos, posse ac debere ab Ecclesia rejici et a saecularibus potestatibus temporalibus poenis, atque ipsa etiam morte, mulctari" (De Laicis, lib. III. cap. xxi) A little further on Suarez makes the further elucidation (no. 7) that the power of inflicting the death penalty on heretics "resides principally and eminently in the ecclesiastical magistracy and above all in the Sovereign Pontiff; and.... resides in kings, emperors and their ministers as it were in a proximate manner and in dependence on the ecclesiastical power. "St. Robert Bellarmine's view is the same as that of St. Thomas—the heretic is condemned as a heretic by the Church, who thenceforward abandons him to the secular power.

594 The great argument, or even the sole argument alleged' writes Choupin, was that the Church, being a perfect society just as much as the State, has as much right to the sword as the State. Now this is a sophism. If two perfect societies have different ends, the difference of end involves a difference of means, and so also a diversity of rights (loc. cit., col. 450) The word "society" is to be applied analogically to Church and to State.

595 L. Choupin, S. J., loc. at., col. 453.

596 "Les origines de l'action de la papaute en vue de la croisade", in Revue d'histoire ecclesiastique, Oct. 1938, pp. 765 -775.

597 My italics.

598 In the case of punishments involving blood inflicted on a cleric for violation of the civil law—theft, homicide, etc.—two hypotheses are possible. Either the responsibility fell on the secular tribunal to whom the Church abandoned the delinquent, no longer covering him with the privilegium fori; and, in fact, it was not as a cleric, but as a citizen, that he impugned the civil laws. Or the responsibility lay on the ecclesiastical tribunal, which had annexed an extra-canonical temporal coercive power to its canonical coercive power. In that case there would be not only two, but three extra-canonical powers: (1) the civil principate over the States of the Church, (2) the tutelage of Christendom, and (3) the power to inflict blood penalties on clerics guilty of temporal and secular offences.

599 Apologia de Comparata Auctoritate Papae et Concilii, ed. Pollet, no. 563 .

600 Letter of Gregory VII to William the Conqueror, P. L., CXLV III, 568.

601 Innocent III, in the Decretals, lib. I, tit. xxx III, cap. vi.

602 La reforme gregorienne, 1924, vol. I, p. 92; Saint Gregoire VII, 1928, p. 144.

603 La reforme gregorienne, 1925, vol. II, p. 313, note 2.

604 Carl Erdmann attaches this name hierocratism to a tendency of Gregory VII to consider all dues paid to the Holy See as signs of vassalage—and certainly not all were so—and to put them on a level with obligations to military service. (Die Entstehung des Kreuzzugsgedankens, Stuttgart 1935, p. 202 ) It must not be forgotten however that the Pope, as we have said, could mobilize the Christian princes, not as their suzerain, but as protector of Christendom.

605 cf. L. Choupin, "Heresie", Dict. apol. foi cath., col. 448-9.

606 "The Church has no right to use force; it has no temporal power, direct or indirect" (Denz. 1724) This proposition is extracted from the letter Ad Apostolicae Sedis, of 22 August, 1851, in which Pius IX condemned the errors of J. N. Nuytz

607 Valeur des decisions, etc., p. 259.

608 We shall not even understand the wrath of Jesus chasing the money-changers from the Temple (John ii. 13-17) or the sudden death of Ananias and Sapphira (Acts v. 1-11), or the punishment of Elymas (x III. 8-12)

609 "Nativum et proprium Ecclesiae jus est, independens a qualibet humana auctoritate, coercendi delinquentes sibi subditos poenis tum spiritualibus, tum etiam temporalibus" (Can. 2215, 1) Thus, from the standpoint of the end all ecclesiastical penalties are spiritual, just as all those of the State are temporal; but, from another point of view, ecclesiastical penalties can be divided into spiritual' moral' proper to the Church' such as deprivation of the sacraments' of suffrages, etc. and temporal, physical, common to both Church and State, such as fine, deprivation of an office or a benefice, etc.

610 Having indicated the different interpretations given to this passage, Pere Allo concludes thus: "St. Paul has indeed the positive intention of handing over the delinquent (for the salvation of his soul) to the assaults of Satan, who was a murderer from the beginning, and primary author of the physical and moral calamities that afflict mankind. The psychological effect of the condemnation, of which Origen speaks' cannot be neglected, but the Apostle also envisages bodily pains in which the devil will play his part; he does not fix nor even perhaps foresee the mode, but is prepared to see it amount to sickness and death. He cannot be accused of inhumanity considering the great good he has in view, namely the salvation of the soul; he acts, says Godet, as a mother who might pray God to smite her son and lead him to repentance. But note, that the penalty is not one superadded to that of excommunication. cut off from the Church, losing her protection, the incestuous person is banished to satan's domain; he will be abandoned without spiritual defences to this hostile power which interferes whenever it can—as the Gospel sufficiently shows—with the externals of human life. He will suffer therefore; and that on account of the sentence passed, loosing on him, thus indirectly, the mysterious and cruel adversary. But Paul hopes that this very suffering will detach him from the deceptive attractions of sin, and enlighten him about his miserable condition; even while casting him out for the good of the Church he has compromised, he prays for the one cast out. For excommunication is a medicinal penalty. And if the delinquent return to a better mind as a result of his chastisement, we may believe—though this is not said—that the Church will once more open her arms to him (Premiere epitre aux Corinthiens, p. 124)

611 "Satanae corporaliter vexandum": it is the first of the two explanations reproduced by St. Thomas in his commentary on this text. It is also F. Prat's interpretation, see The Theology of St. Paul, trans. J. L. Stoddard, London 1942, vol. I, p. 101.

612 We may recall however that St. Thomas sees a purely declaratory sentence in Peter's punishment of Ananias and Sapphira.

613 In VI Sent., dist. 14, q. r, a. 2, quae St. 1. Here St. Thomas explains the part played by punishment in the genesis of penitence. In I-II, q. 95, a. I—"Whether it is useful that laws should be decreed by men?"—in which he explores the fundamental reason for the legislative and coercive power, St. Thomas rises in advance above the extremist views which divide modern times—the optimist view which considers man as holy by nature and the pessimist view which considers him corrupted in his essence. He writes: "Man has by nature a certain aptitude to virtue; he attains the perfection of virtue only by a certain discipline." That discipline comes from without. To the man who is well-disposed "it is enough that it is proposed by way of paternal admonitions; but since there are obstinate men who are inclined to vice and made open to good words only with difficulty, it has been necessary to use force or fear in order to hold them back on the slope of evil, so that, leaving off ill-doing, they may at least leave others in peace and, being led by habit to do of their own will what they originally did out of fear, may one day become virtuous." According to St. Thomas, the law displays a coercive aspect to the evil only; and is primarily rectificatory and directive with reference to the common good, in virtue of which characteristic it would certainly have existed in the state of innocence, in which, he says, some would have had to rule others (I, q. 96, a. 4) What St. Thomas says of civil society should be understood proportionally or analogically of religious society.

614 In Joan. Ev., tract. 26, no. 2.

615 II, q. 10, a. 8.

616 Denz. 895.

617 Canon 12. For souls that do not belong to her, writes E. Vacandard, "The Church has always considered that the compelle intrare refers only to a moral constraint, only to gentle persuasion. That is a distinction of the first importance, and yet a responsible critic has forgotten to make it. 'How,' he says"could a religion of love and tolerance, based on the Gospel, come to burn alive those who did not accept its teaching? That is the problem.' But Lea himself took care not to fall into this error. He shows, on the contrary, that the Church has never prosecuted non-Christians and has put no constraint on unbelievers. But he regards this as an inconsequence. To be consistent to the end the Church should have burnt unbelievers as well as heretics" (L'Inquisition, etude historique et critique sur le pouvoir coercitif de l'Eglise, Paris 1907, p. 311. The "responsible critic", mentioned by Vacandard is Paul Fredericq, in his historical introduction to the French translation of Lea's History of the Inquisition)

618 Epist. XL III, 1.

619 Encyclical Immortale Dei, 1st Nov. 1885.

620 Speaking of heretics St. Thomas says: "If the Church proceeds against them it is not to make them believe by violence, but to save others from being corrupted and not to leave so great a sin unpunished" (IV Sent., dist. 13, q. 2, a. 3, ad 5)

621 II-II, q. 10, a. 8, ad 3: St. Augustine, Epistle CLXXXV, 22. The appropriateness of this scripture reference could be debated. The fact remains that in this sphere coercion is a dangerous custom, and should not be applied unless there is good hope of paving the way for some great good or averting some great evil.

622 St. Thomas, I-II, q. 87, a. 1.

623 "Sicut intentio principalis legis humanae est ut faciat amicitiam hominum ad invicem, ita intentio legis divinae est ut constituat principaliter amicitiam hominis ad Deum" (St. Thomas, I-II, q. 99, a. 2: Utrum lex vetus contineat praecepta moralia?)

624 "We affirm that the secular power can, without mortal sin, execute sentence of death, provided that it does not do so out of hatred but for justice' sake, not recklessly, but wisely" (Denz 425)

625 II, q. 40, a. 2, Utrum clericis et episcopis sit licitum pugnare? Is the right of the sword repugnant to the Church merely by a convention of positive law consecrated by immemorial usage, or is it repugnant essentially, in virtue of the very nature of her spiritual power? The point is debated by Catholic theologians. The reason I adduce leads me to choose this second opinion. cf. L. Choupin, Valeur des decisions doctrinales et disciplinaires du saint siege, pp. 511 et seq. The present Code of Canon Law considers the judge who has given sentence of death, and the executioner and his immediate assistants, as irregular ex defectu (can. 984, §§6 and 7)

626 Denz. 1697. The 24th condemned proposition of the Syllabus: "The Church has not the right to use force" (Denz. 1724,) undoubtedly refers to the coercive power; but it does not say whether intrinsically temporal or simply moral penalties are envisaged. But it would be easy to draw up a list of temporal penalties decreed at various times by Popes and Councils. The Council of Trent provided for example that the ecclesiastical judges could inflict fines (Session XXV, De Reformatione, cap. III) cf. The Codex Juris Canonici, can. 2291.

627 Can. 2214. §1 "The opinion that denies the Church any power to constrain by temporal punishments is at least erroneous, and rash; it is not fully evident that it is heretical, for the expression 'temporal punishments' does not figure in so many words in the definitions of the Church. However Suarez considers the opposite doctrine as of faith" (J. V. de Groot, O. P., Summa Apologetica De Ecclesia Catholica Ratisbon 1906, p. 394.) As for Suarez, here are his exact positions: He regards as of faith the thesis affirming that "The Church has the power to constrain heretics by punishments not only spiritual, but temporal and corporal"; as heretical, the thesis reserving to temporal prince alone the power of spiritually and temporally constraining heretics 'as erroneus and bringing its defenders under strong suspicion of heresy' the thesis reserving to the Church only spiritual coercion and to temporal princes all temporal and corporal coercion (De Fide, disp. 20, sect. 3, nos. 13-21)

628Codex Juris Canonici, can. 2214. This text mentions the three ends of punishment: (1) the repressive end, to safeguard the common good; (2) the medicinal end, for the amendment of the sinner; and (3) the preventive end, to put fear into the wicked cf. Konstantin Hohenlohe, Einfluss des Christentums auf das Corpus Juris Civilis, Vienna 1937, p. 206.

629 ibid., can. 2195. §1.

630Denz., 640.

631Denz.. 682.

632Session XXIV, De Reformatione Matrimonii, cap. v III.

633Can. 2198.

634The secular arm was used for fighting heresy and schism in the fourth century. Heresy was repressed under the Imperial laws. "This state of things did not last long, at any rate not in the We St. The fifth century had not passed away before the Roman Empire lay in ruins. The barbarians who divided amongst themselves the heritage of imperial Rome did not adopt, save on rare occasions, the religious legislation of the successors of Constantine.... The repression of heresy was no more than a the theological thesis to which popular indignation gave from time to time a sad reality. From the end of the twelfth century this thesis penetrated into the domain of law, it took its place among the canons of the Holy Roman Church, which the Christian princes were bound in conscience to obey" (J. Turmel, "Chronique d'histoire ecclesiastique", Revue du cIerge francais, Jan. 1906, vol. XLIX, p. 389)

635 St. Thomas, II-II, q. 50, a. 1.

636J. Maritain, Religion and Culture, London 1931, p. 49.

637Cf. above, p. 250.

638 St. Thomas, III, q. 62, a. 1, ad 2.

639"If human law should propose to subordinate divine worship to the interests of the peace of Society, and if, for example, it saw in that the chief reason for honouring God, it would be perverse. Human law does not do that: although doubtless many impious legislators have attempted it, inventing all kinds of myths to serve this end, as Aristotle suggests in the second book of the Metaphysics. But whereas there are many ways of justifying divine worship, human law, taking account only of those things that concern its own domain, will make them serve the common good, and it abstracts from reasons that do not concern it. Now to abstract is neither to lie nor to sin. And if grace perfects nature instead of destroying it, human law can take the common good of human society for its principal end without thereby being prevented from subordinating it to a higher end in virtue of a higher principle" (In I-II, q. 99, a. 3, no. 4)

640 Followers of the older heresies, for instance the Nestorians of the East, were treated otherwise. The Graeco-Russians were never at bottom regarded as truly and finally separated. The only heretics to be persecuted were those who, in the very bosom of the West, set out to defeat the effort of the West, which was at once cultural and religious. For it w as thought that the precept to tolerate the cockle was binding only if it was clear that the cockle could not be torn up without the wheat. When the danger of tearing up both together was overcome, that is to say "when a man's crime is so publicly known and so hateful to all that he has no defenders, or none such as might create a schism, then the severity of discipline should not be relaxed". These words of St. Augustine's, with excommunication in view (Contra Epist. Parmeniani lib. III, cap. II), are recalled by St. Thomas in connection with the repression of heretics In II-II, q. 10, a. 8, ad I; q. 11, a. 3, ad 3. He notes that the guilty cannot be eliminated without danger: (1) when their malice is not certain, (2) when they do not remain obstinate in error, (3) when they are inextricably intermingled with the good (Quodlibet X, q. 7, a. 15, ad 1)

641 Ad Salutem Humani Generis, 20 April 1930.

642 There is no question, be it repeated, of constraining to the faith those who have never had it-there is nothing either Augustian or traditional about such a thesis—but only of bringing pressure to bear on those who have culpably deserted it. Concerning the case of St. Francis Xavier, Leon van der Essen writes: "He still retained traces of the medieval conception of missionary work among the pagans, which envisaged the rapid conversion of the masses with the help and support of the chief or prince. Francis Xavier sometimes had recourse to the temporal power in order to grapple with drunkenness or in order to destroy the exterior manifestations of paganism. In one set of circumstances at least he even declared that the conversion of pagans is impossible without the support of force, and in that, he is the child of a tradition. But for all that he only called upon the temporal power in certain strictly determined cases, and he is the first among the missionaries whose overriding desire is to act above all by means of the inner power of the Gospel and through his own personality, without always, or even often, seeking an easy support from outside—which is something new and should be particularly emphasised" (Histoire generale comparee des missions: Les missions d l'epoque des decouvertes, Brussels 1932, p. 321) In my opinion this is at one and the same time to do too much and too little honour to St. Francis Xavier. It is to do too much, because he is—happily—not the first missionary, even in the East, to rely solely on the inner power of the Gospel: in 1305 John of Montecorvino, in the heart of China, asked to be sent friars "who have one desire only—to give themselves as an example". It is to do too little, because when he wishes the King of Portugal himself to threaten the Governor of Ceylon with chains if he does not "make many Christians", he does not mean that the pagans should be forced to believe. On the contrary, what he wants to do is to put an end to the rivalries among the missionaries, "The injustices and robberies of which the poor Christians are the victims", Pere Brou writes: "The protectorate such as we see it exercised today in the Far East, may have its inconveniences; but Francis had no experience of them. He judges on the basis of what he has before his own eyes; since Portugal is Catholic, she should be so in her colonies, and be so all through, right up to the furthest practical consequences These consequences are three in number: the stopping of persecution and consequent ensuring of freedom of conscience: the encouragement of conversions through increasing the number of missionaries: and the ending of the scandal caused by the injustices perpetrated by the Europeans against Christians. That is all that is implied by the phrase 'to make Christians' which he several times employs. We may add the temporal advantages granted by Europeans to their new brethren in the faith, and then we have St. Francis Xavier's compelle intrare in its entirety, in which we cannot discern the anti-Gospel elements which Protestantism may see. For this is indeed the minimum that may be asked of a Christian prince who has a sense of his responsibilities" (Saint Francois Xavier, Paris 1912, vol. II, p. 10)

643 Remember that this word, in St. Augustine, always implies bad faith: he does not class with the heretics those who, born in error, however pernicious, defend it in good faith.

644 That is, remained there by culpable negligence

645 Epist., XC III, 16-18.

646 Epist., CLXXXV, 21-22

647 Lib. II, cap. v.

648 Pierre Batiffol, Le catholicisme de saint Augustin, Paris 1920, p. 290. Cf. Contra Cresconium, lib. III 55.

649 "Taking everything into account, says a serious historian (Dollinger), if we read the acts of the tribunals of the Inquisition of Toulouse and Carcassonne, we are left in no doubt that the endura, voluntary or forced, claimed more victims than the stake of the Inquisition" (E. Vacandard, L'Inquisition, p l20)

650 "Excommunicamus et anathematizamus universos haereticos.... Facies quidem habentes diversas, sed caudas ad invicem colligatas, quia de vanitate conveniunt in idipsum. Damnati vero per Ecclesiam saeculari judicio relinquantur, animadversione debita puniendi: clericis prius a suis ordinibus degradati" (Decretals, cap. xv., "De Haereticis", lib. V, tit. vii) Facts alone inform us that in this text of Gregory IX the animadversio signifies the death penalty, as in the ancient Roman law. But earlier it did not carry this sense: cf. E. Vacandard, L'Inquisition, pp. 132, 67, note 2. In fact the sentence of Gregory IX is borrowed almost word-for-word from Innocent III (cap. x III, De Haereticis, lib. V, tit. vii) Now, "from the whole penal legislation decreed by Innocent III it results that he never prescribed the death penalty; almost all the critics agree on this point." the animadversio under Innocent III included banishment of the guilty, with its consequences, notably confiscation of goods: at the worst, imprisonment for life (E. Vacandard, op. cit., pp. 69, note 2; 73; 75, note 1; pp. 124-6)

651 Here we enter the field of particular decisions, in which the Sovereign Pontiff is assisted only in a prudential and fallible manner.

652 Lib. I, cap. xxi.

653 Denz., 425.

654 II-II, q. 40, a. 1, ad I; cf. St. Augustine, Contra Faustum, lib. XXII, cap. lxx.

655 Raissa Maritain, Le prince de ce monde, Paris 1932, p. 17. The terrible fatality which attaches to the use of force, even when legitimate, will not only persuade the churchman to use it only with the greatest prudence, but will also oblige the statesman himself to prefer constructive means to warlike. When he cannot, and has no alternative but to resort to warlike means, he should surely be led to join the arms of a spiritual warfare to those of a carnal warfare. "The force of coercion and of aggression, the force that strikes, aims at the destruction of one evil by way of another evil (in the physical order) which it inflicts on the body. It follows that evil (on however small a scale), passes from one to another endlessly according to the law of transitive action. For the patient, unless he has understood and voluntarily accepted the hurt he has received—which happens rarely and anyhow depends on strength of soul—is stirred to react in more or less crafty ways of evil-doing. The force of voluntary suffering and of patience, the force of endurance, tends to annihilate the evil by accepting and dissolving it in love, sublimating its sorrow in the soul in the shape of resignation There it stays and goes no further. And thus the force that strikes, and is necessary, and, if it be just, stops the expansion of evil and limits and contracts but is unable to extinguish it, has in its own nature less strength and perfection than the force that endures and that, in the case where it is informed by charity, is of its own strength capable of extinguishing as it arises that evil that free agents never cease to introduce into the world. It is evidently of its own nature a more effective instrument of redemption." It is of moment therefore for politics to know whether spiritual means, the means of patience," may not constitute a special type of social and political arm", whether" a systematic organisation of patience and voluntary suffering might not be a special method of political activity" (J, Maritain, Freedom in the Modern World, trans. R. O'Sullivan, K. C., London 1935, pp. 175 and 177)

656 II-II q. 40, a. 1, ad 2; Cf. St. Augustine, De Sermone Domini in Monte, lib. I, 58.

657 Leo X III declared that if it is not allowable for a Catholic to recognize the equality of all cults, we must nevertheless not condemn the heads of Catholic states who, in view of a great good to be attained or a great evil prevented, bear patiently with what has been granted by use and wont to all these cults in their societies:" Revera, si divini cultus varia genera eodem jure esse quo veram religionem, Ecclesia judicat non licere, non ideo tamen eos damnat rerum publicarum moderatores qui, magni alicujus adipiscendi boni, aut prohibendi causa mali, moribus atque usu patienter ferunt, ut ea habeant singula in civitatem locum" (Encyclical Immortale Dei, 1st November, 1885) It is not said—to say it would be to fall into the error of theological liberalism—that "because all human opinions of whatever kind have a right to be taught and propagated, the commonwealth is bound to recognize as licit for each spiritual group the law worked out for that group according to its own principles." But "to me this principle signifies that in order to avoid greater evils (which would be the ruin of the community's peace and lead to the petrifaction—or the disintegration—of consciences) the commonweal could and should tolerate (to tolerate is not to approve) ways of worship more or less distant from the truth: ritus infidelium sunt toIerandi was the teaching of St. Thomas; ways of worship and also ways of conceiving the meaning of life and modes of behaviour; and that in consequence the commonwealth would decide to accord to the various spiritual groups which live within it the juridical status which the city itself in its political wisdom adapts on the one hand to their condition, and on the other, to the general line of legislation leading towards the virtuous life, and to the prescriptions of the moral law, towards whose fulfilment in the fullest obtainable degree it should endeavour to direct this diversity of forms.... Thus the commonwealth would be vitally Christian, and the various non-Christian spiritual groups included in it would enjoy a just liberty" (J. Maritain, True Humanism, pp. 160-161) To illustrate this doctrine the same author elsewhere examines the case of the polygamous customs of the Cameroons: "If it is true that the colonising power may not impose on the natives, without introducing greater evils, the Christian law of monogamy, it is equally true that while recognising the ' fetishist ' and Mohammedan marriage it ought not only, as convert natives grow more and more numerous, to recognize in their case also the Christian law (which it does not yet do), but it ought also to orientate the personal law of fetishists and Mohammedans in the direction of true moral and social principles, by limiting by positive prescriptions the ravages of polygamy and by promoting at the same time everything that tends to an improvement in morals" (J. Maritain, Freedom in the Modern World, p. 66)

658 "Every heresy, outwardly manifested, whatever the name of the sect, was considered as a public crime, a social offence, and punished as such; for every heresy, whatever it might be, even when it had only a speculative character, was, and was considered at this time as, an offence against the public order since it tended to break up religious unity, which was, and was regarded as, the primary social bond, the foundation of society. Rightly or wrongly it was religious unity that constituted the unity of the fatherland" (L. Choupin, S. J., Valeur des decisions, etc., p. 536) The constitution Inconsutilem Tunicam Dei Nostri of Frederick II, approved by Innocent IV in 1243, declares that the crime of heresy should be reckoned among public crimes, inter publica crimina; that it is worse than lese-majeste because it is the divine majesty that is attacked, although before the law one does not surpass the other [quamvis judicii potestate, alterum alteri non excellat]; and that it should be punished like the crime of high treason [sicuti perduellionis crimen] (Bullarium Romanum, Turin 1858, vol. III, P. 506 )

659 Historically it was not the Church that introduced the death penalty for heresy. It had a popular origin. It passed into the penal code, into the laws, with Frederick II under the influence of legists who were reviving the Roman Law, by the successive constitutions of 1224 for Lombardy, of 1231 for Sicily, of 1232 for the whole Empire. The measures taken by Frederick II were approved by Gregory IX—who soon found himself forced to excommunicate the Emperor—and then by Innocent IV. cf. Choupin, op. cit., pp. 491-2; Vacandard, L'Inquisition, pp. 129-131.

66 0 St. Thomas, reasoning proceeds under the double supposition (1) of a State consecrationally Christian, and (2) the legitimacy of the death penalty for crimes against the State. To neglect these suppositions is to condemn oneself to understand nothing of his thought, and to see no more in his argumentation, for all its clarity, than a subject for scandal. In IV Sent., dist. 13, q. 2, a. 3, "Whether heretics should be tolerated", he carefully distinguishes the competencies involved. "Heresy is a contagious evil; and as for heretics says St. Paul"their speech spreadeth like a canker' [2 Tim. ii, 17]. That is why the Church excludes heretics from the society of the faithful, especially when they set out to corrupt others. For fear that they may pervert the simple the Church gets rid even of their bodily presence by shutting them up or expelling them; if it were not for this danger they might be ignored. Those who are firm in the faith may converse with heretics and try to convert them; but without taking any part in their worship since they are under excommunication. The civil tribunal may licitly put them to death and confiscate their goods; and this even when they are not going about to pervert others. If they blaspheme God, if they follow a false religion, they deserve punishment much more than those who are guilty of lese-majeste or who coin false money."

In the Summa (II-II, q. 11, a. 3) St. Thomas speaks first of the punishment the heretics deserve, and then of the mercy of the Church: "By reason of their sin they deserve not only to be separated from the Church by excommunication, but also to be severed from the world by death." He goes on to prove this second assertion. For a political society made up exclusively of the faithful "it is [even politically] a much graver matter to corrupt the faith which quickens the soul, than to forge money which supports temporal life. Wherefore if forgers of money and other evildoers are forthwith condemned to death by the secular authority, much more reason is there [here St. Thomas argues a fortiori, but Vacandard, who overlooks the fact, writes that he "only brings forward a comparison that does duty for proof" (L'Inquisition, p. 208 )] for heretics to be not only excommunicated by the Church but put to death by the secular authority as soon as they are convicted". And yet what does the Church do? She does not condemn them straightaway, for she desires the conversion of the sinner, but she does so only after the first and second admonition as the Apostle directs; after that the Church no longer hopes for the heretic's conversion but looks to the salvation of others by excommunicating him and "separating him from the Church, and furthermore delivers him to the secular tribunal to be exterminated thereby from the world by death". So, when she finds herself faced with relapsed heretics she admits them always, without doubt, to penance, but makes no further effort to keep them from sentence of death. The whole aim of the fourth article is to establish that there is no necessary sin against charity in punishing them by death through the secular arm.

Vacandard's failure to understand these texts of St. Thomas is surprising. He reproaches him for giving us a comparison in place of a proof, and objects that it would serve the purpose to replace the death penalty by life imprisonment—or, if it were necessary to strike terror, "even repentant heretics might be condemned to death at the outset", He concludes: "Evidently, St. Thomas.... has but one aim: to legitimize the criminal discipline of his time. And that is his excuse. But it must be recognized that he has seldom been so ill inspired. His theses on the coercive power of the Church and the punishment of heresy are disconcertingly weak" (L'Inquisition, p. 211) More happily inspired, no doubt, the same author nevertheless wrote at the end of his book: "The system of defence and protection which she [the Church] adopted in the Middle Ages, succeeded, at least partially. It is enough that it was not essentially unjust that she does not have to disown it as immoral" (ibid., p. 310)

661 Denz., 773

662 Op. Lat., Jena ed., 1564 , vol. I, p. 114.

663 H. Grisar, S. J., Luther, London 1913-17, vol. VI, pp. 248-68.

664 Luther's reply to Leo's condemnation really established only one thing: that the Church as such cannot have recourse to the punishment of death (Assertio Omnium Articulorum per Bullam Leonis X Novissimam Damnatorum December 1520, Opera, Jena ed., 1566 , vol. II, p. 309 )

665 Bullarium Romanum, Turin 186 0, vol. V, p. 752.

666 Counts, barons, rectors, and consuls had to swear to apply, according to their power, the ecclesiastical and imperial decrees against heretics: those who broke their oath were deprived of their office and excommunicated, and their lands placed under interdict (Decretal Ad Abolendam Decretals, cap. ix, "De Haereticis", lib. V, tit. vii) Under Boniface V III the temporal lords and their representatives who set themselves in opposition to the bishop or the Inquisitors were excommunicated, and if they did not yield within a year they were themselves considered as heretics (Sexte, cap. xv III, "De Haereticis", lib. V, tit. ii)

667 For example Innocent III approves the Constitution Inconsutilem, punishing heresy as a crime against the State [perduellionis crimen]: and that means presumably that it was for the State to take the initiative against it. But Boniface V III would not allow the temporal power either to take cognisance of, or to judge, the crime of heresy which is purely ecclesiastical (Sexte, cap. xv III, "De Haereticis", lib. V, tit. ii); and on 30th September 1486 Innocent V III ordered the magistrates of Brescia, under pain of excommunication, to execute the sentence passed on the heretics by the local bishop and the Inquisitor of Lombardy, while refusing these magistrates the right to control the proceedings, since the crime of heresy is purely ecclesiastical [cum hujusmodi crimen haeresis sit mere ecclesiasticum] (Bullarium Romanum, Turin 186 0, vol. V, p. 326): that is to say, presumably, that the State is only the mandatory of the Church. However it is not difficult to solve the contradiction. It is for the Church alone to denounce heresy which, in itself and abstractly, is a "crimen mere ecclesiasticum", But if it be true that in the historical Middle Ages every heresy is a crime against the State, "perduellionis crimen", it suffices for the Church to indicate the fact of heresy to lay on the State the duty of intervening, not necessarily as mandatory of the Church, but on its own account and in its own name.

668 Epist. CXXX III, 1.

669 Lib. III, 55.

670"the formula by which they [the Inquisitors] rid themselves of an impenitent or relapsed heretic ran thus: ' We dismiss you from our ecclesiastical court and abandon and hand you over to the secular arm. Yet we pray, and that effectually, the secular court to moderate its sentence so that it avoids the shedding of your blood and danger of death. ' The secular judges, unfortunately, were not able to take this formula literally. If they had tried to do it they would have been recalled to reality by excommunication. The casuists' clause deceived nobody" (E. Vacandard, L'Inquisition, p. 214)

671cf. L. Choupin, S. J., Valeur des decisions etc., p. 525. Some of these theologians, and we think with good reason, even refuse the Church the right of decreeing (and a fortiori of herself inflicting), the punishment of death. Thus Mgr. Douais, cited by L. Choupin, op. cit., p. 519: "The question is not whether, theoretically, the Church would not have been competent to inflict the punishment of death. Theologians and canonists may discuss it if they like; if they grant the Church this juridical power, like Suarez, it is of small importance to us: pure theory, nothing more. As for me, I do not grant it.... but what is my opinion worth? In reality, the Church has never admitted the penalty of death into her law (that is to say into the Corpus Juris) She has indeed resolutely put it aside." Even if we recognize that the Church has the right to punish by death, it does not follow that in fact she has ever exercised it.

672Suarez does not hesitate to throw the responsibility for the death of heretics on the Church. He asks himself: who could inflict this punishment on them?—and answers that the power resides in the Sovereign Pontiff principally, in an eminent manner, as in him who commands and gives the impulsion; then, in the temporal prince in a proximate manner, in subordination to the spiritual power, as in him who executes and receives the impulsion (De Fide, disp. 23, sect. 1, no. 7) However, neither Charles V nor Philip II understood it in this way. On the Inquisition set up in 1481 by the Catholic kings, it has been said: "Very different in this respect from the Inquisition in other lands, its end was at once political and religious. Through the heretic it aimed at the foreigner. It was thus an essentially Spanish institution and if we are to judge it equitably we must take account of this double role. It was also always popular with the Spaniards who were grateful to it for safeguarding the purity of their race and faith. Suspect to the Popes, it was dear to the Kings, whose political designs it served while protecting the interests of religion. It was the jealous guardian at once of orthodoxy and of nationality" (J. H. Mariejol, "L'Espagne", in the Histoire generale of E. Lavisse and A. Rambaud, Paris 1894, vol. IV, p. 332) I myself think that there repression of heresy had a political character everywhere and not only in Spain. But certainly it was in Spain especially that it took on the character of a "national purification".

The nature of the Spanish Inquisition has been much discussed. From the fact that the sentence of death was passed only by the royal tribunal and that the goods of the condemned were confiscated to the profit of the royal treasury, Joseph de Maistre concludes that "The tribunal of the Inquisition was purely royal" (Premiere lettre a un gentilhomme russe sur L'Inquisition espagnole) Pastor protests against this view. He recalls that "no Pope has condemned the Spanish Inquisition in itself, but many for these abuses..."; that "many, on the contrary, have spoken in its favour", that its practice of handing over the condemned to the secular arm proves that it was also a religious tribunal; he concludes that the Spanish Inquisition appears as a "mixed, but primarily ecclesiastical institution" (History of the Popes, London 1894, vol. IV, pp. 400-403 ) The truth surely is clear. The Spanish Inquisition did not differ in essence from the medieval Inquisition. The Church was responsible for the one only in the same measure in which it was responsible for the other. But the mode in which the Spanish Inquisition functioned had a special character. After they had forced Baptism on the Jews the Catholic kings perceived that the Spanish nation and the Catholic religion were in great danger from pretended converts. To remedy this they obtained from Sixtus IV in 1478 an authorisation to set up the Inquisition in Spain. Its activities soon became infected with the nationalist passion. On 29th January 1482, Sixtus IV himself began to protest against the doings of the Inquisitors. On the 2nd August 1482 the Pope put out another Brief which ended with these words: "As it is mercy alone that makes us like to the Lord God, we beg and exhort the King and the Queen, for the love of Jesus Christ, to imitate him whose property it is always to have mercy and to spare" (cf. Pastor, loc. cit)

673And it is the State, not the Church, which they would represent when acting as temporal princes or as protectors of Christendom.

674"the juridical terminology of the Romans had no equivalent for apostasy from the national religion The expression crimen laesae Romanae religionis, which occurs in Tertullian, gives us the right idea, but then it was not a term in general use. The crimen laesae majestatis (high treason) was, on the contrary, well defined by the law. At the time under consideration, and in the conditions existing when the difficulty arose, there was little difference between the two.... as a matter of fact, Christians were denounced, hunted out, judged and condemned, simply as Christians" (L. Duchesne, The Early History of the Church, London 1914, vol. I, pp. 80-1)

675How could this barbarity in penal customs co-exist with so much sweetness of feeling? Consider, for example, the wonderful human tenderness which illuminates the primitive French pictures of the fifteenth century; and then remember that at the same period, in the same people the rack and the strappado were in full use. One might try to explain it perhaps by the fact that in ages of strong vitality passion burns with an equal intensity in extreme and opposed forms, such as gentleness and cruelty, even occasionally in the same man: or perhaps by the fact that Christianity, which has not yet had time to penetrate into certain lower regions of the collective soul, was received with so much the more fervour, purity, completeness in the higher regions of this same soul, represented by the contemplatives and artists. Gustav Schnurer refers to the presence of these contradictions, especially in the fifteenth century, and he adds: "These discords clash violently with the measure and equilibrium which characterize the medieval ideal of humanity at its apogee. Their explanation is to be found above all in the fact that the people lacked direction and that its good and bad instincts alike were insufficiently held in leash" (Kirche und Kultur im Mittelalter, 1st ed., Paderborn 1930, vol. III, p. 267)

676See my Exigences chretiennes en politique, Paris 1945, pp. 438-43.

677E. Vacandard, L'Inquisition, p. 175.

678 "You say that in your land, when a thief or a brigand has been arrested and denies his guilt, the judge has him struck on the head and pricked in the sides with hot irons until he confesses. But neither divine nor human law can in any way admit this [quam rem nec divina lex, nec humana prorsus admittit]. For confession should be free; it should not be extorted by violence but voluntarily proffered. And then if after using these torments, you fail to discover anything, are you not ashamed and do you not see how impiously you judge? If, on the contrary, overcome by pain, the victim admits a crime he has not committed, on whom, I ask, falls the infamy of so great a wickedness if not on him who has forced the unfortunate man to lie? He who utters with his mouth what is not in his heart, may speak indeed but does not acknowledge guilt. Drop these customs therefore and wholly condemn what hitherto you have done from ignorance" (P. L. CXIX, col. 101 0) The Pope would have a criminal condemned on the evidence of three witnesses, and released if he cannot be convicted and swears his innocence on the Gospels. This doctrine of Nicholas I marks the progress of the Church from pagan darkness. The ancient world was habituated to the idea of torture and deemed it a necessary evil inseparable from judicial proceedings. Thus Augustine could not but groan at the misery of human justice: "When the judge puts the accused to the question that he may not unwittingly put an innocent man to death, the result of this lamentable ignorance is that the very person whom he tortured that he might not condemn him if innocent, is condemned to death both tortured and innocent.... and so he has both tortured an innocent man to discover his innocence, and has put him to death without discovering it. If society is plunged in such darkness will a wise judge take his seat on the bench or no? Beyond question, he will. For human society, which he thinks it a weakness to abandon, will hold him to his duty.... for the wise judge does these things, not with any intention of doing harm, but because his ignorance compels him, and because human society claims him as a judge. But though we therefore acquit the judge of malice, we must none the less condemn human life as miserable" (De Civitate Dei, lib. XIX, cap. vi)

679The Popes not only refused to have anything to do with it themselves, but sought to rid the ecclesiastical tribunals of it, and finally and effectually condemned it (A. Michel, "Ordalies", Dict. de theol. cath., vol. XI, pt I, col. 1147)

680 E. Vacandard, L'Inquisition. pp. 76 and 129. Was execution at the stake, as actually practised, any more cruel than other executions? The condemned did not "mount"the pile, he was surrounded by it, and, we are assured, "The quantity of combustibles generally used ensured a rapid death by suffocation" (Leon-E Halkin, "La cruaute des supplices de l'Ancien Regime", Revue catholique des idees et des faits, 23rd April 1937, pp 14 and 15)

681 The twenty-fifth law of the Bull Ad Extirpanda of 1st May 1252, for Lombardy, Romagna and the March of Treviso, stipulates that the secular power is bound to force the heretics, short of mutilation and danger of death, to denounce their accomplices, as is the custom with thieves and brigands (Bullarium Romanum, Turin 1858, vol III, p. 556) As to torture, Vacandard gives some details in his book on the Inquisition: (1) It had to stop short of mutilation and death, p. 179; (2) it must not last for more than half an hour, p. 185; (3) confession under torture had no legal value; only one that followed was to count; (4) it was not to be inflicted at all unless the accused was under grave suspicion: to apply it without due consideration was held to be iniquitous and against the laws of God and man, p. 184; (5) Clement V, at the Council of Vienne, 1311-1312, required that before heretics could be sent for torture (tormentis exponere illos), there should be agreement between the Inquisitor and the diocesan bishop, p 186, (6) lastly, "The canons of the Church forbade clerics to take part in these executions, so that the Inquisitor who, out of morbid curiosity or even for some laudable motive, should enter the torture chamber with the victim, contracted an irregularity from which he had to be released before he could resume his functions The tribunals undoubtedly grumbled at the complications caused by this division of labour in interrogating the accused.... On the 27th April 1260, Alexander IV gave the Inquisitors and their socii the power to release each other from all irregularities incurred This was held to amount to authorisation to take part in interrogations conducted by violent means, and the Inquisitors no longer hesitated to appear in the torture chamber" (pp. 183-184) But Vacandard is wrong when he writes (p. 187) that torture "was administered by the tribunal of the Inquisition".

682 St. Thomas, De Veritate, q. 5, a. 4, ad 4.

683 How can the historian speak without reservations of the Bull Cum Adversus of Innocent IV, 31st October 1243, approving the constitution Commissi Nobis of Frederick II, in which it is said that the sons of heretics shall escape the punishments provided by the law even against them—deprivation of goods, refusal of public offices and honours—if they denounce the secret heresy of their own father? (Bullarium Romanum, Turin 1858, vol. III, p. 505 ) Or, in another domain, the measure of St. Pius V—otherwise so worthy of our admiration—forbidding physicians to go on visiting the sick who should not have confessed themselves within three days or were not in a position to present a certificate of confession? (ibid., 1862 , vol. VII, p. 430.) It is impossible not to notice a progress in ecclesiastical penal legislation in humanity and respect for the human person, when these ancient laws are compared with our Codex writ Canonici declaring that the faithful should avoid social relations with the excommunicated vitandi, "at any rate when there is no question of spouses, parents, children, servants, inferiors, or more generally unless these relations are justified by some reasonable cause" (Can. 2267)

684Can. 2291, §12

685 ibid., §7.

686 Can. 2298, §6.

687 Can. 2313, §4

688 Can. 2313, §2 and §3.

689 Can. 2298, §8.

690 Can. 2313, §5

691 Can. 2311

692 At any rate not by acts affecting the whole body of citizens as in the Middle Ages. A State of the pluralist type could be conceived as offering the Church her services to assure the execution of directly ecclesiastical ordinances concerning, not all the citizens indiscriminately, but those only who were Catholics.

693 A. M. Dubarle, O. P., "Faut-il bruler les heretiques?", Vie Intellectuelle, Jan. p. 5

694 In I-II, q. 99, a. 3, no. 5.

695 Die Entstehung des Kreuzzugsgedankens Stuttgart 1935.

696 ibid., p. 307, note 78

697 P. L. XCIX, col. 998.

698 Soirees de Saint-Petersbourg, 7. I do not propose to justify the confusions of this chapter, but simply to disentangle the thread of truth.

699 The concept of a just war does not necessarily coincide with that of a defensive war.

700 "But, say they, the wise man will wage just wars. As if he would not all the rather lament the necessity of just wars if he remembers that he is a man; for if they were not just he would not wage them, and would so be delivered from all wars. For it is the wrong-doing of the opposing party which compels the wise man to wage just wars; and this wrong-doing, even though it gives rise to no war, would still be a matter of grief to man because it is man's wrong-doing. Let everyone who thinks with pain on all these great evils, so horrible, so ruthless, acknowledge that this is misery. And if anyone either endures or thinks of them without mental pain, this is a more miserable plight still, for he thinks himself happy because he has lost human feeling" (St. Augustine, De Civitate Dei, lib. XIX, cap. vii)

701 Following St Augustine, St. Thomas recalls the conditions for a just war: (1) it must aim at peace; so that a war, however just on other counts, would become absolutely illicit if waged only out of hate or ambition (2) it must be undertaken for a just cause, for example to constrain a nation to repress great disorders or repair grave injustices; (3) it must be declared by the legitimate authority; (4) on the manner in which a just war should be conducted St. Thomas notes that if it is permissible to use stratagems, that is to say to hide one's designs from the enemy, it is never right to lie and perjure oneself; he adds, following St. Ambrose, that there are certain laws of war and that belligerents should keep treaties (II-II, q. 40, a. 1 and 3) After reading this specification for a just war we might well ask how many wars have been wholly ju St. Probably they could be counted on the fingers of one hand. We might perhaps be tempted to say, with Andre Malraux, that "if there are just wars, there are no just armies". Let us say rather that "just wars" are tainted more often than not with frightful injustices and lies. When they really deserve to be called just, it is in virtue of the first impulse that continues in a way to keep them on the right lines. It is a question of the dominant. In connection with the second of St. Thomas, conditions, we may note that modern war, "total" war, is a good deal more like those exterminations carried on by a Ghengis Khan or a Tamerlaine, than the wars the old theologians disputed about. It is so destructive, so pregnant with material, spiritual and moral miseries, that the defence of some point of honour or right is not enough to justify it. For that, it would need, as Gustave Thibon writes in Etudes Carmelitaines, 1939, pp. 63-7, to be "morally inevitable"—the Christian would have to be faced with a choice "between war, and the renunciation of his human nature" and of his status as a Christian citizen. As to the first theological condition, the same author shows how difficult its observance is. For the war of the future "will be waged for idols", fought between ideologies all claiming to be absolute: "idols, for which men will die in pseudo-crusades, the issue of pseudo-religions, and the Christian will have to resist their seduction and refuse to prostitute his God to them. Too many impure voices cry to us already from the threshold of false temples: Christ is here, Christ is there. "And war" will itself be an idol. An evil so atrocious and so universal, a course so straight to the abyss of nothingness, cannot be borne with unless it be erected into an absolute in hearts poisoned with hatred. Such a divinization of war will shake the two sacred bases of supernatural life in the soul of the Christian combatant: that Christian justice which judges no man, and that Christian love that goes out to all the world.... If war comes, the Christian will have to see to it that his desire to conquer goes hand in hand with an effort not to let himself be denaturalised or rather, de-supernaturalised—by war; he will have to keep his love while acting hate. It will not be easy: only saints will be fully capable of it."

These words, which have inevitably already dated to a certain extent, are surpassed in both precision and force by the Christmas Messages of His Holiness Pope Pius XII: "All have a duty.... which is to do everything possible to outlaw aggressive war as a legitimate solution of international disputes and the instrument of national aspirations" (1944); "The precept of peace is of divine law; its end is the protection of the good things of humanity as the good things of the Creator. Now, among these good things, some are so important for the convivium of men among themselves that the defence of them against unjust aggression is, without doubt, fully legitimate" (1948); "If humanity, conforming itself with the divine will, applies that sure means to security which is a perfect Christian order in this world, then it will quickly see the just war—even its very possibility—vanish away, for practical purposes, for the just war will no longer have any raison d'etre as soon as the activity of the Society of Nations, as an authentic organism of peace, is guaranteed" (1951) See my own article "La guerre et la paix selon l'enseignement de Pie XII", Nova et vetera, 1952, p. 15, and V. Ducatillon, O. P., "Des lois de la guerre a la guerre sans loi", Vie Intellectuelle, Dec. 1953, p. 5

702 According to the old Germanic ideal, war is a vocation that is higher and nobler than peace. Erdmann considers that the entry into the Church of the Germanic peoples who, under the cloak of Christianity, remained attached to the cult of heroes, to the glorification of vengeance, to the warlike ideal, impeded the progress of peaceful ideals in the We St. The Germanic influence, he continues, showed itself positively by insistence on the warlike aspect of the cult of the Archangel Michael (Oriental in origin), and later, towards the end of the first millennium, by preparing the ideal of chivalry and the Crusades (op. cit., pp. 16-17) But it is worth while to note that chivalry, as the Church understands it, may be a "transfiguration", but cannot in any case be a "reappearance", a mere revival, of the pagan Germanic idea.

703 By a fatal contradiction, the organization of the "peace of God" at the end of the tenth century, because carried out not on the spiritual plane alone but on the temporal plane of the consecrational political order, ended in an organization of war when arms had to be taken up against those who refused to lay them down (cf. Erdmann, op. cit., p. 56) A striking instance of the law that the sword calls up the sword.

704 P. L., XCIX, 992. There was mistrust in the West of the idolatrous implications of the Slav or Germanic ensigns.

705 Their full incorporation into the Frankish State was made possible only by their conversion to Christianity, which is why, in flat defiance of the Church's constant teaching, Charlemagne forced Baptism on them. The Slavs of the Elbe were spared this violence and brought into a pluralist political order.

706 Even in a secular regime a State can (and ought to) fight to defend liberty to preach and accept the Gospel on its own territory; for this liberty is a temporal good, even the highest temporal good.

707 "Although the Pope can encourage a war, it is not enough for him to declare a war to make it just: for the person holding the Papacy may be unjust, subject to ambition, vengeance and other evil passions" (Cajetan, In II-II, q. 40, a. 2, no. 11)

708 La guerre sainte, p. iv. cf. p. 40: "The holy war thus appears as a new means added to interdict, release of vassals, and outlawry, for the execution of canonical sentences against over-powerful heretics when the suzerain cannot or will not lend the help of his sword. The Church puts herself in his place, addresses herself directly to Christians without intermediary, and herself carries out the function normally devolving on the secular arm. Such is the pure crusade, the theory of which was fully realized between 1208 and 1214 (against the Albigenses): it was a war directed by the Church. that is to say by the Pope and his immediate subordinates it was not waged by the army of any particular king, but the Christian army Exercitus crucesignatorum, say the old Chronicles. "The interdict is a purely canonical punishment. Release of vassals and outlawry are juridical punishments which, in a consecrational political order, result by way of consequence from excommunication for schism or heresy. As to the war against the heretics, it cannot pass for an "execution of canonical sentence", and the Pope cannot in any way take the responsibility for it by reason of his canonical power.

709 At the head of Question 3 of Cause 23 of the Decretum, Gratian seeks to establish by a series of scriptural testimonies, that the Church should not resort to arms to repel injustice: "When the Lord was pursued by Herod, who wanted to kill Him, He did not seek the protection of arms, even though by a secret prompting He could have stirred up the Jews against the King; but He fled into Egypt and remained hidden there for seven years. Later, when the Jews would have stoned Him, He disappeared and left the Temple. Later still, when they led Him to torture, He did not seek to excite the crowd against the Elders of the Jews—this crowd that so lately had welcomed Him with palms and praise. Questioned by Pilate as to whether He was King, He answered: My Kingdom is not of this world: if it were so my servants would certainly strive that I might not be delivered to the Jews: showing thereby that it is only those who pertain to the kingdoms of this world who count on help from human rather than divine power for defence against injustice. So also when He told His disciples: If they persecute you in one city, fly into another, He showed that we should not reply to arms by arms, but to persecutions by flight..."

710 First Vespers of the Feast of the Sacred Heart.

711 Contra Faustum, lib. XXII, cap. lxxiv. We may cite Soloviev's commentary on the story of the conversion of Cornelius (Acts x) directed against Tolstoi's theses: "What is still more remarkable about this typical story is what is not found there. Neither the angel of God, nor Peter the Apostle of the peace of Christ, nor the voice of the Holy Spirit Himself suddenly revealed in the new catechumens, says to the Centurion of the Italian cohort what, according to the recent interpretation of Christianity, would have been the most important and immediately necessary thing to say: they do not tell him that, becoming Christian, he ought, before all else, to lay down his arms and terminate his military service on the spot..." (The Justification of the Good, p. 441) 712 Erdmann, op. cit., pp. 8-10.

713 Lib. VI, cap x.

714 lib. I, cap. xxi

715 op. cit., p. 7

716 P, Batiffol, Le catholicisme de saint Augustin, pp 344-335.

717 G. Schnurer, Kirche und Kultur im Mittelalter, 3rd ed, vol. I, p 74.

718 P. Batiffol, op. cit, pp. 280 and 298.

719 ibid., p. 334.

720 ibid., pp. 288-289.

721 ibid., p. 282

722 Epist. LXXIV; P. L. LXXVII, col. 528.

723 Epist. LXXV; ibid., col. 529.

724 op. cit, p. 8. Speaking of what he calls the "Gregorian missionary war", Erdmann notes that this idea suffers from an internal contradiction. Generally, it merely serves as a mask for a wholly secular war of conque St. It can degenerate sometimes into a religious war by imposing on the vanquished the alternative of Baptism or death, "a thing never approved by the Church save exceptionally, and one that never became an established doctrine." It is not surprising that the very idea of a missionary war met with no general acceptance at the beginning of the Middle Ages. "The ecclesiastical doctors very often, perhaps more often than not, supported the thesis that the moral obligation to keep the peace was equally binding on Christians and pagans. War against the latter could not pass for just if they were not aggressors and persecutors of Christianity" (op. cit., p. 9) I do not see any evidence that Gregory thought otherwise.

725 Erdmann, op. cit., p. 14.

726 ibid., pp. 78 and 28.

727 ibid., pp. 11 and 258.

728 ibid., pp. 127-129.

729 ibid., p. 235.

730 The "Truce of God", which forbade war only on certain days of the week, seems to Erdmann not a preparation for the "Peace of God", but a recoil and a compromise (op. cit., p. 55)

731 ibid., p. 56.

732 ibid., p. 59.

733 ibid., p. 69. A religious who, in the case of unjust aggression, does not defend himself, acts in his capacity as a Christian, as a religious. If he does defend himself he acts as a Christian, doubtless, as a Christian should, but inasmuch as he is man, in his capacity as a man. So did those Jesuits who, on 24th June, 1621, defended Macao against the Dutch; cf J. Duhr, S. J., Un Jesuite en Chine, Adam Schall, astronome et conseiller imperiale (1592-1666 ), Brussels, 1936, p. 34.

734 By reason, in part, of these delays, by reason of the difference between temporal and spiritual felicity, by reason also of the very slender relations between time and eternity, the law of justice immanent in history remains very insufficient and imperfect, especially where individual human persons are concerned—this is the great lesson of the book of Job—but also even when collective moral persons are involved. And yet the rights of holy justice will be vindicated, and every debt will be paid to the last farthing. For, as to those who are responsible for a social order, their virtues or crimes, their deeds good or evil, will follow them beyond death, to appear before the Sovereign Judge and to stand in the very eye of their conscience for ever. In short, the inadequacies, very real in our eyes, of immanent justice, are explicable by the fact that collective moral persons, which are mortal and perishable, are ultimately reached by divine justice in the immortal individual persons of those who go to make them up, and particularly of those who are their responsible rulers. The perfect triumph of holy justice will therefore never be apparent on our earth; and hence, heeding St. Peter's exhortation, we look for "The coming of the new heavens and the new earth according to his promises in v. which justice dwelleth." See J. Maritain, "The End of Machiavellianism", in The Range of Reason, New York, 1952, pp. 145 et seq.

735 L. Duchesne, Les premiers temps de l'Etat pontifical, Paris 1911, p. 204.

736 ibid., p. 267.

737 St. Peter Damian (100 7-1072 ), who was not a man of the new epoch, did not see how. He contented himself with saying, which was very true, that the Church knows nothing of vengeance, and that the head of the Church could not (as such) conduct a war. To those who pointed to the example of Leo IX (104 9-105 4) who was also a saint, and who nevertheless directed arms against the barons of Campania as simoniacs, heretics, and rebels against the Council, and who had, in a first "Crusade", launched the German knights against the Normans to "deliver Christendom", he replied that "Peter was not made prince of the Apostles for his denial, nor David a prophet because of his adultery", Cf. Erdmann, op. cit., pp. 107 and 131.

738 "Certainly", writes Lagrange, "The prophets presented themselves to Israel as God's ambassadors, who bore His message and were concerned wholly with his interests. Nevertheless, this mission of the prophets generally compelled them to mix in wars and alliances, in rivalries between the two kingdoms of Israel, and in political intrigue. But Jesus was concerned solely with the religious ideal: He preached it, and His preaching led Him to His death." At the time of Antiochus Epiphanes there were "martyrs for religious truth, martyrs commemorated by the Catholic Church. All honour to them! But we must not forget that in this struggle they were supported by national sentiment. They were fighting for hearth as well as altar in a noble war such as was so often waged in ancient times. Their particular claim to superiority lay in the fact that they confessed one only God; but their religious laws, laws of the ancestors and of their race, were precisely similar to the national heritage of other nations which had crushed the religious belief in one God in the cities of antiquity. In Israel, however, the two forces were united.... Then it was that the testimony of Jesus was heard At first He too seems to be bound up with Judaism; but.... the Jews were under no misapprehension about His teaching. He declares the truth simply and without alloy: He has God alone in view and He relies on God alone, for His fellow Israelites reject and condemn Him. He is the first witness, but He is followed by an innumerable company of other martyrs who attest the truth of what He taught. This fact must be admitted as one of supreme importance; it divides the religious history of humanity into two periods, before Jesus Christ and after Jesus Christ" (The Gospel of Jesus Christ, vol. ii, pp. 307 and 318-19)

739 Rene Grousset, Histoire des croisades et du royaume franc De Jerusalem, Paris, 1934-1936, vol. III, p. III.

740 Grousset, op. cit., vol. I, p. 1.

741 ibid, vol. III, p. ii.

742 G. Schlumberger, cited by Grousset, op. cit, vol. I, p. xi.

743 Grousset, op. cit., vol. III, p. v III. There is more to be said. In a letter addressed in 1074 "to all those who would defend the Christian faith", Gregory VII proclaims that "The race [gens] of pagans has risen against the Christian Empire [of the East], it has come to the walls of Constantinople devastating all, filling all with violence and tyranny, killing thousands of Christians like so many cattle"; he declares that he is leaving no stone unturned "to come as quickly as possible to the aid of the Christian Empire", and he urges all Christians to be ready to follow the example of Christ and give their lives for their brothers (Epist. XLIX; P. L. CXLV III, col. 329) The Crusade is here conceived as a defensive war.

744 "Henceforth the Mussulmans were authorised to reply to violence by violence, but only when so ordered from on high" (Emile Dermenghem, La vie de Mahomet, Paris 1929, p. 159) The Prophet cites as an example to his faithful "The Greeks under Heraclius who had beaten the Persians and thus saved the Churches of Syria and, in consequence, the Mussulmans of the Hedjaz" (ibid., p. 19l) He promises paradise to those who fall; to die in the holy war is to suffer martyrdom. St. Thomas was to say, on the contrary, that the Church does not venerate as martyrs those who die with sword in hand (II-II, q. 124, a. 5, obj. 3); and Francis of Vittoria, commenting on this article, declares that however heroic may be the death of those who perish in the war against the Saracens to defend the Christian faith,: the Church does not regard them as martyrs [quia ibi est contrapugnantia] (Commentarios a la Secunda secundae de Santo Tomas, Salamanca 1935, p. 350)

745 Grousset op. cit., vol. III, p. ix.

746 ibid, vol. III, p. xxv; vol. I, p. 2; vol. III, p. ix.

747 Grousset, op. cit., vol. I, p. 4.

748 ibid., p. 195.

749 ibid., p. 198.

750 ibid., vol. III, p. 2. Mme N. Denis-Boulet notes that in St. Catherine of Siena's day the official name for the Crusade is passagium. The word is already used in this sense by Innocent III, but it is "undoubtedly still older: it indicates that in the mind of the Church the Crusade was a pilgrimage to Jerusalem, or a means to this pilgrimage, rather than a war on the infidels" (La carriere politique de sainte Catherine de Sienne, Paris 1939, p. 77)

751 ibid.

752 It is of course clear that we are not obliged to justify the acts of barbarism which took place on these expeditions. At Nicaea, for example, the Crusaders had the idea of demoralizing the besieged by catapulting in among them the heads of the Turkish soldiers who had been sent to relieve them; and there are many other gruesome happenings of that kind. Speaking of the massacre which followed the capture of Jerusalem, for example, Rene Grousset says that whatever the provocation and the crimes on the part of the enemy, the thing is a blot on the history of the Crusade, and he quotes the judgment of Archbishop William of Tyre, the famous chronicler of the Kingdom of Jerusalem: "The town presented the spectacle of so great a slaughter of the enemy and so great a shedding of blood that the victors themselves could not but be overcome with horror and disgust" (Histoire des croisades, vol. I, p. 161) It is of course true that barbarism was no preserve of the Crusaders; they themselves were also capable of great nobility and the figure of St. Louis dying like his Master amid all the manifestations of defeat, will remain the eternal glory of the Crusades. It is also true that in the time of Saladin particularly they encountered many fine acts of chivalry on the part of their enemies.

753 Grousset, op. cit., vol. II, p 226.

754 The argument is taken from St. Augustine: "For if the Christian religion", he writes, in a letter to Marcellinus, "condemned wars of every kind, the command given in the Gospel to soldiers asking counsel as to salvation would rather be to cast away their arms, and withdraw themselves wholly from military service; whereas the word spoken to such was: ' Do violence to no man, neither accuse any falsely, and be content with your wages '—the command to be content with their wages manifestly implying no prohibition to continue in the service" (Epist. CXXXV III, 15)

755 De Laude Novae Militiae, ad Milites Templi, caps. iv and v; P. L. CLXXXII, cols. 924 and 927.

756 Epist. CCLV, 1 and 2; P. L. CLXXXII, col. 464.

757 Lib. IV, cap III, 7; P. L. ibid, col. 776.

758 Die Entstehung des Kreuzzugsgedankens, p. 133.

759 On the Mussulman side there was Nur al-Din: "Unlike Zengi, he aimed less at personal territorial gains than at the expulsion of the infidels, and the gains were added according to the scriptural promise. The annexation of Damascus in 1154 united all Mussulman Syria under his rule. A hard administrator at times, but free from the outbursts of the old Turkish cruelty of his father Zengi, his government was remarkably wise and beneficent. For these qualities he gained the esteem of the Franks, just as Louis IX did of the Mussulmans: the Archbishop, William of Tyre, bowed before 'this prince so just and religious according to his Law'. Observe that like the holy Imam 'Ali he had the defects of his qualities. If he protected the doctors of the law, the learned and the wise, his religious exaltation plunged him at times into strange mystical paroxysms. Of a nervous and morbid temperament, often at the point of death, he was far from possessing the physical personality of his father. In this state of mind he so wholly subordinated his political interests to his religious impulses, that those who knew how to provide for their own personal ambitions under pretext of the holy war would often deceive him (as happened also with the young Saladin)" (Grousset, op. cit., vol. III, p. xx III)

76 0 They were in fact striving toward an unattainable ideal; in actuality they did practise their profession as politicians and soldiers. Rene Grousset, distinguishing the "purely French character" of the Seventh Crusade from that of the preceding ones, which were "international expeditions organized, in principle, by Christendom as a whole", goes on to write: "Louis IX's Crusade—despite the profoundly religious character stamped upon it by the sanctity of its leader—presents itself to us, on the contrary, as the first colonial expedition of the Kingdom of France. When she embarked at Aigues-Mortes on 25 August 1248, it was really the Capetian State, which Philip Augustus had led to triumph at Bouvines, that had begun the attempt to relieve the desperate straits of the Frankish colonies on the marches of Syria.... It should be noticed how positive in temper and well-organized was this expedition of Louis IX's, which has been represented to us as a purely mystical undertaking. The king-saint's Crusade was a technician's campaign above all things; he waited for months at Cyprus and at Damietta so that everything should be just so..." (Histoire des croisades, vol. III, pp. 428 and 456) It is however clear that the crusading spirit and an over-ardent desire to "die for God in the Holy Land" were sometimes the cause of great imprudence in the military sphere, as were other passions which were not, unfortunately, on so lofty a plane. One wonders whether the King could have agreed finally to that diversion of the eighth Crusade against Tunis which was "an enormous historic blunder" and of which "St. Louis was, alas, no more than the victim" (ibid., p. 653), because it had become a matter of indifference to him where he died, provided it were in battle against the infidel.

761 The Military Orders represent a supreme attempt of Christianity to subject war to some discipline. Did they set out to make it a pure instrument of the Kingdom of God?

We know the origin of the first of these Orders, that of the Templars, which served as a model for the others. Some knights, struck by the desolation and insecurity which, in spite of the success of the First Crusade, prevailed in the Holy Land, undertook on their own initiative to police the routes and the watering-places and to protect pilgrims against the Saracens and the bandits who infested the new kingdom of Jerusalem. Baldwin I accepted their services and lodged them in the precincts of the Temple. They took a vow to fight God's enemies in obedience, chastity and poverty. After nine years they still had only nine members. But they were approved at the Council of Troyes in 1128 and St. Bernard agreed to justify these soldier-monks and to pronounce "The panegyric of the new militia", cf. Vacandard, Vie de saint Bernard, vol. I, pp. 235-255.

What was the meaning of the Church's approbation? Was it a recognition of war as an instrument of the Kingdom of God? Not in the lea St. Neither in this matter nor in the Crusade did the Church propose to take the responsibility for the war fought and the blood spilt. That, as she knew well, was not a spiritual task but a secular one. She approved those laymen who, having bound themselves to God by the three vows in order to purify their intention, made a speciality of rendering to Caesar what belonged to Caesar in the matter of fighting, under the responsibility of their temporal chiefs, for the common good of Christendom. He who, be he layman or even cleric, takes up arms in legitimate defence or to succour a child under attack, acts according to the (just) laws of the temporal order and not according to the laws of the spiritual order; he acts like a Christian on the plane of those things that pertain directly to Caesar, not in his capacity as a Christian on the plane of those things that pertain directly to God. This, I think, is how the legitimate mission of the Military Orders should be understood. If in fact there have ever been any Christians who hoped to transform a military force into an instrument of the spiritual and to wage a holy war, it was certainly these soldier-monks. Such a hope however went against the nature of things, and there we have the chief cause of the abuses which the Military Orders occasioned.

The Military Orders opened the way to the constitution of monastic States, at least of a certain type of monastic State, since other types are known to us such as those of Thibet, of Mount Athos, or the Reductions of Paraguay. In his study "The Monastic States on the Coasts of the Baltic", appearing in Baltic and Scandinavian Countries, Gdynia 1937, vol. III, no. 1, Karol Gorski assures us that "The fact that the monastic States had something of the character of a caste was not the sole cause of decadence, and was not necessarily an element of weakness: on the contrary, these little States were relatively more powerful than others with similar material conditions, for their cohesion was stronger". He points to the sometimes important contributions they made to the general advancement of culture. But he notes "The ideal of the monastic life was certainly not maintained in the monastic States. The moral corruption in Thibet or Mount Athos, the low level of morality in the Chivalric Orders in the last years of their existence, and even the excessive development of trade with the Jesuits of Paraguay, prove this up to the hilt. It was the inevitable result of a deviation from the religious ideal and its transference into the sphere of the temporal. That perhaps is the reason why the decadence and disappearance of these States or pseudo-States was passed over with so little regret". The wish to wield temporal means of this sort as pure instruments of the spiritual can only issue in coercion and the ruin of the spiritual: "For us who bring men the faith or death..." (Mickiewicz, Conrad Wallenrod, 4th Song) On the origins of the Teutonic State, Gorski writes: "The State of the Teutonic Order did not issue from the fundamental ideas of the Middle Ages; it was rather an abuse of them.... The Papacy did not desire the foundation of a monastic State on the lands conquered in Prussia.... These ideas of the Holy See were in harmony with the principles of the monastic life, which asked the monks for renunciation and was wholly opposed to the temptations of a secular dominion.... If we go back to the first beginnings of the Teutonic State in Prussia we shall find around its cradle the laicising and scoffing spirit of the imperial court of Frederick, King of Sicily. Was it perhaps these lay and Mussulman influences that vitiated the ideal of Hermann von Salza?" (The Decay of the Teutonic Order and State in Prussia, Warsaw 1933, p. 1)

The monastic States, issue of the Military Orders, must be clearly distinguished from the old States of the Church The former were at the immediate service of a temporal order, that of Christendom, and acted, at their best, as its ramparts along the whole pagan frontier. The latter immediately served a spiritual order, that of Christianity, their end being to assure the free exercise of the pontifical power.

762 " In quo quantum Ecclesiae Dei, et totae christianitati periculum immineat, et nos cognoscimus, et prudentiam vestram latere non credimus" (Bull of Eugenius III, 1st December 1145) "Quis de tot fidei orthodoxae cultoribus tam immaniter trucidatis, de tot calamitatibus captivorum, et aliis christianitatis opprobriis non ex tota mente movebitur?" (Bull of Nicholas IV, 1st August 1291) See in Jean Rupp, L'idee de chretiente dans la pensee pontificale, des origines a Innocent III, Paris 1939, where there is pointed out the difference of meaning between the Church = "spiritual society of the Christians", and Christendom (christianitas) =" society of Christians in pursuit of a temporal end" (p. 127)

763 " Non competit eis occidere vel effundere sanguinem, sed magis esse paratos ad propriam sanguinis effusionem pro Christo, ut imitentur opera quod gerunt ministerio" (II-II, q. 40, a. 2, "Utrum clericis et episcopis sit licitum pugnare?")

764 "Ad clericos pertinet disponere et inducere alios ad bellandum bella justa. Non enim interdicitur eis bellare quia peccatum sit, sed quia tale exereitium eorum personae non congruit." (ibid., ad 3) This is also surely the deepest thought of St. Bernard. At the end of a letter inviting the clergy and people of Eastern France to go to the aid of the Eastern Church, he recalls that the Jews should not be massacred, and that if it became necessary to take up arms against them this would be the business of the temporal power. "Even if they were pagans we should have to look for their conversion, we should have to bear with them rather than attack them with the sword. But if they begin to use violence against us it is for those who do not bear the sword in vain to repel force by force" (Epist. CCCLX III, 7; P. L. CLXXXII, col. 567)

765 St. Bernard, Epist. CCCLX III, 1.

766 However, even in the times of the Old Law the Church, in right and in fact, was universal and supranational But at a certain local point it was linked, accidentally and provisionally, with a particular people within which its development was favoured. For it was in the lands of this people that she was to bring into the world the man-child who should withstand the dragon, thanks to whom she would emerge at last from her preparatory phase and enter her definitive phase. Such is the covenant between the Church and the Jewish people: it was made in the first place for the sake of the Church, not that of the Jewish people, who had but the part of a servant to play. However strict had been the solidarity of the spiritual and the temporal in the Old Testament their distinction remained intact, and their destinies were not confused. The existence of the Kingdom of God was never interrupted; but when the kings were faithless to their mission they were overthrown, and when Israel itself failed to recognize its Messiah it was rejected and its temporal dreams were shattered.

767 The compenetration of the spiritual and the temporal which characterizes the Crusades—and in general, the whole medieval political order—and which I am attempting to analyse from a theological standpoint, is well marked by Grousset, who sees things from the exterior and descriptive standpoint of the historian: "On the 27th November 1095 , the tenth day of the Council of Clermont, Urban II called all Christendom to arms. It was the call of the Pontiff to the defence cf the faith threatened by the new Mussulman invasion, the call of the true heir of the Roman Emperors to the defence of the West, the call of the highest European authority for the protection of Europe against the conquering Asiatics, successors of Attila and precursers of Mahomet II" (L'epopee des croisades, Paris 1939, p. 6) 768 It may be permitted to conclude by appropriating the words of Lacordaire, written on the 23rd May 1846 to Mme Swetchine: "Every sane mind can understand the Middle Ages if presented as an epoch of transition, proportioned to the traditions, the morals and the needs of the peoples, an age from which came many beautiful things which sufficiently justify the means used to obtain them. But to present the medieval order as an absolute, as the sole genuine issue of the Gospel of Jesus Christ; to worship its thought, to raise it to the dignity of a sovereign archetype, is unduly to slight the century in which we live, and to run the risk of being flatly contradicted by the final court of appeal, posterity. We do not know where we are going; God's secret is still unrevealed: but we must know how to wait patiently in the chaos for the fiat lux of creation, and not to impede, by rash regrets or over-ardent expectations, the unknown work which lies hidden between the hands of God. The word has not yet been given from on high: we must await it without cursing either the past or the present, accepting both as the intertwined roots of a future that is to surpass them."

The feeling of uncomfortableness experienced by a Catholic watching Fritz Hochwalder's recent play Sur la terre comme au ciel (and a part of its dramatic effect, no doubt) derives from the fact that there is no drawing of the distinction between the task which the Jesuits carried out as missionaries, in which capacity they implanted the Church—the crucified, pilgrim Kingdom of God—among the Indians, and the task they carried out as "supplying" in the temporal order—the organization of the Reductions of Paraguay, which were tied up with the perishable kingdoms of this world. See "Les Reductions de Paraguay", Nova et vetera, 1954, p. 85.

769 "If the Holy Spirit has been promised to the successors of Peter" declares the Vatican Council, "it is not for the purpose of revealing any new doctrine for them to give to the world, but of assisting them to keep safe, and faithfully to expound, the divine revelation given to the Apostles, that is to say the deposit of faith" (Denz. 1836). In Chapter IX of the Primum Schema Constitutionis Dogmaticae de Ecclesia Christi, which had been proposed to the Fathers of the Council, we read: "We therefore teach and declare that the privilege of infallibility, which has been revealed to be a perpetual prerogative of the Church of Christ, and which is not to be confused with the charism of inspiration nor held to enrich the Church with new revelations, has been bestowed so that the word of God, transmitted either by Scripture or by Tradition, should be affirmed and kept in the universal Church of Christ, whole and exempt from all contaminations of novelty and change." So much as regards those truths defined as revealed; concerning truths defined as absolute and infallible without being expressly defined as revealed: "The prerogative of infallibility enjoyed by the Church of Christ embraces not only the revealed word in its entirety, but also all truths which, although not [formally] revealed in themselves, are nevertheless of such a nature that without them the revealed word could not be securely preserved, or proposed to faith and explained in any certain and decisive manner, or effectively affirmed and defended against human error and the contradictions of false science." The corresponding canon runs: "If anyone says: The infallibility of the Church is restricted to what is [formally] contained in the divine revelation, and that it does not extend to other truths necessarily required in order that the revealed deposit may be maintained in its integrity, let him be anathema" (Acta et Decreta Sacrorum Conciliorum, Collectio Lacensis, vol. VII, col. 570 and 577).

770 "God preserves the Church from error not only by a negative assistance, but also at need by a positive one" (J. V. de Groot, O. P., Summa Apologetica de Ecclesia Catholica, p. 284). "Assistance has two aspects. The first is negative and consists in preventing the Church from misleading herself and others. The second is positive and consists in illuminating the Church so that she knows the truth herself and teaches it to the faithful" (R. M. Schultes, O. P., De Ecclesia Catholica, p. 285). In his De Ecclesia Christi, p. 368, L. Billot, S. J. rightly rejects the view which, under pretext of better distinguishing the revelation made to the Apostles, would exclude from the divine assistance—which is to safeguard and faithfully expound the revealed deposit—"all inspirations and illuminations and other interior aids of the multiform grace of the Holy Spirit. "What has to be avoided is simply any suggestion of new revelations of Christian truth. "To those who ask what positive means providence employs we answer that they are multiple, and cannot be ennumerated in full. Among them we must put first the traditional sense received from the ancients; then explanations given by Saints and Doctors of the Church, the resources of theological science, the assistant grace of the Spirit of Truth. All these means, when of themselves insufficient to free men from error, will amply suffice nevertheless to achieve their purpose as soon as they are moved by the supreme Wisdom who never fails of His ends and who, in the midst of the most complex and uncertain contingencies, knows how to make an infallible use even of fallible instruments."

771 The Mystery of the Church (English trans.), London 1937, p. 69. But P. Clerissac is wrong to want to exalt the magisterium of the Church to the point of asserting its superiority even over Scripture. This error, which is common enough, comes from forgetting the distinction between two living or oral transmissions which are nevertheless irreducible: the one going from Christ and the Apostles to the primitive Church; and the other coming from the primitive Church to us. The deposit revealed by Christ and the Apostles to the primitive Church by oral or written transmission, Tradition or Scripture, comes to us by another living channel of transmission, which implies assistance only (magisterium).

772".... the Imperial envoy Cusano, on May 6th, 1570, that is to say about a year and a half before the battle, reports a conversation between Cardinal Cornaro and the Pope, and says that Pius V had told the Cardinal of the inspiration he had had about a victory over the Turks, remarking at the same time that he had frequently had such experiences when he was praying to God about some very important matter" (Pastor, History of the Popes, vol. XV III, London 1929, p. 450 n. 1).

773 cf. Fr. Marin-Sola, O. P., L'evolution homogene du dogme catholique, Fribourg 1924, vol. I, p. 5. I am here summarising Fr. Marin-Sola's conclusions.

774 The faith, which was implicit before Christ because all the articles of faith were not yet revealed "was unfolded into determinate articles of faith, and this was done by Christ. Consequently, it is not allowable either to add to or to take away anything from the essential articles of faith.... but the content of each of these articles may be unfolded as time goes on" (St. Thomas, In III Sent. dist. 25, q. 2, a. 2, quae St. 1, ad 5).

775 Decree Lamentabili, Denz., 202 1.

776 Between Catholicism on the one side and Graeco-Russian dissidence and still more the old Protestantism on the other, the question that arises is whether the truth of the Gospel can be preserved like a mineral which only keeps its identity by remaining inert (and even those who assert most fiercely that it can are forced to bear with dogmatic progress), or whether it is preserved as a living thing, which keeps its identity only in growth. The profound insight into this problem of a Newman or a Soloviev led them to the Catholic Church. Newman, still Anglican, abundantly illustrated the paradoxical characteristic of life, which saves identity by growth, in his University Sermons (1843) and above all in the Essay on the Development of Christian Doctrine (1845). While he was writing this Essay his difficulties disappeared and he resolved to enter the Church, leaving the book unfinished. He expresses himself thus on the Essay in the Apologia Pro Vita Sua (Chapter II): "That work, I believe, I have not read since I published it, and I do not doubt at all that I have made many mistakes in it; partly from my ignorance of the details of doctrine as the Church of Rome holds them, but partly from my impatience to clear as large a range for the principal of doctrinal development (waiving the question of historical fact) as was consistent with the strict Apostolicity and identity of the Catholic creed." As to Newman's definitive thought, cf. Marin-Sola, O. P., L'evolution homogene du dogme catholique, vol. I, pp. 347-353. As to Soloviev, he wrote between 1882 and 1884 : "It would be futile on this account [the dissimilarity between acorn and tree] to conclude that trunk and branches and leaves will later be supplied artificially from outside, to deny that the acorn can produce them, to deny the tree itself and admit the existence only of the acorn as we see it. It is equally unreasonable to deny the more complex, more clearly manifested forms which divine grace assumes in the Church and to want to go back to those of the primitive Christian community" (God, Man and the Church the Spiritual Foundations of Life, trans. D. Attwater, London, p. 151).

777"Neque enim fidei doctrina, quam Deus revelavit, velut philosophicum inventum proposita et humanis ingeniis perficienda, sed tanquam divinum depositum Christi Sponsae tradita, fideliter custodienda et infallibiliter declaranda" (Denz., 1800 ). "Neque enim Petri successoribus Spiritus sanctus promissus est ut, eo revelante, novam doctrinam patefecerent, sed ut, eo assistente, traditam per apostolos revelationem seu fidei depositum sancte custodirent et fideliter exponerent" (Denz., 1836)

778However, theologians who do not accept Marin-Sola's conclusions still restrict the term "dogmatic facts" to facts defined absolutely, without being defined as revealed.

779Declaration of the Council of Trent, Denz., 953. "Since it is not revealed that every Host contains the Body of Jesus Christ, but only that every consecrated Host does so, it follows that to know whether any particular Host contains It must depend on a condition, namely whether or not it is consecrated. Now, on the one hand, since this condition depends on a number of fallible factors, its fulfilment cannot be absolutely guaranteed save by an infallible definition of the Church; and, on the other hand, her infallibility cannot be brought to bear on a particular fact, such as the consecration of a Host, which does not involve the faith of the whole Church. This then is not a matter of divine faith, but simply of human faith or prudence.... Facts like these, concerning religion as they do, but not the faith of the whole Church, are not definable and never become 'dogmatic facts'. But if we ask whether such and such a Council is oecumenical, whether a certain Pope is truly Pope, whether a particular version of the Bible is authentic, whether such and such propositions, orthodox or heterodox, are contained in such and such a book, etc. etc., and if we do this prior to the definition of the Church, we have so many questions of fact on which it is possible to be deceived; and hence there can be no question of divine faith in spite of all universal revelations. But since these facts concern the faith of the whole Church, and not that of such and such a particular person only, they can be infallibly defined by the Church, and therefore, after that, they can be of divine faith. This faith is due to them not precisely because of the Church's definition, but on account of their inclusion in the revealed universal, an inclusion which the Church's definition does not cause, but makes infallibly known to us" (Fr. Marin-Sola O. P., op. cit., vol. I, p. 471)

780 I shall discuss later, in connection with the canonical power, those things that stand in morally necessary connection with the secondary end of the Church: which is to prepare souls to receive and serve the revealed deposit. cf. p. 363.

781 When Innocent X had condemned as heretical five theses drawn from the Augustinus of Jansenius, the Jansenists set themselves to distinguish between the right of the matter and the fact, and pretended that although the five theses, thus detached, were certainly heretical, yet in the context of the Augustinus they were really orthodox. It was then that Alexander VII infallibly declared and defined that the five theses were condemned precisely in the sense they bore in the book.

782 Primum Schema Constitutionis de Ecclesia can. IX; Collection Lacensis, vol. VII, col. 577.

783 But how are we to explain for example that what theologians call for short the Jansenist fact (do the five propositions figure in the Augustinus in a condemnable sense?) is a revealed fact and contained in the primitive deposit? Exactly as we explain that other facts posterior to the primitive deposit (e. g. the Council of Trent is oecumenical, Pius XI is a true successor of St. Peter, the Canon of the Mass is free from error) are revealed and contained in the deposit. They are particular applications of a universal proposition revealed from the outset. "The Jansenist fact" says Billuart, "is contained in the deposit, not indeed explicitly and immediately, but implicitly and mediately; it is included as a particular proposition within the universal one revealed from the outset—'Every text condemned by the Church is condemnable.' It follows that the condemnation of Jansenius' text is not a new article of faith, but the unfolding of a revealed universal, or rather its application to a determinate case. So, when a child comes into the world, it becomes of faith that this child has sinned in Adam, although there is no new revelation there, or any new article of faith, but the application to a particular datum of the revealed universal 'All have sinned in Adam’" (De Regulis Fidei, dissert. 3, a. 7, solvuntur object.). cf. Marin-Sola, op. cit., vol. I, p. 475. The question of "dogmatic facts" and the sophism involved in the Jansenist distinction between a dogmatic law and a non-dogmatic fact, have been placed in vivid light by this theologian. The dogmatic fact is indivisible. At bottom, the judgments of the Church, being a confrontation of an orthodox or heterodox datum with the revealed deposit, are always judgments of fact (op. Cit., p. 467).

784 To belong really to the revealed deposit certain truths may be contained in it in a more or less implicit, a more or less latent way. Thus they appear as more or less necessary to the preservation of the deposit. The Church therefore, infallibly pronouncing on these truths, can note their respective degrees of implicitness, and say for example that they "border on the faith" or are merely "certain", or again that they "border on heresy" or are only "erroneous". The Church can even condemn absolutely and infallibly as "rash" such a proposition for example as "The Last Judgment will (or will not) take place at such a date." In this case she pronounces in an absolute manner, not on the date, which remains uncertain, but on the temerity of those who predict it (cf. Marin-Sola, op. cit., vol. II, pp. 115 and 120).

785 II-II, q. 1, a. 7; disp. 2, a. 2, nos. 10 and 40: vol. VII, pp. 233 and 248.

786 What is the nature of this "ecclesiastical faith"? Opinions differ. Marin-Sola sums them up thus: "Some hold it as quasi-divine; others as mediately divine; and others as indirectly divine. For a number it holds an intermediate place between divine faith and human faith; for some it is human; for others it is divino-human; and finally there are those for whom it is not faith at all, whether divine or human, but knowledge (scientia)" (op. cit., vol. I, p. 405 ) In his Tractatus de Divina Traditione et Scriptura, Rome 1895, p. 124, Cardinal Franzelin writes: "The infallibility of the Church and of the Roman Pontiff is held as of divine faith on the authority of God revealing. The doctrine which, in virtue of an infallible definition of the Church or of the Sovereign Pontiff, is proposed as true but not as revealed, is believed on the revealed authority of the intermediary proposing it. So that the faith that some call ecclesiastical we can call mediately divine. "But is it possible to attribute to the absolutely infallible assistance two specifically distinct effects: the one, recognized by all, permitting the Church to intervene as a condition in proposing divine faith irrevocably; and the other which would result, according to the theologians here criticized, in transforming the authority of the Church into the formal motive of a faith which is not divine, but whose enunciations would also be irrevocable? To Franzelin I reply, following Marin-Sola, that from the Thomist standpoint the act of the ecclesiastical faith thus postulated would be formulated thus: "I believe this truth because God has revealed that the Church is infallible in teaching it me. "Now," thus formulated, it is of divine faith, although today the word ' ecclesiastical ' is used" (Marin-Sola, op. cit. p. 417) Propositions defined as dogmas of faith and propositions defined absolutely and irrevocably, but not as revealed, are both of divine faith; they do not differ formally or specifically, but only accidentally (ibid., p. 505 ).

787 That is the thesis presented by Marin-Sola as truly traditional. The rationally apprehended minor in the theological syllogism is considered as playing a purely instrumental part and as simply developing the content of the revealed major. However, this work of unfolding, being human, remains fallible in so far as it is not guaranteed by an irreformable definition of the Church.

788 If it is revealed that Christ was a perfect Man—if, in other words, He is to be recognized as having all the perfections demanded on the one hand by His personal union with the Word, and on the other by His redemptive mission—it must be concluded that He had beatifying knowledge, i. e., that from the outset His soul enjoyed that unclouded vision of God by which alone He could have had a perfect awareness of His own being, and to which moreover He was to lead not only mankind in general, but each particular man.

789 Concerning the manner in which the authority of the Church is engaged in beatification, John of St. Thomas offers a solution for which some modern theologians still seem to be searching: "Nihilominus, supposita sententia supra probata quod beatificatio non sit judicium de sanctitate alicujus, sed solum permissio ut possit publice coli et venerari, existimo, pontificem practice errare non posse in tali beatificatione, ita quod esset temerarius et scandalosus, qui talem celebrationem negaret, aut talem cultum non esse exhibendum [affirmaret]. Speculative autem, circa veritatem sanctitatis talis personae, existimo quod ex vi solius beatificationis id non excedit latitudinem certitudinis moralis et probabilitatis maximae, ita quod oppositum non esset censura dignum. Et dico 'ex vi beatificationis praecise" quia ex alio capite, verbi gratia si accedat assensus totius Ecclesiae, aut majoris partis fidelium, multitudo miraculorum facta in confirmationem ejus sanctitatis, et hoc longo tempore sit continuatum, ex parte fiet longe certius, et qui negaret sanctitatem talis personae cum his circumstantiis, esset censura temeritatis dignus" (II-II, q. 1-7; disp. 3, a. 2, no. 19, vol. VII, p. 302 ) A little earlier in the same work (no. 2, p. 293), John of St. Thomas poses the question, whether canonization and beatification are distinguished in such a way that the first is a judgment and the second a permission on the part of the Sovereign Pontiff, and upholds the view that beatification is in fact not an irrevocable judgment, judicium determinativum, but a simple permission. However, a permissive judgment is still a judgment, and John of St. Thomas has just affirmed that here the Sovereign Pontiff acts without error in the practical sphere. We may then say that beatification is indeed a judgment on the part of the Sovereign Pontiff, not indeed definitive and irrevocable, but prudential and reformable.

790 J. Maritain, St. Thomas Aquinas, trans. J. F. Scanlan, London 1930, pp. 1689. cf. God. Jur. Can. can. 1366, 2.

791 "Canonization is one thing, miracles, private revelations, apparitions, historical happenings, or the authenticity of relics, are another. When the Church approves the miracles of a saint during the process of canonization, or inserts them in the breviary lessons, when she institutes a special feast in honour of the apparition of a saint—e. g. the apparition of the Virgin at Lourdes or that of St. Michael the Archangel, the translation of the Holy House of Loretto, etc.—when she approves the private revelations of a saint—e. g. those of St. Brigid—or the authenticity and cultus of their relics, it is a very common opinion that these miracles, apparitions, revelations, historical facts, approbations of relics, are not infallibly defined although they deserve that pious adhesion and respect due to all the teachings, even fallible, of the Church" (F. Marin-Sola, O. P., L'Evolution homogene du dogme catholique, vol. 1, p. 482). The author here cites Pere Bainvel, S. J., De Magisterio Vivo et Traditione, no. 107 : "Cum Ecclesia inquirit aut pronuntiat de revelationibus, apparitionibus, miraculis, non intendit habere nisi probabilitatem aut certitudinem humanam, eaque practicam, quae scilicet satis sit ad fovendum cultum. Item cum de authenticitate reliquiarum." On the presentation of Our Lady in the Temple he cites the words of Benedict XIV: "Alia vero sic ad religionem pertinent, ut sine culpabili arrogantia rejici minime possint, ex gr., quod beatissima Virgo fuerit in Templo praesentata. Atque his quidem Ecclesia non tribuit gradum veritatis indubitatae, quamvis aliter, saltem publice, docere non liceat: in his quippe requiritur solum practice veritatis ratio, congruentia videlicet cum praescriptione prudentis rationis" (De Servorum Dei Beatificatione, lib. I, cap. xl III). At the end of the Encyclical Pascendi Pius X touches on the question of the authenticity of relics, of pious traditions, apparitions and private revelations. Concerning relics, the Pope refers to the earlier rule of the Sacred Congregation of Indulgences: "Ancient relics ought to be kept in all the veneration given them heretofore, unless perhaps in some particular case there are convincing reasons for holding them to be spurious." Concerning pious traditions, the Pope observes that "The Church gives no guarantee of the truth of fact; she simply refrains from forbidding belief when some motives for human faith are not wanting". On the subject of apparitions and particular revelations he cites a reply of the Sacred Congregation of Rites dated 12th May 1877 that "These apparitions or revelations [at Lourdes, La Salette, etc.] have neither been approved nor condemned by the Apostolic See, which has merely permitted them to be believed with purely human faith, as corroborated by witnesses and monuments worthy of credence". The Pope goes on to remark that "whoever holds this doctrine is safe. For the cultus directed to any of these apparitions, in so far as it looks to the fact itself, is relative and always implies the truth of the fact as its condition; but in so far as it is addressed to the very person of the saints honoured, it is absolute and cannot but be well-founded. The same may be said of relics".

792 "Quia et ipsa doctrina catholicorum doctorum ab Ecclesia auctoritatem habet. Unde magis standum est auctoritati Ecclesiae quam auctoritati vel Augustini, vel Hieronymi, vel cujuscumque doctoris" (St. Thomas, II-II, q. 10, a. 12).

793 Denz. 1684. Cf. His Holiness Pope Pius XII, encyclical Humani Generis, 12 August 1950: "It is not to be believed that what is set forth in encyclicals does not in itself claim assent..." (A. A. S., 1950, p. 568).

794 Franzelin says "Fidei immediate vel mediate divinae" (Tractatus de divina traditione et Scriptura, p. 142), this mediately divine faith being that which others—Billot, for example—call "ecclesiastical faith".

795 Denz. 1820. This text presupposes, as Vacant notes, "that the Sovereign Pontiff can exercise at least a part of his doctrinal authority through the tribunals he establishes, and in particular through the Roman Congregations. The text, in fact, does not lay down that we are bound to keep the constitutions and decrees of the Sovereign Pontiff, but those of the Holy See. Now the decrees that emanate from the Roman Congregations are very certainly to be reckoned among those of the Holy See. It is clear how wide is the scope of this declaration on submission to all the doctrinal decisions of the Holy See" (Etudes theologiques sur les constitutions du concile du Vatican, Paris 1895, vol. II, p. 334).

796 Denz. 200 7 and 200 8.

797 Denz. 2113.

798 This authority of universal ecclesiastical and doctrinal providence, which resides in the Sovereign Pontiff, is distinguished from the authority of particular providence held by the bishops "to preach and defend the doctrine already proposed by an express definition, or by the consent of the Church, or by the decisions of the universal ecclesiastical providence, but not for settling questions freely debated amongst Catholics" (Franzelin, op. cit., pp. 128 and 153).

799 "With no claim to a divine or infallible faith the pontifical teachings not expressly put forth as infallible nevertheless always deserve a human faith, and an internal and assured human faith, whenever it is not evident (and it very seldom is so) that the Church is in fact deceived. It is this human faith accorded to the non-infallible teachings of the Church, and in our days called pious assent, which should be named ecclesiastical faith, just as the human and variable laws of the Church are called ecclesiastical laws to distinguish them from laws that are really divine and unchangeable" (F. Marin-Sola, L'Evolution homogene du dogme catholique, vol. I, p. 429; cf. p. 479, note 1). I therefore distinguish only two species of assent: divine faith, and ecclesiastical faith (or pious assent). Many make it three: divine faith, ecclesiastical or mediately divine faith, and pious assent. In this triple division the intermediate category should, in my opinion, be included in the first

800 We have drawn attention already to the opinion of John of St. Thomas: "Existimo pontificem practice errare non posse in tali beatificatione."

801 A celebrated example may be cited to show that the Church intends to guarantee only in a fallible prudential manner the speculative truth of these pronouncements. On the 13th January 1897, the Congregation of the Inquisition, having been asked whether "The authenticity of 1 John v. 7, could be safely denied or doubted", replied in the negative. On the 2nd January 1927 the same Congregation published officially a private declaration, given, it said, at the outset and often since repeated, by the terms of which "The preceding decree was issued to reprove the audacity of private teachers who arrogated to themselves the right to reject absolutely, or to throw grave doubts on, the authenticity of the passage of St. John. But it did not in any way intend to prevent Catholic writers from studying the question more thoroughly nor, after carefully weighing the arguments for and against, from inclining, with all the moderation and modesty called for by the gravity of the matter, towards the opinion unfavourable to its genuineness, provided they declared themselves ready to obey the judgment of the Church, to whom has been entrusted the duty not only of interpreting but also of faithfully guarding the sacred Epistles" (Enchiridion Biblicum, Rome 1927, p. 47). The reply of the Inquisition on this point of exegesis did not represent a universal and constant teaching of the Church. Moreover a decision of the Roman Congregations is powerless, as such and of itself alone, fully to engage, were this only in a purely prudential manner, the authority of the Church. The still more celebrated difficulty occasioned by the condemnation of Galileo must be resolved in the same way: the sentence of excommunication was certainly doctrinal, but it was clear enough, even to contemporaries, that it came from a fallible authority. cf Excursus IV which follows below.

802 I-II, qq. 94. and 95

803 cf. Billuart: "Ad legem naturae pertinent non solum principia sed etiam conclusiones ex eis necessarie, sive proxime sive remote, deductae.... quia tam principia moralia quam conclusiones quae cum his habent necessariam connexionem praecipiunt ea quae per se et secluso omni jure positivo sunt bona, et prohibent quae per se et secluso omni jure positivo sunt mala" (Tract. de Legibus, dissert. 2, a. 3). Further on the jus gentium is distinguished from natural law: "Quae sunt juris gentium inferuntur ex jurae naturae per necessariam consequentiam, tamquam conclusiones ex natura rei simpliciter necessariae: Nego! Per consequentiam non necessariam, neque ut conclusiones simpliciter necessariae, sed ut congruentes: Concedo!" (Tract. de Jure et Justitia, dissert. 1, a. 2). For St. Thomas, private property pertains formally to human law, but radically to the natural law. The Encyclical Rerum Novarum would not appear to say anything different: "Possidere res privatim ut suas, jus est homini a natura datum.... Privatas possessiones plane esse secundum naturam.... Jus dominii, personis singularibus, natura tributum..." Of the precepts of human law St. Thomas writes that they bind "non tanquam sint solum lege posita, sed habent etiam aliquid vigoris ex lege naturali" (I-II, q. 95, a. 2).

804 Denz., 899 and 917. cf. Marin-Sola, l'Evolution homogene du dogme catholique, vol. I, p. 335.

805 Denz., 1491-5. These propositions are condemned as false, scandalous, pernicious. I take full responsibility for asserting that their condemnation is irrevocable.

806 "Just as a Council cannot propose errors for Christian people to believe, so it cannot propose evil things for them to do. I mean of course propose them by any absolute decree [firmo certoque decreto] obliging all the faithful to believe or do anything under pain of eternal loss" (Melchior Cano, De Locis Theologicis, lib. V, cap. v, concl. 2). "Moral rectitude" says John of St. Thomas, "is no less necessary for salvation than a sure faith. Hence the Sovereign Pontiff, in virtue of his supreme authority, cannot err, whether in teaching the certitude of the faith or the rectitude of morals" (II-II, q. 1 to 7; disp. 3, a. 3, no. 4; vol. VII, p. 310). The Vatican Council defined the infallibility of the Roman Pontiff when irreformably teaching doctrine concerning faith and morals (Denz., 1839).

807 cf. above, p. 342, note 1.

808 De Locis Theologicis, lib. V, cap. v, concl. 2.

809 e. g. Melchior Cano: "In grave matters, of high importance to the formation of Christian morals, the Church, when enacting laws that concern all, can ordain nothing contrary to the Gospel or to natural reason.... Just as she can define nothing as vicious which in fact is virtuous, nor as virtuous which is vicious, so neither, in promulgating her laws, can she approve anything contrary to the Gospel or to reason. If, by any express judgment, or in enacting a law, she approved what is wrong or reproved what is right, the error would not merely be a disaster for the faithful, it would also be, in a way, opposed to the faith which approves every virtue and condemns all vices. Further, Christ has commanded us to obey the laws of the Church, saying: Do all that they say unto you.... and: Whoso heareth you heareth me...; so that if the Church should err herein Christ would be the author of our errors" (De Locis Theologicis, lib. V, cap. v, concl. 2). Similarly St. Robert Bellarmine declares it impossible for the Pope to err "in precepts addressed to the whole Church" and concerning "things necessary to salvation, or in themselves good or bad." For example, "The Sovereign Pontiff will never be deceived into commanding a vice such as usury, or forbidding a virtue such as restitution, since these things are good or bad in themselves; similarly, he will never be deceived into commanding anything contrary to salvation, such as the necessity of circumcision, or the observance of the Sabbath, or into forbidding anything necessary for salvation, such as Baptism or the Eucharist" (De Romano Pontifice, lib. IV, cap. v). Numberless similar texts could be cited. But I should like to note here that after Melchior Cano had written that he did not intend to approve all the laws of the Church and that he knew of some that lacked prudence or moderation, later theologians such as Suarez or John of St. Thomas, set out to distinguish the substance of ecclesiastical laws from their prudence (i. e. from their various applications and circumstances, their strictness and so forth) and said that such laws are infallible in their substance, as opposed to saying (as I believe would be more exact), that it is in their basis, their principle, their root, that they are infallible, and that absolutely.

810 Denz., 931.

811 Denz., 878, 888. This last decree, notes Cano, is drawn up so as not to anathematize those who simply deny the suitability of processions of the Blessed Sacrament, which would be merely imprudent or rash (so also Banez), but only those who deny it because they do not admit the presence of Christ in the Eucharist and the adoration that is due to It (De Locis Theologicis, lib. V, cap. v, concl. 2).

812 Denz., 942.

813 Denz., 943

814 II-II, qq. 1-7; disp. 3, a. 3, no. 5; vol. VII, p. 311: As I have said, most theologians after Melchior Cano content themselves with expressly distinguishing on the one hand all that concerns the substance, the morality and the rectitude of laws proposed to the whole Church, which cannot, without heresy, be said to contain anything contrary to the evangelical or natural law; and, on the other hand, all that concerns the concrete application of these laws, their adaptation to the circumstances, their strictness, their sanctions, and so forth, in which error is always possible. cf. Suarez, De Fide, disp. 5, sect. 8, no. 7; John of St. Thomas, loc. cit., etc. Between these two extreme groups, the first of which contains the revealed and absolutely infallible precepts which cannot be denied without heresy, and the second the particular and fallible precepts, we must, I believe, find a place for canonical precepts of general applicability which are prudentially infallible. For we have seen St. Thomas (in Quodlibet IX, art. 16) recognize three kinds of decisions of the Church: those concerning faith, in which the Church is certainly infallible; those concerning particular facts in which she is fallible; and those that are intermediary, in which piety inclines to take the Church for infallible. There are other theologians who speak, at least in actu exercito, of intermediate decisions. St. Antoninus for example, following John of Naples, distinguishes decisions of the Pope on the particular concerns of private persons—just distribution of offices and benefices, judicial sentences etc.—in which the Pope can err through ignorance or passion; and decisions concerning the good of the whole Church, bearing either on matters of faith or of morals: constitutions, decrees, decretals, in which, if left to her own resources the Church might err, but in which she is in fact protected by the power of Christ (Summa Sacrae Theologiae, Juris Pontificii et Caesarii, III pars., tit. xii, cap. v III, 2). It looks as though there were only two groups here. Really there are three. For the decrees and decretals which St. Antoninus has separated from particular decisions, cannot, for all that, be included along with decisions concerning the faith. The text of John of St. Thomas, cited above, is very clear. Billuart, who does not seem to have seen it, is nevertheless of the same opinion: "After Suarez and Banez, John of St. Thomas adds that the Church can err as regards the circumstances, application and execution of the law, for example by issuing too many precepts and censures, and applying them too strictly. For, he says, all that seems rather to pertain to the prudence and surrounding modalities of the law than to its substance and morality. Cano thinks likewise.... However, when we are concerned with laws laid down for all Christians, it is only out of regard for these very learned men that their reservations are to be entertained: I should not dare to make them mine" (De Regulis Fidei, dissert. 3, a. 5). It may be remarked, however, that even when it is a question of laws concerning all Christians, their application and execution may belong to the domain of particular decisions.

815 St. Robert Bellarmine writes: "It could be maintained without absurdity that the Pope could go wrong when, for example, ordering things which, without being either good or evil in themselves, nor contrary to salvation, would be useless; or in forbidding something under over-heavy penalties" (De Romano Pontifice, lib. IV, cap. v). In the case of precepts of general interest I do not agree that they could be useless. As to those of particular interest I agree that they could be useless, too strict, and sometimes even worse, as we shall see.

816 I-II, q. 90 a. 2, ad 1.

817 cf. Billuart, De Regulis Fidei, dissert. 3, a. 5.

818 After criticising the temerity of Melchior Cano, who claims that the approval of religious orders falls within the prudential sphere and denies that the Sovereign Pontiff is infallible in this sphere, on the grounds that the Council of Lyons abolished as harmful or superfluous religious orders previously approved by the Apostolic Seat (De Locis Theologicis, lib. v, cap. v), John of St. Thomas begins by affirming that the Pope is infallible not only when he approves a religious rule with regard to the three essential vows, but also with regard to its substance—its goodness and its morality. And Cano is certainly to blame for failing to recall this point. But John of St. Thomas concludes by setting aside the question of prudence, which, clearly, preoccupied Cano, saying that he does not wish to commit himself concerning the circumstances of the approval of religious rules, nor concerning their excessive number, since all that has no necessary connection with the substance and goodness of these rules; cf. II-II, q. 1-7, disp. 3, a. 3, no. 6, vol. VII, p. 311). It is precisely this question of prudence which I wish to find a reply to. I do not believe that a measure which is really of general concern can ever be either harmful or even superfluous, though it may be so in the case of a clumsy or imprudent application of it in some particular local Church, where there may be, for example, laws or customs of ancient standing.

In order to justify Cano, Hyacinth Serry recalls, in his Melchioris Cani Vindicationes, which he set at the beginning of the De Locis as a "prologus galeatus" (cap. xi), that earlier theologians have distinguished (concerning the approbation of religious orders) a judgment bearing on the substance of a given religious rule, in which the Church is infallible, and a judgment bearing on the opportuneness of its promulgation. He maintains that, according to Cano, it is only in connection with the second of these judgments that the Pope is fallible, in which case Cano would be saying nothing different from the arguments of his most openly avowed adversaries—Suarez, for example. Serry alleges the authority of Banez, according to whom we should judge of the approbation of religious orders as we judge of ecclesiastical laws in matter not necessary to salvation; here and there, the Pope may act minus prudenter, minus caute. Finally he recalls that shortly after the time of Cano St. Pius V suppressed the order of Humiliati, and that other Popes have acted in a similar manner. For my own part I believe that in certain cases the judgment concerning opportuneness itself can be prudentially infallible, in the matter of the approval of religious orders.

819 I have said above that modern theologians are content to distinguish facts of general interest and facts of only particular interest. The former are as precise and as concrete as the latter, but they stand in necessary relation with revelation and consequently concern the faith of the whole Church. Such are, on the one hand, facts expressly revealed, for example that Jesus was born at Bethlehem, and that He consecrated bread and wine at the Last Supper; and, on the other hand "dogmatic" facts which although not expressly contained in the revealed deposit are necessarily connected with the preservation and explanation of revealed doctrine, and so concern the faith of the whole Church: for example, such and such a council was infallible, such and such a version of the Bible is authentic, such and such a Pope was really Pope, and such and such a writing of Arius Nestorius or Jansenius is heretical. As to facts of particular interest, these may be of a religious nature, but they are not necessarily connected with revelation and do not concern the faith of the whole Church: for example, that a particular Host has been consecrated (cf. Marin-Sola, O. P., L'Evolution homogene du dogme catholique, vol. I, pp. 455, 471, note 1). Between these two extreme categories there is, in my opinion, room for a third group of facts which are necessarily connected, not with the primary end of the Church, which is to define revelation, but with its canonical and secondary end, which is to facilitate its reception. The canonization of a saint is a fact of the first group; the consecration of a particular Host is a fact of the third group; the authenticity of the Christian life of a beatified servant of God is a fact of the second group; the Pope, says John of St. Thomas, declares it with a prudential infallibility. cf. above, pp. 341, note 2; 348, n. 1; 366.

820 Innocent III himself envisages the case of a husband certain of the existence of an impediment which makes the use of marriage impossible for him without mortal sin, yet unable to provide legal proof of it in the eyes of the Church. What is his duty? "Debet potius excommunicationis sententiam humiliter sustinere, quam per carnale commercium peccatum operari mortale", says the Pope (cap. 44, x, lib. v, tit. 39). In the fourth book of the Sentences (dist. 38), Peter Lombard supposes the following case: a man leaves his wife, goes away into some distant region and marries another without revealing his position; later, struck with remorse, he wishes to leave this wife but the Church, who has no proof of the first marriage, obliges him to cohabit with her. Peter Lombard is of the opinion that the man is then excused from guilt quantum ad redditionem debiti. But Albert the Great (IV Sent., dist. 38, a. 23) and St. Thomas (IV Sent., dist. 38, expositio textus) clearly decide against this solution. St. Thomas writes: "The Master of the Sentences here says something which is false; for the man in question should die excommunicate rather than be united with her who is not his wife: for that would be to act against honesty of living, which we have no right to abandon, even in order to avoid a scandal." Cf. similar conclusions on the part of Melchior Cano (De Locis Theologicis, lib. v, cap. v, conc. 3) and Billuart (De Regulis Fidei, dissert. III, a. 5).

821 As expressed by Joseph de Maistre, this paradox becomes a categorical error. At the opening of his book Du Pape he writes: "Infallibility in the spiritual order and sovereignty in the temporal order are words that are perfectly synonymous.... When we say that the Church is infallible, we are not claiming for her any particular privilege; we merely claim that she should enjoy the right, common to all sovereignties, all of whom necessarily act as if they were infallible, for every government is absolute; and as soon as it is resisted under pretext of error or injustice, it ceases to exist" (Bk. 1, ch. 1). The error is not mitigated in Chapter 19 in which spiritual and temporal sovereignty are distinguished: "There can be no human society without government, nor government without sovereignty, nor sovereignty without infallibility; and this last privilege is so absolutely necessary that we are forced to suppose infallibility even in temporal sovereignties (where it is not) under pain of general dissolution. The Church asks no more than do other governments, albeit it enjoys an immense superiority over them, since on the one side infallibility is humanly supposed, and on the other divinely promised"

822 There is an echo there of a higher mystery, for Christ Himself, besides His beatific and His infused knowledge, had an experimental or experiential knowledge by which "He did not know everything from the beginning, but learnt it step by step and gradually", so that "new things would present themselves to Him from day to day" (St. Thomas, III, q. 12, a. 2, ad 1; q 15, a. 8).

823 "In spite of all the pressure brought to bear on him by the legitimitists of France, by the Miguelists of Portugal, by the Carlists of Spain and the Austrian Chancellery, Gregory XVI avoided any pronouncement for Don Carlos. But the Spanish clergy did not imitate his reserve. The greater part openly embraced the cause of the Pretender, and favoured the recruitment of his partisans and the movements of his army. For seven years a fierce war convulsed Navarre, Catalonia, Castile and Aragon, a war of irregulars in which both parties paid back cruelty with cruelty" (F. Mourret, Histoire generale de l'Eglise, vol. V III, p. 199).

824 Apologia Pro Vita Sua, chap. V.

825 The Mystery of the Church, London 1937, page 107.

826 "Up to Augustine all the Fathers were immersed in the current of the ancient civilization; they could not shake it off. They could not conceive the possibility of any other type of civilization; only one type of culture was possible for them, and no other political formula than that of the Roman Empire.... Augustine on the other hand was the author of the City of God; the man who saw and bore with the crumbling of Rome; not indeed unmoved, but without any real disorganization of a thought already prepared for it" (Henri-Irenee Marrou, Saint Augustin et la fin de la culture antique, Paris 1938, p. 354).

827 J Maritain, St. Thomas Aquinas, trans. J. F. Scanlan, London 1931, p. 39.

828 "In his novel Jeunesse sans Dieu.... a young Hungarian writer, Odo de Horvath, who died in tragic circumstances in Paris in 1938, recalls that the State represents a natural necessity and is therefore willed by God, so that consequently the Church ought to collaborate with the State. But where is the State, he adds, that is not ruled by the powerful and the rich? And how collaborate with the State without being thereby obliged to collaborate with the powerful and the rich? The Church, above all else, has to do her own work and endure. She cares little if she looks cynical in taking the State as it is with all the injustices and impurities that disfigure it, merely trying to make it as little evil as possible. She can do nothing else: for the difficulties it brings on her there is no other mitigation than to have to do either with a weak State or with a State itself Christian—I say vitally, not merely decoratively Christian" (J. Maritain, Raison et Raisons, Paris, 1947, p. 297).

829 Nous autres Francais 1939, p. 245.

830 Neither the universal secondary, nor, above all, the primary message of the Church, can be intrinsically affected by any error or any injustice. But how comes it that we are able to admit the presence of error and injustice in the secondary particular message of the Church teaching, while still excluding all stain from the Church believing and loving? It is because the instrumental and tendential holiness of the Church teaching is of less moment than the terminal and formal holiness of the Church believing and loving. Cf the second volume of the French original of The Church of the Word Incarnate, ch. 7, s. 1, no. 3, §5.

831 Here we have an application of the axiom on the reciprocal interplay of causes on each other-loving faith being first in the order of exercise, and the jurisdictional orientation being first in the order of specification.

832 The thesis of Marsilius of Padua and John of Janduno that "The blessed Apostle Peter had no greater authority than the other Apostles and was not their head" was condemned by John XXII on the 23rd October 1327 (Denz. 496) When St. Robert Bellarmine affirms that "The supreme ecclesiastical power was given not to Peter alone but also to the other Apostles" he explains at once that "it was given to Peter as ordinary Pastor, to be handed on in perpetuity, and to the others as legates without successors" (De Romano Pontifice, lib. I, cap. ix), and he adds that the Apostles had the plenitude of this power "in such a manner that Peter was their head, and they depended on him, not he on them" (ibid., cap. xi), that they were equal in apostolic power, in apostolica potestate, but not as regards each other, non inter se (ibid., cap. xii) But how could they have the supreme power if they depended on Peter, and if they were unequal inter se? They have it episodically, in order to found the Church as to her historical appearance, not structurally in order to found the Church as to her permanence in the present.

833 St. Thomas notes in one and the same text that Paul was subject to Peter and that he was his equal "aliquo modo" (II-II, q. 33, a. 4, ad 2) And Cajetan was to say that the Apostles were equal as Apostles; but that, as sheep of Christ, deprived here below of His visible presence they were entrusted to the care of Peter, the sole pastor (De Comparatione Auctoritatis Papae et Concilii, cap. III, no. 23)

834 St. John, explains Cajetan, was the equal of Pope St. Clement as regards the power of carrying out Christ's design, for example in founding local Churches: he could do, in virtue of his apostolate, what the Pope did in virtue of his regular power. St. Clement (the Pope) was superior as regards authority to rule the universal Church. But St. John was superior as regards the teaching of faith and morals because he could write inspired canonical books (ibid., cap. iv, no. 53)

835 This is Cajetan's teaching: "In giving the Church her normal and permanent constitution, Jesus Christ founded her on the monarchical principate, on the principate of one alone, and He made Peter sole head of the whole body of the Church, the source of the powers of jurisdiction and order which were to pass to the other Apostles: that is what is meant by all the ecclesiastical authors when they affirm the dependence of all the faithful on Peter. But exceptionally, just as Christ at the Last supper forestalled Peter by Himself giving the power of order to the other Apostles.... so He forestalled him by Himself giving them the authority to govern, manage and judge the Church And just as the superiority of Peter, the head of the Church, is in no wise invaded by the fact that the other Apostles did not receive the power of order from him, since that was due to no lack of power in Peter or any exemption of the Apostles, but to the special favour of Christ who gave straight to the other Apostles what was to come to them in a regular way through Peter; so the excellence of the jurisdictional power of Peter is not injured by the fact that the saviour gave to the other Apostles, by favour, a power they were to receive regularly from Peter" (De Comparatione Auctoritatis Papae et Concilii, cap. III, no. 33) we must note a difference however in the way in which the power of jurisdiction and the power of order respectively derive from Peter. The supreme power of jurisdiction is found, of itself, in the Pope alone, so that schism and heresy cut episcopal jurisdiction away from its roots. The power of order dwells in its fullness in each bishop, so that it can be transmitted validly, although illicitly, in schism and heresy.

836 Lib. II, cap. xxxii.

837 Lib. I, cap. xx III.

838 De Rom. Pont., lib. IV, cap. xxv.

839 De Fide, disp. 10, sect. 1, no. 7.

840 De Rom. Pont., lib. IV, cap. xxv.

841 De Fide, disp. 10, sect. 1, no. 4.

842 II-II, qq. 1 to 7; disp. 1, a. 3, nos. 12 and 13; vol. VII, p. 181

843 De Ecclesia Christi, Rome 1921, q. 13, th. 26, 2, pp. 554 and 561 .

844 Denz. 1828.

845 cf. John of St. Thomas: "Alia potestas erat circa regimen Ecclesiae et gubernationem ejus, quae pertinebat ad Ecclesiam quasi ad ejus conservari, et innitebatur potestati ordinis in apostolis" (II-II, qq. 1-7, disp. 1, a. 3, no. 13; vol. VII, p. 181): also Billot: "The power of order cannot exist without jurisdiction in the bishops, in whom is the plenitude of the episcopate (De Ecclesia Christi, q. 13, th. 26, 2, p. 555)

846 St. Jerome: "With us, the bishops hold the place of the Apostles; with them [the Montanists] the bishops come in the third rank" (Epistola XLI, Ad Marcellam, no. 3; P. L. XXII, col. 476) Or St.. Augustine: "What is the meaning of Instead of thy fathers sons are born to thee? The fathers who have been sent are the Apostles, and in place of Apostles sons are born to thee, bishops are established. The bishops who today are spread throughout all the world, whence are they born (Enarr. in Psal., xli)

847 At the council of Florence: "of the Apostles alone, whose place is taken by the bishops, we read that they gave the Holy spirit by the imposition of their hands" (Denz. 697) At the Council of Trent: "The holy Synod declares that above the other ecclesiastical degrees the bishops, who have succeeded to the place of the Apostles, belong principally to the hierarchical order, and that they were, according to the Apostle's word (Acts xx. 28), established by the Holy spirit to rule the Church of God" (Denz. 960) And above all at the Vatican Council which speaks of the jurisdiction in virtue of which "The bishops established by the Holy spirit to succeed the Apostles, feed and rule, like true pastors, the flocks respectively assigned to them" (Denz. 1828) we may cite finally the Code of Canon Law: "The bishops are the successors of the Apostles, and in virtue of a divine institution they are placed at the head of particular Churches and rule them with an ordinary power under the authority of the Roman Pontiff" (can. 329, §1)

848 IV Contra Gentes, cap. lxxvi.

849 IV Sent., dist. 24, q. 3, a. 2, quae St. 3, ad 1.

850 IV Contra Gentes, cap. lxxvi.

851 The primitive term designating the power of the Bishop of Rome was primatus. The term papatus first appears, according to Ducange, in Leo of Ostia, in the twelfth century. On this point, and on the various titles of the primacy such as principatus, sedes apostolica, etc. see Batiffol, Cathedra Petri, Etudes d'histoire ancienne de l'Eglise, Paris 1938, pp. 24, 199, 83 et seq.

852 St. Thomas, In Polit., lib. I, lect. I, and II-II, q. 58, a. 7, ad 2.

853 Mgr. Duchesne writes: "The view that the episcopate represents the apostolic succession, is in accordance with the sum-total of facts as we know them. The first Christian communities were governed at the outset by apostles of various degrees, to whom they owed their foundation, and by other members of the evangelising staff. But in the nature of things, this staff was ambulatory and unsettled, and the founders soon entrusted specially instructed and trustworthy neophytes with the permanent duties which were necessary to the daily life of the community: such as the celebration of the Eucharist, preaching, preparation for baptism, the presidency in assemblies, and the temporal administration. Sooner or later the missionaries were obliged to leave these young communities to themselves, and the entire direction of affairs fell into the hands of the leaders who had formed part of the local community. Whether they had one bishop at their head, or whether they had a college of several, the episcopate still carried on the apostolic succession. It is equally clear that, through the apostles who had instituted it, this hierarchy went back to the very beginning of the Church, and derived its authority from those to whom Jesus Christ had entrusted His work. But we can go further still, and show that if the system of government by a single bishop represents in some respects a later stage of the hierarchy, it was not so unknown in primitive days as it might appear.... the primitive community in Jerusalem lived at first under the direction of the twelve apostles, presided over by Peter. A council of ' elders ' (presbyteri, priests) and a college of seven deacons completed this organization. Later on, a ' brother ' of the Lord, James, takes his place beside the apostles, sharing their superior authority. When the apostles dispersed, he took their place alone, and assumed the position of head of the local Church. Upon his death (61 A. D.) a successor was appointed, also a kinsman of the Lord, Simeon, who lived till about 110 A. D. This Jerusalem hierarchy presents exactly the grades of rank which, later on, became universal." In the second community, that of Antioch, the unitary government was traditional from the beginning of the second century when St. Ignatius gave it such fame: "This testimony to the existence of the episcopacy is the very reason why his letters were so long viewed with suspicion in some quarters. But Ignatius does not speak of the monarchical bishop as a new institution.... Towards the middle of the second century, the monarchical episcopate also comes before us as an undisputed fact of received tradition, in the Western Christian communities of Rome, Lyons, Corinth, Athens and Crete, as well as in more eastern provinces. Nowhere is there a trace of any protest against a sudden and revolutionary change, transferring the government from a college of bishops to a single monarchical ruler. From the second century onwards—in some places at least—it was possible for them to name the bishops linking them to the apostles.... the line of succession of the bishops of Rome dates back to St. Peter and St. Paul, and is known to us through St. Irenaeus; that of Athens, dating back to Dionysius the Areopagite, is given by St. Dionysius of Corinth.... What conclusion can be drawn from all this, if not that the system of government by a monarchical bishop was already in existence, in countries west of Asia, at the time when such books were written as the Shepherd of Hermas, or the Second Epistle of Clement, the Teaching of the Apostles, and the First Epistle of St. Clement and that, therefore, the testimony of these old writers to the collegiate episcopate does not preclude the existence of the monarchical episcopate?" (The Early History of the Church, vol. i, pp. 63-9) 854 As far as the name goes, notes St. Thomas in this connection, bishops and priests were not distinguished in the primitive Church. But as for the thing, they have always been distinct, even in the time of the Apostles; and if the Apostles are prototypes of the bishops, the seventy-two disciples (Luke x. 1) are the prototypes of priests of the second rank. Later on, to avoid schism, the names also had to be distinguished, and St. Augustine (De Haeresibus, L III) counts as a heresy the doctrine of Aerius, according to which priests differ in nothing from bishops (cf II-II, q. 184, a. 6, ad 1) See Excursus II, no. 5.

855 Those whom the Scripture calls "episcopi" or "presbyteri" are set to feed a particular flock: "Take heed to yourselves and to the whole flock, wherein the Holy Ghost has placed you bishops to rule the Church of God, which he hath purchased with his own blood" (Acts xx. 28); a determinate circumscription which they had to watch over: "I left thee in Crete," writes St. Paul to Titus, "that thou shouldst set in order the things that are wanting, and shouldst ordain priests in every city.... For a bishop must be without crime, as the steward of God" (Titus i. 5-7); a particular Church which they are to govern: "Feed the flock of God which is among you tit is a question of presbyters], taking care of it not by constraint, but willingly according to God; not for filthy lucre's sake, but voluntarily. Neither as lording it over the clergy but being made a pattern of the flock from the heart. And when the Prince of Pastors shall appear you shall receive a never-fading crown of glory" (1 Pet. v. 2-4)

856 Epistle to the Philadelphians, IV.

857 Epistle to the Church at Smyrna, V III and IX.

858 Can. 329, §1.

859 We shall see further on that the bishop receives from his union with the reigning Sovereign Pontiff certain ampler powers by which he partakes in the sovereign jurisdiction over the universal Church.

86 0 In Epist. ad Titum, cap. 1, homil. 2; P. G. LXII, col. 673.

861 This is the authority of particular providence, distinguished by Franzelin from the authority of the universal ecclesiastical and doctrinal providence, enabling bishops "to preach and defend the doctrine already proposed by express definition or by the consent of the Church, or by the decisions of the universal ecclesiastical providence, but not to settle questions freely debated among Catholics" (Tractatus de Divina Traditione et Scriptura, pp. 128 and 153)

862 IV Sent., dist. 20, q. 1, a. 4, quae St. 1.

863 Can. 335, 1.

864 Can. 1326.

865 Cap. iv. cf Quodlibet 12, q. 19, a. 30.

866 The Vatican Council declared that episcopal jurisdiction is immediate and ordinary (Denz. 1828)

867 Can. 197.

868 From a canonical standpoint we must further distinguish a principal vicarious jurisdiction, that, for example, which a bishop gives his parish priests; and an instrumental vicarious jurisdiction, such as the bishop gives his vicars-general.

869 Denz. 1828.

870 De Sacerdotio lib. VI, 2 to 8; P. G. XLV III, col. 679 et seq.

871 II-II, q. 185, a. 1, ad 2; cf. 184, a. 7.

872 St. Ignatius of Antioch, Epistle to the Church at Smyrna, V III, 2. The term Catholic Church here appears for the first time in history, and it means the universal Church. Somewhat later, towards 155, it occurs three times in another document, The Martyrdom of St. Polycarp, with the same meaning; and once in the cognate sense of orthodox or true Church.

873 Of Timothy and Titus Pere Prat writes that their position resembles that of bishops, "differing only inasmuch as their authority is delegated ad tempus and revocable ad nutum; but when they had to be replaced to fulfil another mission they were so by one person only—Artemas or Tychicus in Crete (Titus III. 12), and this same Tychicus at Ephesus (2 Tim. iv. 12)—so that the government of these Churches is almost monarchical in form" (F. Prat, The Theology of St. Paul, London 1942, vol. II, pp. 301-307 )

874 The critics are more and more in agreement in regarding not only as authentic but even as primitive the redaction of Chapter iv of the De Unitate Ecclesiae in which the author says that if Christ gave all the Apostles an equal power "He nevertheless established a single Chair", that "The primacy was given to Peter" and that one cannot think of oneself as belonging to the Church if one is separated from "The Chair of Peter on whom the Church is founded". This text moreover "does not contain a word, or turn of phrase, not characteristic of Cyprian's style, not a word, not a phrase, that is not to be found elsewhere in Cyprian" (Pierre Batiffol, L'Eglise naissante et le catholicisme, Paris 1911, p. 444) For Cyprian, however, who only wished to establish one thing, namely that in one Church there was room for only one bishop, Peter seemed to be simply the bishop of a particular Church, and he did not give the texts concerning him their full significance. Othmar Perler writes similarly at the end of a study of the fourth chapter of the De Unitae Ecclesiae: "According to Cyprian it was not necessary, at least as far as regards the controverted question of the baptism of heretics, to be in agreement with the local Church of Rome in order to be in the Church of Christ. That is exactly the contrary of what Irenaeus had gathered from the idea of tradition" ("Zur Datierung der beiden Fassungen des vierten Kapitels 'De Unitate Ecclesiae'," Sonderabdruck aus der Rom. Quartalschrift, vol. 44, nos. I-II, p. 42) In comparison even with St. Ignatius of Antioch, who saluted the Church of Rome as "The president of charity" (or "presiding over the charity"), St. Cyprian, who seems here to be under the influence of Tertullian, marks a recession. Batiffol expresses himself very clearly in Cathedra Petri, p. 11: "The Anglicans rely on St. Cyprian in whom indeed they find some celebrated declarations of independence, as for example the objection made against any bishop whatever who should set up as episcopus episcoporum. Firmilian, Bishop of Caesarea of Cappadocia, echoes St. Cyprian.... We shall not hesitate to say that St. Cyprian was under a delusion, and that the bishop whom he imagined as accountable to none save God, was a bishop who never existed..." As to St. Cyprian's attitude to Rome, Batiffol opposes "not only Cyprian to Cyprian, but Cyprian to the conception which henceforth prevailed among historians of the part played by the Roman Church in the Catholicity of the second and third centuries".

875 "Each bishop" writes Pope St. Leo, "has a special care for his own flock, and each will have to render an account of the sheep committed to him. But we, for our part, have a care in common with them all, and the ministry of each one of them is a part of ours [neque cujusdam administratio non nostri laboris est portio]. And when, from all over the world, recourse is had to the seat of the Blessed Apostle Peter, and in our intervention is sought that love for the universal Church which the Lord laid upon him as a duty, we feel the weight of our charge to be so much the heavier as our debt to all is the greater" (Sermo V, cap. II; P. L. LIV, col. 153; cited by Batiffol in Le siege apostolique (35945 1), Paris 1924, p. 427) The path here indicated is that followed by Moehler: "I was for long uncertain whether the primacy of one Church was one of the distinctive characters of the Catholic Church. I was even ready to say no.... However, on looking more closely at St. Peter as he is presented in the Bible, or questioning the depths of history, on making a living penetration into the organism of the Church, I found myself constrained to admit this idea. This is how I managed to construct it historically.... We have seen that the bishop is the central point of the diocese.... We have found, too, the unity of all the bishops; but here we lack the central point, we do not yet see the expression of this unity in a living image. In the totality of the bishops we contemplate the unity of all the members of the Church. But we still seek—for we know that the whole is of the same type as its parts—the personified reflection of this unity" (Die Einheit in der Kirche, pt. ii, ch. iv, 67 p. 250) But on this point Moehler does not see to the bottom of the matter. And he does not sufficiently realize that the Pope is the Vicar of Christ, not of the Church.

876 See St. Thomas, IV Contra Gentes, lxxvi.

877 "Whereas they that were in the boat (Matt. xiv. 33) had simply taken Jesus for a supernatural being, Peter, adding the article and the qualification, Son of the living God, proclaimed as clearly as he could that Jesus was of divine origin, having the nature of the Infinite Being, who possesses life and can give it.... Whence had Peter this knowledge? The answer is to be found in xi, 25 et seq., but it still needed a special grace to grasp it and proclaim it with so much energy" (M. J. Lagrange, Evangile selon saint Matthieu, 1923, p. 322)

878 See Excursus VII, on the Primacy of Peter.

879 Martin Grabmann, Die Lehre des heiligen Thomas von Aquin von der Kirche als Gotteswerk Ratisbon 1903 p. 156, claims that we may cite here Rupert of Deutz.

880 It could also be called the second epoch of the age of the Father, since the Son, whose influence then resembled that of a final cause, had not actually appeared: the Father had promised to send Him.

881 cf. the "corpus spiritale" of 1 Cor. xv. 44.

882 St. Augustine writes in his commentary on this text: "When Christ withdrew corporeally it was not simply the Spirit who became present, but along with the Spirit, the Father and the Son, their presence now spiritual. For how can we suppose that Christ, leaving the disciples, gave them the Spirit as His successor, not as His companion—He who had said: Behold I am with you all days even to the consummation of the world; and again: If any man love me he will keep my word, and my Father will love him, and we will come to him and make our abode with him. He promised to send them the Spirit while remaining Himself eternally with them. If from being carnal and gross they had become spiritual, certainly they would be the more apt to receive the Father, the Son and the Spirit. In none of them could the Father be without the Son and the Spirit.... for where is One there is the Trinity, the one God. "By a marvellous enlargement of divine gifts descending progressively on mankind, the benefits of the age of the Father are magnified in the age of the Son, and these last also in the age of the Spirit: and the end of the whole design is, as the Greek Fathers saw, to bring back mankind by the Spirit to the Word, and from the Word to the Father. This was already Irenaeus' conception: "Those who are baptized receive the Spirit of God, who gives them to the Word, that is to the Son, and the Son takes them and offers them to the Father, and the Father gives them incorruptibility" (Epideixis, VII) The same thought may be found in Athanasius: "Since the Word is in the Father, and the Spirit comes from the Word, we should receive the Spirit, so that possessing the Spirit of the Word who is in the Father, we too may then become one by the Spirit in the Word, and through Him in the Father" (III Contra Arianos, xxv; P. G. XXVI, col. 376) To explain the need for Christ's departure, Maldonatus is content to appeal to a providential decree: "God had decided that all three Persons of the Trinity should act for the salvation of men: the Father by sending the Son and drawing them towards Him; the Son by teaching, redeeming and saving them; and the Spirit by finally sanctifying them and filling them with various gifts. Each of the Divine Persons thus has His epoch and His part to play. Hence, as long as Christ had not departed, had not in some sense quitted this earthly scene, the Spirit could not come." But why, asks Lagrange, "could not the glorified Son remain on earth and yet also give the Spirit? That is God's secret. We may however divine a certain antinomy between the sensible, localized presence of His human nature, and the universal spiritual presence. Moreover it seems that, in this way, He would have had to make a complete change in the plan of salvation, which was to be effected through the exercise of faith. The incarnate Jesus left it full scope; but the glorified Jesus would have substituted an evidence. So He had to be taken from us, but the Spirit would continue His work invisibly, encouraging faith, and Himself an object of faith" (Evangile selon saint Jean, p. 418) It must be added that the glorified Christ found His natural place in heaven, and could not remain on earth without undergoing a kind of violence. On the other hand it is by His cross that Christians are to come to His glory; the Church has to be the Body of the passible, suffering and dying Christ before becoming the Body of the risen Christ; she has to lift up her eyes on the crucified King before they can be fixed on the glorified King.

883 Cajetan, De Comparatione Auctoritatis Papae et Concilii, cap. III, no. 53.

884 Even if the person elected were neither bishop nor priest he would receive at once, directly from Christ, the power of jurisdiction over the whole Church. He would still have to receive the power of order by way of episcopal consecration. cf. John of St. Thomas, II-II, q. 1 to 7: disp. 2, a. 1, no. 20 vol. VII, p. 223. The bishop consecrator would be the Dean of the College of Cardinals. See the Constitution Vacante Sede Apostolica, of Pius X (25th Dec. 1904 )

885 "Ita in caput primo, quod, per caput, in corpus reliquum, potestatem diffundit Salvator noster" (ibid., cap. vi, no. 78)

886 So also St. Thomas. In his commentary on the second book of the Sentences (dist. 44, expositio textus) he very clearly distinguishes two kinds of subordination. The first kind rules the relations of Church and State: each of these two powers is, in its own order, supreme and independent; but when things with which the State is ordinarily concerned begin to affect the salvation of souls they come within the field of competence of the Church. In the second species of subordination the inferior power draws all that it is from the superior; it acts under the superior like a second cause under the first cause: such is the subordination of created causes to the Uncreated Cause, of the proconsul to the Emperor, of the episcopate to the Papacy: "It is from the Pope that the degrees of the hierarchy of the Church proceed: and hence his power is, as St. Matthew indicates, the foundation of the Church." Older witnesses to this doctrine can easily be found: see for instance Mgr. Batiffol's exposition of the thought of Pope St. Leo in Le siege apostolique, p. 425.

887 P. L. LIV, col. 150. cf. below, p. 412, note 2.

888 I say "in itself", for the Pope, in fact, grants certain jurisdictional powers to the dissidents: for example, the power to absolve in peril of death; or even, the right to the Graeco-Russian priests, to confer confirmation and administer penance validly. cf. above, p. 84, note 3; and below, p. 506.

889 Denz. 1828. "If your holiness" continues St. Gregory, "recognizes me as papa universalis, he impugns his own proper episcopacy by supposing that I am universal. God forbid. Far be from us any words that inflate vanity and wound charity" (P. L. LXXVII, col. 933) This is not to be construed as an objection against the primacy of the Bishop of Rome. To suggest humility to the Bishop of Constantinople St. Gregory deems it good to refuse for himself a title usurped by the former; humility, however, did not prevent him from exercising a firm jurisdiction over the Churches of Christendom including that of Constantinople: "That it is subject to the Apostolic See," he writes, "no one can doubt [de Constantinopolitana Ecclesia.... quis eam dubitet sedi apostolicae esse subjectam?]" (loc. cit., col. 957) "Also, when he learnt in May 599, that a certain number of oriental bishops had been convoked in Council at Constantinople.... he lost no time in writing to them to warn them against any imprudence, and to remind them that without the assent of the Holy See, no decision touching the faith could have any force [quamvis sine apostolicae sedis auctoritate atque consensu, nullus quaeque acta fuerint vires habeant]" (loc. cit., col. 100 5 ) cf. Mgr. Besson, Bishop of Lausanne, Geneva and Fribourg, Saint Pierre et les origines de la primaute romaine, Geneva 1929, p. 173. Since the title Episcopus Universalis, which had been assumed at Constantinople, seemed to him something invented in a spirit of pride and ambition, Gregory declared that he would not accept it for himself or anyone else. But he never showed any hesitation concerning the evangelical origin of the authority which the See of Rome held from Peter, to whom was entrusted the care and the principate of the whole Church, "cura ei totius Ecclesiae et principatus committitur", cf Batiffol Saint Gregoire le Grand, Paris 1928, pp. 204-10. Theology was to restore the expression "universal episcopate" precisely for the purpose of distinguishing the principate of the Bishop of Rome from the power of the other bishops.

890 "Ecclesiam non esse corpus Petri, sed Christi, verum est, quia Christus non solum caput mysticum ejus, sed mysticum suppositum ipsius est, ut patet ad Ephes. i. 22-23, ubi de Christo duo dicuntur: quod est caput Ecclesiae, et quod Ecclesia est corpus ejus" (Cajetan, Apologia de Comparata Auctoritate Papae et Concilii, cap. v III, no. 519)

891 In reply to the charge that the Roman Church is bicephalous, it may be answered that this reproach would be still more surprising if it came from the Graeco-Russian or Anglican Churches which, being episcopalian, could, in a similar way, be taxed with being polycephalous. Let us not see as opposed powers which the Scripture sees as superior and subordinate. We should recall that in the transmission of grace, Christ alone is Head of the Church. From the fact that it is the organ of the Divinity, His human nature is the source of all the graces that come into the world: here men never have any but a purely ministerial role. In the external propounding of truth, whether speculative or practical, Christ is the Ruler of the Church by His own proper power; the men who here play the part of second causes are rulers only in virtue of the power which He lends them; hence, while Christ is the Head of the Church in a plenary way, in all places, at all times, and in all her states (militant, suffering, and triumphant), men will be found at the head of the Church only in a derived and limited manner: of the Church militant (limitation to one state of existence), for the span of a pontificate (limitation in time), and in a particular diocese (limitation in space) cf. St Thomas, III, q. 8, a. 6: "Whether to be head of the Church is proper to Christ?" To those who think in pictures and speak of the Church as bicephalous, St. Thomas replies: "In metaphorical speech we must not expect a likeness in everything; for thus there would not be a likeness, but identity. Now a natural head has not another head, because one human body is not part of another; but a metaphorical body—i. e., an ordered multitude—is part of another multitude as the domestic multitude is part of the civil multitude; and hence a father, who is head of the domestic multitude has a head above him—i. e., the civil governor. And hence there is no reason why God should not be the Head of Christ although Christ Himself is Head of the Church" (III, q. 8, a. 1, ad 2)

892 How deep the bonds are between the Incarnation and the primacy of Peter became apparent to Moehler, whose original views on the matter left much to be desired, through the study of the history of Athanasius and of the Church of his time: "Since the Pope, to whom Peter has passed on his dignity, is the head with whom all the members are organically bound up, all the movements of the local Churches would have to be in harmony with his.... It was in the nature of things that the Church, in fighting Arianism, set herself also instinctively against its separatist tendencies. By glorifying the invisible centre and Head of the Church, she exalted also her visible centre and head.... Those who defended the dignity of the invisible Ruler attached themselves to the visible ruler and were in their turn defended by him. That is why the history of Athanasius became so interesting a factor in the history of the primacy, and its results, in this respect also, reached far into the future" (Athanasius der Grosse, vol. II, pp. 73-4)

893 With reference to politics, St. Thomas affirms without self-contradiction, on the one hand, that the happiness of a man and that of society are the same and of the same nature, let us say of the same genus (In Polit., lib. VII, lect. 2); and, on the other, that the common good of society and the particular good of each of its members do not differ only according to more or less but with a difference that is specific (II-II, q. 58, a. 7, ad 2) Cf. Marcel Demongeot, Le meilleur regime politique selon saint Thomas, Paris 1928, p. 89.

8941 f, notes Cajetan, you assemble the bishops simply as such, you get no transcendent jurisdiction which would be distinct from the partial jurisdictions as the sun is distinct from mixed bodies (the ancients, as we know, considered the virtues of the stars as causing and containing eminently the virtues of the mixed bodies); but merely a kind of total jurisdiction made up of an accumulation of partial jurisdictions, just as mankind is made up of the sum of all men: "Nec est aliqua extranea potestas a potestatibus partialibus, sed velut potestas totalis, consurgens ex partialibus" (Apologia de Comparata Auctoritate Papae et Concilii, cap. vi, 502 ) Cajetan had previously written: "The council, if abstraction be made of the Pope, can do no more than can the particular powers that compose it: it can establish no bishop, when the superiors to whom that office reverts are lacking. But the Pope can elect and establish bishops everywhere in virtue of his sole authority; which is not his but that of Him who walks in the greatness of his strength" (Isaias. lx III, 1) (ibid., cap. x III, 203 ) The same theologian goes so far as to say: "We are sure that neither the Pope, nor, on the other hand, the entire Church or the entire Council can err in matters of faith when they give an authoritative judgment in matters of faith. Of an acephalous Church or Council I know nothing: if the head is absent there may be many merits, but no longer any authority. It is because they fail to distinguish a personal faith from an authoritative judgment that some are so ignorant as to prefer the doctors to the Pope; they think of the Pope's person, not of his office and the divine assistance promised this office" (ibid., cap. ix, 135)

895 It is even provided in the Constitution Vacante Sede Apostolica, which forms an appendix to the Code of Canon Law, that if the Pope dies during the sitting of a general council, the council is to be suspended at once: it is not for the council but for the College of Cardinals to elect the new Pope. That does not mean, however, that every exercise of jurisdiction is abolished. The decisions of previous Pontiffs, notably those that fix the conditions of the valid election of a new Pope, remain in force. If the Roman Congregations lose the powers which they cannot exercise without express reference to the Sovereign Pontiff, they keep those which they possess by Letters Apostolic, and which are regarded as belonging properly to themselves. Similarly, the jurisdictional power of the Cardinal Vicar of Rome and those of the legates, nuncios and apostolic delegates, continue without interruption.

The power of naming or instituting bishops belongs to the Roman Pontiff (God. Jur. Can., 329, §2 and 332, 1) But, remarks Cajetan in his De Romani Pontificis Institutione (cap. x III, ad 6), we have to distinguish between the power of the Sovereign Pontiff (auctoritas) and the exercise of this power (executio), which has varied in mode down the centuries. Thus the ancient ecclesiastical discipline left to the Patriarchs of Alexandria or of Antioch the right to elect the bishops of their provinces. The elections of bishops effected during a vacancy of the Holy See and regarded as valid, are thus to be explained. On the various ways of proceeding to the election of bishops see E. Roland, art. "lection des Eveques", Dict. de theol. cath., col. 2256 et seq. From the second to the sixth century the election of bishops was effected by the clergy with the assent of the people. "No one," says St. Leo the Great, "can be held to be a bishop who has not been elected by the clergy nor asked for by the people" (ibid., col. 2259) The Bishop of Rome did not directly intervene in the election; he was content to see it carried out properly. Discreet, and indirect, his intervention was nevertheless real and undeniable. It was, as it were, a prolongation of his primacy (ibid., col. 2261) The Gregorian reform attempted to take the right of election out of the hands of the princes, into which it had fallen, and to restore it to its old condition (ibid., col. 2268) It was in the thirteenth century that the Pope tended to become the supreme arbiter of Catholic elections. A new law was substituted for the old: direct nomination by the Sovereign Pontiff became the common law. The various methods actually in we, which allowed some part in the choice of bishops to others than the Pope, were local concessions, exceptions to the common law (ibid., cols. 226-71)

896 During a vacancy of the Apostolic See, says Cajetan, the universal Church is in an imperfect state, she is like an amputated body, not an integral body. "The Church is acephalous, deprived of her highest part and power. Whoever contests that falls into the error of John Hus—who denied the need of a visible ruler for the Church—condemned in advance by St. Thomas, then by Martin V at the Council of Constance. And to say that the Church in this state holds her power immediately from Christ and that the General Council represents her, is to err intolerably" (De Comparatione etc, cap. vi, 74) Here are the seventh and twenty-seventh propositions of John Hus condemned at the Council of Constance: "Peter neither is nor ever was the head of the Holy Catholic Church"; "There is nothing whatever to show that the spiritual order demands a head who shall continue to live and endure with the Church Militant" (Denz. 633 and 653)

897 See Excursus VI, on the election of the Pope.

898 De Comparatione Auctoritatis Papae et Concilii, cap. vi, nos. 75 and 78.

899 Writing about 445, St. Leo says that the Saviour willed that the office of proclaiming the truth "should come in such wise to all the Apostles, that first it would be deposited in blessed Peter, the chief of them; and He wills that from Peter as from the head, His gifts should be distributed over the whole body so that he who should dare to break away from the company of Peter must understand that he no longer has any part in the divine mystery" (Epistola X; P. L. LIV, 629) This text covers two points: (1) the particular jurisdiction proper to the bishops comes to them from Christ through the Sovereign Pontiff (thus the best theologians); (2) the universal jurisdiction, communicated to the bishops, comes to them from Christ through the Sovereign Pontiff (thus all theologians who do not wish to put the council above the Pope) cf. above, p. 403.

900 To speak thus to His disciples was not, notes Pere Lagrange, "to revoke the power given to Peter as to the chief steward of His house; it was rather to associate them with him who had the keys", The power in question is committed "to those to whom Jesus speaks", and no longer to each of the faithful as in the preceding verses (15-17) "It is therefore committed to disciples already invested with great powers on their earlier mission (x. 5-16), and destined by that very fact to be the dispensers of the authority committed in the first place to Peter" (Evangile selon saint Matthieu, pp. 353 and 356)

901 Pere Lagrange writes: "Jesus prayed for all the Apostles (John xvii. 9); if He prayed especially for Peter it was not simply because his faith was more in peril, but because it was important for the salvation of the others. The Vatican Council cites this text to establish the pontifical infallibility. And, indeed, if the Apostles for whom Jesus had prayed needed to be strengthened in the faith by Peter, the successors of the Apostles would stand in the same relation to the successors of Peter, since the latter was to be the foundation stone of the Church for ever" (Evangile selon saint Luc, pp. 553-4)

902 "Episcopos concilii, in fidei causa, non modo consiliarios esse, verum etiam judices. Alioqui non solum episcopi ad ferendam sententiam synodalem adhiberentur, sed etiam docti theologi et viri in Ecclesia prudentes.... Cum igitur, Ecclesiae perpetuo usu, soli pastores in concilio sedeant, consequens fit, censores eos esse, non modo consultores" (De Locis Theol., lib. V, cap. v, quae St. 2) Cano refers to the passages of St. Matthew and the Acts which I have cited.

903 "Sive solemni judicio, sive ordinario et universali magisterio" (Denz. 1792) 904 "Ordinario totius Ecclesiae per orbem dispersae magisterio" (Denz. 1683) Vacant considers that the infallible organ of the ordinary magisterium may be not only the Pope united to the universal episcopate, but also the Pope alone. According to this theologian, besides solemn pontifical judgments, such as the definition of the Immaculate Conception, which represents the extraordinary magisterium of the Pope, there can be other pontifical acts which do not verify all the exterior conditions characterizing solemn definitions but which can nevertheless sufficiently express the Pope's will to put out a definitive and absolute sentence—in other words to speak ex cathedra, with infallibility. cf. Vacant, Le magistere ordinaire de l'Eglise et ses organs, 1887, pp. 98 et seq. It is certain that the Pope acting alone can exercise his magisterium otherwise than by solemn definitions. But we cannot attribute an absolute and proper infallibility to the magisterium save by express will of the Pope, clearly manifested: the question is, precisely, whether we are not then really face to face with a solemn definition. In every other case the magisterium of the Pope alone will be guaranteed either by his infallibility, proper no doubt, but merely prudential, which governs decisions of general interest; or by the fallible assistance—infallible only in the improper sense—which governs particular decisions and measures of the biological order. See below, p. 439, n. 1.

905 De Locis Theologicis, lib. V, cap. v, quae St. 2.

906 De Synodo Diocesana, lib. X III, cap. ii, 3.

907 Vacant, Le magistere ordinaire de l'Eglise et ses organes, p. 94.

908 By "Provincial Councils" are to be understood those which gather together the bishops of a province under their metropolitan. They have great authority as to matters of faith in themselves and to begin with; if they are confirmed by the Sovereign Pontiff, their authority is absolute and in this respect they may be classified with General or Oecumenical Councils; cf. Melchior Cano, De Locis Theol., lib. V, cap. III and iv.

909 This utterance, cited in the letter convoking the Vatican Council (Acta et Decreta Concilii Vaticani, Coll. Lacensis, vol. VII, col. 4), takes on new meaning when applied not simply to the faithful but to the representatives of the hierarchy. Studying the significance of the common consent of the faithful, not in itself, but as a factor in the development of dogma, Marin-Sola insists on its varying weight—according as only some of the faithful, or, on the other hand, the whole Church are involved—and on its distinction from the magisterium: "In so far as this intuitive 'sense of the faith' is found only in some here and there even were they saints—or only in certain parts of the Church, its theological weight is very slight. As soon as it becomes general and the common patrimony of bishops, theologians and faithful, it constitutes of itself, and prior to any definition, an argument as strong as the most evident theological reasoning. So that either of these two things—that is, evident reasoning, or the assured and universal consensus of the Christian society as to the inclusion of a doctrine in the revealed deposit—is, in the eyes of the Church, a sufficient criterion of its definability. However, we must carefully distinguish this sense of the faith from the Church's ordinary magisterium.... The magisterium, or dogmatic definition by the Church, is no mere piece of mechanism for registering, or a focal centre for gathering up, the social consciousness of the Christian community, according to the heretical assertions of modernism (Denz. 200 6 ); it is, above all, an explicit or implicit source of all subsequent adhesion; it is the control and rule of any prior consent of the Christian people, whether this consent was due to theological reasoning or to experimental apprehension of the faith" (L'evolution homogene du dogme catholique, 1924, vol I, p. 368: my italics) When he wrote Die Einheit in der Kirche, Moehler unhappily overlooked these distinctions. But he understood that only a close participation in the communion of the Church will enable us really to come into touch with Christ. It was, he says, immediately after the period in which the unity of the Church was asserted with the greatest vigour "that the divinity of Christ was recognized in the most formal manner, and this at the Council of Nicaea, where, for the first time, all Christians were visibly brought together in the persons of the representatives of their love. Then it was that they became capable of recognizing Christ in all His greatness. They had become great themselves. Let us always be great and free: let us for ever love unity and keep it in the bonds of peace. Then the true greatness of Christ will no more escape us, for our eyes are pure and able to contemplate Him in all His purity" (Die Einheit in der Kirche, pt. ii, ch. III, 63, p. 247)

910 At the opening of the Constitution Dei Filius, Acta et Decreta Concilii Vaticani, Coll. Lac., vol. VII, col. 248.

911 Epistola XCV III, cap. 1; P. L. LIV, col. 952.

912 On the attitude of the Church to Constantine see P. Batiffol, La paix constantinienne et le catholicisme, Paris 1914, p. 525: "The prince, as Pontifex Maximus, had been the guardian of the gods and the grand master of the official priesthood. Catholicism left him only the role of donor and protector, and proposed to maintain its inner economy whole and entire. Constantine accepted this conception of the relations of Church and State, and the fact of his acceptance is the decisive proof of his conversion. It was the great victory of Catholicism at the moment of the peace of Constantine, that it did not throw itself into the arms of the Christian prince, that it exacted from him, on the contrary, the independence of the ecclesiastical domain within the public domain, and accepted nothing from him but his services." When the State, having officially abdicated its religious competence, illegitimately sought to resume it, it always eventually came into conflict with the Church.

913 Contra Duas Epistolas Pelagianorum, lib. IV, conclusion.

914 Letter convoking the Vatican Council, Acta et Decreta Concilii Vaticani, vol. VII, col. 2.

915 Was this on account of the communal genius of the Orient, or simply because most of the heresies arose in that region?

916 To the Encyclical Praeclara (20th June 1894) in which Leo X III appealed to the orientals, the Patriarch Anthimus of Constantinople replied by a counter-encyclical, making repeated use of the following formula: "The Church of the Seven Oecumenical Councils, One, Holy, Catholic, and Apostolic, believes and professes that, etc.... The Papist Church on the contrary, etc." "Consider first this formula," says Mgr. Duchesne. "We are blamed for having added a word to the Creed (the Filioque); but now we may observe a fifth note added to the four by which the Creed defines the true Church. The Church is not only One, Holy, Catholic and Apostolic: it is also the Church of the Seven Councils. Why this qualification? Is there anywhere in the Gospel or the Apocalypse anything to suggest that the future Church could or ought to qualify herself thus? Did the seventh Oecumenical Council shut the door behind it, prohibiting any other similar assembly? Not in the least! Is it suggested that the Roman Church does not recognize the seven Councils, or that the Greek Church has any special rights in them? This perhaps is the moment to borrow a phrase or two from St. Paul: They are Israelites; so am I; They are the seed of Abraham: so am I. They are ministers of Christ: I am more. These Councils are ours as much as theirs; indeed, more than theirs. I know that they were held in the East, and were procured by Eastern Emperors. But they represent, for the most part, the triumph of Roman orthodoxy over oriental heresy, or, to speak more charitably, a remedy brought by the Latin Church to her Greek sister infected with some kind of doctrinal malaise. Let us reckon them up.... The upshot of all this is, that if there is one place in the world that can lay claim to these Seven Oecumenical Councils, that place is Rome; and that if there is one place in the world in which they must call up sombre memories, that place is the Patriarchate of Constantinople. Count up the Patriarchs whose memory was condemned in these Councils, or who showed themselves as open opponents of their decisions.... Nineteen heretical Patriarchs, and that within a space of only five hundred years; and I have reckoned only the most notable of these. The list would be a good deal longer if we included all the Patriarchs who could be blamed for hesitations and dubious conduct, like those concerned with Popes Liberius, Vigilius, Honorius" (Eglises separees, 1896, pp. 59 et seq.)

917 The Vatican Council denounces as contrary to tradition and Scripture the error of those who pretend that "The primacy of jurisdiction was given immediately and directly, not to Peter but to the Church, and by her to Peter her minister" (Denz., 1822)

918 This is the objection made by Jacques Almain and the University Or Paris against Cajetan. He deals with it in his Apologia de Comparata Auctoritate Papae et Concilii, cap. 1.

919 See below: Excursus X.

920Apologia de Comparata Auctoritate Papae et Concilii, cap. i, nos. 450-452.

921To call the Church's government "democratic" is certainly wrong. Can it be called "monarchical"? Yes; but with precautions. The monarch, in politics, is always the vicar of the multitude, [but the Pope is never the Vicar of the Church. Again, to what kind of monarchy shall we liken the Church? Not to an absolute one, where one alone is head and all the rest are only his agents: nor yet to a mixed or limited monarchy, in which the supreme power is only partially in the monarch. It was rather to the constitution that Moses gave the Hebrews that St. Thomas would compare this regime (cf. I-II, q. 105, a. 1) We must think, says Billot (De Ecclesia, 1921, p. 513), of a pure monarchy in which the monarch governs independently, but has beneath him, so as to avoid the inconveniences of centralization, not mere delegates but true rulers, vassals; and in which, let us add, both monarch and vassals might be drawn from the people. With these reserves, and setting aside its political associations, we may adopt the word monarchy. It figures in a letter which Pius X addressed to the oriental archbishops to condemn those who held "that the Catholic Church in the first centuries was not the principate of one sole man, that is to say a monarchy, or that the primacy of the Roman Church rests on no valid ground" (Denz. 303 5)

922Vatican Council Denz. 1827. cf. Cajetan: "Non minus est papa episcopus Ecclesiae catholicae quam quilibet episcopus suae Ecclesiae" (De Comparatione Auctoritatis Papae et Concilii, cap. vii, 88)

923Cajetan, De Comparatione Auctoritatis Papae et Concilii, cap. ix, no. 137.

924Apologia de Comparata Auctoritate Papae et Concilii, cap. v III, no. 517.

925De Comparatione Auctoritatis Papae et Concilii, cap. xxvii, no. 422

926Great theologians have admitted that the Pope could personally fall into the sin of heresy. See Excursus IX.

927 St. Thomas, III Con. Gen., xcv and xcvi.

928De Comparatione Auctoritatis Papae et Concilii, cap. xxvii, nos. 417-20.

929That the supreme apostolic authority was annexed to the Roman episcopate is, as John of St. Thomas explains, a truth of faith based on Tradition and contained implicitly in Scripture; for in explicitly giving the supreme power to Peter and his true successors Christ implicitly ratified in advance the act by which Peter determined where the line of his true successors would be found, namely the act that annexed the supreme apostolic power to the See of Rome (cf. II-II, qq. 1-7, disp. 1, a. 4, no. 15, vol. VII, p. 205 ) The same author here touches on the question, whether this conjoining, which is a fact which we believe by divine faith, is the result of an explicit willing on the part of Christ (in which case it would be indissoluble by divine right) or whether it was left to Peter to decide (in which case it would be alterable and of ecclesiastical law) He chooses the second alternative. I prefer the first

930Denz., 469: Denz., 694: Denz., 1825.

931The conjunction of the universal episcopate with the Roman is, in the last analysis, a dogmatic fact believed with divine faith, and it is in this light that it must be presented here. However, in other and less vital respects it can belong to apologetics and history.

a. It can be defended by the methods of apologetics. Anyone who accepts the scriptural texts concerning Peter may be referred, for example, to the words of Soloviev: "Christ's words could not remain without their effect in Christian history; and the principal phenomenon in Christian history must have an adequate cause in the word of God. Where then have Christ's words to Peter produced a corresponding effect except in the Chair of Peter? Where does that Chair find an adequate cause except in the promise made to Peter?" This argument would retain all its apologetic value, as Soloviev saw clearly, even were it impossible to prove that Peter went to Rome even were it historically established that he never went there. We should then only have to suppose that Peter intended to leave his authority with the Bishop of Rome. "We might even admit—against the tradition of the Church both in the East and in the West—that St. Peter never went personally to Rome, and yet at the same time, from the religious point of view, maintain a spiritual and mystical transmission of his sovereign authority to the Bishops of the Eternal City. The history of early Christianity supplies us with a striking instance of an analogous relationship. St. Paul had no natural link whatever with Jesus Christ; he was not a witness of Our Lord's life on earth nor did he receive his commission in any visible or public fashion; nevertheless he is recognized by all Christians as one of the greatest Apostles. His apostolate was a public ministry in the Church, and yet its origin, in his relation to Jesus Christ, is a mystical and miraculous fact. Similarly.... the mighty spirit of St. Peter, guided by his Master's almighty will, might well seek to perpetuate the centre of ecclesiastical unity by taking up his abode in the centre of political unity already formed by Providence, and thus making the Bishop of Rome the heir to his primacy" (Russia and the Universal Church, pp. 108 and 123)

b. Let us hasten to add that history is far from denying the sojourn of St. Peter in Rome. It establishes, on the contrary, that Peter came to Rome, that he set up his See there, that this See, precisely because it was Peter's, had an exceptional authority over the whole of Christendom from the earliest days. This thesis has been demonstrated, as fully as need be, by Mgr. Duchesne, first in his Lecons d'histoire ecclesiastique 2nd. ed., ch vii, p. 69; and then in his book Les Eglises separates, ch. iv., p. 113. It is accepted by the best contemporary Protestant historians—Hans Lietzmann, Oscar Cullmann, and others.

932"S1 Petrus discessisset ex Roma non tantum loco sed sede, ita quod alibi sedem elegisset, non successisset romanus pontifex Petro" (Cajetan, De Romani Pontificis Institutione, cap. x III)

933De Ecclesia Christi Rome 1921, p. 596.

9342 Epistle to the Romans, salutation.

935Contra Haer., III, 3, 2: P. G. VII, col. 848.

936Epist. xl III, cap. III, 7.

937L. Billot, S. J., De Ecclesia Christi, p. 591.

938G. Perrone, S. J., Praelectiones Theogicae, Paris 1856, vol. IV, p. 157.

939II-II, qq. 1-7, disp. 1, a. 4, nos. 14 and 20, vol. VII, pp. 204 and 208.

940Bellarmine, De Rom. Pont., lib. IV, cap. iv; Billot, De Ecclesia Christi, p. 596.

941It is for God that we must render to Caesar the things that are Caesar's [" et propter Deum quae sunt Caesaris Caesari "] (Pius IX, Denz. 1841).

942cf. Dominic Soto, In IV Sent., dist. 25, q. 2, a. 2; P. de la Serviere, La Theologie de Ballarmin, Paris 1908, p. 219. The parts played respectively by clerics, who are necessarily specialists in Christian spiritual tasks, and by laymen, specialists in Christian temporal tasks, as also the close interdependence of these two kinds of task, are indicated in the following passage from Maritain: "We may say that a certain division of function occurs here between clergy and laity, and that it belongs rather to the laity to manifest the immanence of Christianity by throwing themselves into the business of this world and acting there like Christians—and rather to the priests to manifest the transcendence of religion by dedicating themselves to the service of souls and of the Kingdom of God and by avoiding, as the worst evil into which they can fall, any enslavement of their sacred mission to men who are ready to exploit all that is sacred in the interest of their factions, their undertakings, or their wars. In one way or another, however, it remains incumbent on each in his own order to affirm at once the transcendence and immanence of the Christian faith. For without on that account indulging in politics, the Church may have to judge of political, economic and social things, and to intervene in the name of the morality of Jesus Christ. On the other hand, if the Christian laity ought to throw themselves into worldly and secular affairs, treating them according to their own finalities, they should do so without engaging more than themselves and their personal initiatives, and with every care not to wound and diminish the transcendence of Christianity with respect to temporal causes, even to those that are dearest to them" ("La liberte du Chretien", in Questions de conscience, p. 215)

943The text refers to the dues for the Temple at Jerusalem, and not to the imperial tax, as St. Jerome wrongly thought. It remains true that "Jesus paid for Himself and Peter only. That is unquestionably an indication of his privileged situation. He was to be the head; he is already within the master's special sphere" (M. J. Lagrange, Evangile selon saint Matthieu, p. 342) Pope John XXII condemned Marsilius of Padua and John of Janduno who claimed that Christ paid taxes to Caesar "not out of condescension, liberality, piety, but of necessity" (Denz. 495)

944 This project, entitled: Internationalisatio S. Ecclesiae Catholicae, Res Valde Utilis, dated from New York, the 4th Nov. 1927, was signed by John Smith, Joseph Maier, Francois Deschamps, giving themselves out as delegates for many Catholics, priests and laity. It was published and discussed in Fede e Ragione, 29th April and 6th May 1928.

945 Can. 232, §1.

946 Pere Congar echoes the weighty opinion of Mgr. Strossmayer in calling for this "policy of non-uniformity", this treatment of peoples according to their genius, their traditions, their needs and their own peculiarities; he notes that the intentions of the Popes have not always been fully understood: "While the Popes, personally, insist on respect for the rites, the customs the native psychology in the lands of the near and far East for example, the formation of the clergy and the general regime of life remain too narrowly Latin. One wonders whether perhaps between the supreme authority of the common Father and the immediate organs of execution, there is not needed a more international administrative body by whom the peoples could be more readily heard" (Chretiens desunis, principes d'un "oecumenisme" catholique, Paris 1937, p. 132: this passage appears to have been omitted from the English edition)

947 Vatican Council, Denz., 1832.

948 Denz., 1836,

949 What is the precise weight of the assistance accorded to encyclicals? Billot holds it as beyond doubt that the Pope is infallible in certain circumstances in which he is, however, not speaking "ex cathedra", and he quotes encyclicals as an example, maintaining that in them the Pope expounds Catholic doctrine not as one who defines and proposes a new doctrinal judgment, but as one who instructs the faithful concerning what is involved in the Church's teaching (De Ecclesia Christi, 1921, p. 632) Choupin, however, holds that if the Pope is to be infallible it is not enough that she should speak as the head of the Church (pontifical act) but that in addition it is necessary that he should speak with the intention of settling a question definitively—that he should decide the matter "ex cathedra", that is to say, solemnly (Valeur des decisions etc., pp. 15 ff.) I am of the opinion that that is the solution. Certainly, encyclicals frequently recall truths of the faith. However, they are in themselves assisted not absolutely but merely prudentially, and in this prudential assistance will reveal itself as either fallible or infallible in proportion to the insistence with which they emphasise a given teaching, either doctrinal or disciplinary. Cf. His Holiness Pope Pius XII, encyclical Humani Generis, 12 August 1950: "It must not be believed that what is proposed in encyclicals does not of itself claim assent (on the pretext that the Pontiffs do not then exercise the supreme power of their magisterium) This teaching derives from the ordinary magisterium, to which also apply the words: ‘He who heareth you, heareth me...’" (See above, p. 415, n. 2)

950 Denz., no. 1839.

951 The Council does not say whether the doctrine defined "ex cathedra" is necessarily of divine faith, or whether it could be sometimes an object of that faith which modern theologians call ecclesiastical. The intention was certainly to define that the infallibility of the Sovereign Pontiff, when he proposes a truth as "revealed" is to be held with divine faith; it was not to pronounce on the point as to whether the infallibility of the Sovereign Pontiff, when he proposes a truth simply as "irreformable", is an object of divine faith or of the faith called ecclesiastical. That is why the Council assimilated the infallibility of the Sovereign Pontiff to the general infallibility of the ecclesiastical magisterium. This certainly involves divine faith when it bears on the "revealed", but theologians dispute as to whether it involves divine or ecclesiastical faith when it bears on what is "connected with"the revealed.

952 Denz., 1822.

953 Denz., 1839.

954 This solemn declaration, coming just after the text "The kings of the Gentiles lord it over them, and they that have power over them are called beneficent. But you not so: but he that is greater among you let him become as the younger, and he that is the leader as he that serveth", prompts Bossuet to write: "Since, in reproving the ambition of the Apostles, He had spoken in a way that might lead some to believe that He was leaving no sort of primacy in His Church, and that He had even weakened what He had given to Peter, He speaks here in a way well calculated to bring out the contrary" (Meditations sur l'Evangile, "la Cene")

955 "The Apostle is expressly charged to confirm his brethren in the faith, his own being indefectible in virtue of his Master's prayer. The Vatican Council cites this text to establish the dogma of pontifical infallibility. And indeed, if the Apostles for whom Jesus prayed needed to be fortified in the faith by Peter, the successors of those Apostles must stand in the same relation to the successor of Peter, since the latter was set as the enduring foundation of the Church" (M. J. Lagrange, O. P., Evangile selon saint Luc, p. 554

956 Russia and the Universal Church, p. 97. The Pope, as head of the Church, can act with infallible assistance either (1) absolute (declaratory power), or (2) prudential (general canonical decisions); or again (3) with fallible prudential assistance (particular canonical decisions and decisions relating to the empirical existence of the Church) It is only in this third domain that his personal failings could have unfortunate effects (positive) It was in this domain that Paul resisted Peter. Cf. above p. 147, note 4. In the other two domains the Pope's failings would result at most in errors of omission The Pope can also act by virtue of his extra-canonical power.

957 Mgr. Duchesne thus concludes a study on the Roman Church before Constantine: "Thus the Churches of the whole world, from Arabia, Osrhoene and Cappadocia to the ends of the West felt in everything, in faith, in discipline, in government, in ritual, in charitable works, the ceaseless action of the Roman Church. She was everywhere known, as St. Irenaeus says, everywhere present, everywhere respected, everywhere followed; without parallel, without rival. There was none to put herself on the same footing. Later there were to be patriarchates and other local primacies. Their first lineaments are hardly to be detected in the third century, and then only more or less vaguely. Above these organisms in course of formation, as above all the isolated Churches, rose the Roman Church in sovereign majesty, the Roman Church represented by her Bishops whose long line went back to the two leaders of the Apostolic choir, the Roman Church who thought herself called herself, and was held by all the world to be the centre and organ of unity" (Eglises separees, Paris 1896, p. 155)

958 On the general attitude of the East to the Roman power during and after Chalcedon, Mgr. Batiffol writes at the end of his book Le siege apostolique (Paris 1924): "St. Leo claims a potestas over the universal Church which the Council of Chalcedon does not refuse to the Apostolic See, since it seeks Rome's confirmation of its acts, and, notably, for its twenty-eighth canon." (This canon, without being "an underhand denial of the divine origin of the Roman primacy", a denial "which was not in the Council's mind", sought to confer on Constantinople an authority over the East similar to that which Rome exercised over the We St.) "The Emperor Marcian awaited a letter from the Pope confirming the Council and to be read in all the Churches of the Ea St.... The Council of Chalcedon (451) marks the moment when the East most explicitly recognized the right of the Apostolic See to this principatus claimed by Rome in matters of faith and order as the condition of communion with the universal Church. If there was then no declaration to raise this principatus into an article of faith, the thought of the Council of Chalcedon is not doubtful, and later controversialists will always be able to reproach the East with having repudiated it. After the middle of the fifth century, says Harnack, in the measure in which the properly Byzantine spirit prevailed in the diminished Eastern Church, the prestige of the Bishop of Rome declined, and Constantinople put an end to it for her own part by rejecting the claims that Chalcedon had subscribed" (p. 618: cf. p. 557)

959 Cf. the following chapter of the same work: "Les recours a Rome en Orient avant le concile de Chalcedoine", p. 215.

960 Before the definition Perrone wrote, for the benefit of Catholic theologians who gave themselves out as opponents of the infallibility: "You recognize that all the faithful are bound in duty to give an interior assent to pontifical dogmatic constitutions. It is from this duty that we conclude to their infallibility." And he avows himself unable to understand how it can be maintained that "There is an obligation to assent [irrevocably] in mind and heart to the dogmatic decrees of the Roman Pontiff," while holding that "The Roman Pontiff, teaching the universal Church ex cathedra, is subject to error in matters of faith" (Praelectiones Theologicae, Paris 1856, vol. IV, p. 321) Billot similarly noted that the duty of remaining in union with the Sovereign Pontiff in matters of faith enables us legitimately to conclude to his infallibility when defining the faith. We do not say: the Sovereign Pontiff is infallible, therefore we must hold irrevocably to what he defines; but: the divine law commands us to believe irrevocably what the Sovereign Pontiff defines, and therefore he is infallible" (De Ecclesia Christi, Rome 1921, p. 677)

961De Ecclesia Christi, p. 634.

962To oriental or Episcopalian dissidents who object against us the difficulty of recognizing, before the Vatican definition, which pontifical decisions were infallible, it is easy to reply that the problem of the criterion of infallibility arises in the same way in the case of an Oecumenical Council as in the case of the Pope. Either may intend only a partial engagement of authority, or an irrevocable engagement. The latter intention is the sole certain criterion of infallibility. I have said moreover that no mere majority of bishops serves to constitute an Oecumenical Council. There must be a majority of bishops who, as St. Vincent of Lerins says, are true disciples, true adorers of Christ. I shall return to this point later on.

963For a critique of the concept of political sovereignty, see Maritain, Man and the State, Chicago 1951, ch. 2.

964 Leo X III, Letter to Cardinal Rampolla, 15th June 1887. Cf. Documentation catholique, 1929, cols. 474-9.

965 Docum. cath., 1929, col. 472.

966 ibid., col. 476.

967 When, in the midst of the first World War there was talk of a temporal restitution of the States of the Church in the case of a victory of the Central Empires, Cardinal Gasparri, Secretary of State to Benedict XV, wrote in Stimmen der Zeit, September 1916: "Out of respect for neutrality, the Holy See in no wise intends to embarrass the government, and it places its trust in God while awaiting a suitable settlement, not by foreign arms, but by the triumph of that respect for justice which it hopes to see more and more widespread in the Italian people, in conformity with its true interest." These words "indicate another great principle involved in the question. The expression not by foreign arms, came to mean, in the event, not by foreign governments. The Roman question was not an international one, open to any external interference; it was supranational, that is to say bound up with the religious interests of all Christian peoples; but juridically it interested only the Holy See and the Italian State, seeing that these were the only parties to the original quarrel" (Doct. cath., ibid., col. 478) "It was not with any dispossessed temporal prince that Italy treated to restore some part of his ancient estate; it was with the spiritual head of the Catholic Church. So true it is that the Concordat and the Lateran Treaty are inseparable" (G. Glez, art. "Pouvoir temporel du Pape", Dict. theol. cath., col. 2702 )

968 Coll. Lacensis, vol. VII, cols. 572 and 577.

969 "It is childish history", says Mgr. Duchesne, "to insist in the case of a Pope of the sixth, seventh or eight century on his status as a subject of the Emperor at Constantinople. In theory he was doubtless a subject, for one is either subject or sovereign, and in the Empire there was no other sovereign than the Emperor. But in reality! In reality, the Emperor did not name him, but merely ratified his election effected at Rome and by the Romans. This already distinguished him from the highest functionaries, including, and very especially, the Exarch [of Ravenna]. The authority he wielded did not come to him from the Emperor; it was certainly no reflection from the Byzantine majesty that cast its light from Rome over all the Empire and beyond. The line of St. Peter, the see of St. Peter, the authority of St. Peter, the tomb of St. Peter—that is what made the prestige of the Apostolic Lord. He was often seen to be concerned with temporal affairs, with warlike operations, negotiations of treaties, nominations of functionaries, care for the finances of the State undertakings of the municipal order, repair of fortifications, of aqueducts, public food supplies and so on; and in none of this did he appear to indulge in unwarrantable interference. There was confidence in his moral authority, in his experience, in his administrative staff, in his financial stability. His assistance was sought, and it was not refused" (Les premiers temps de l'Etat pontifical, Paris 1911, p. 21)

970 Du pape, bk. II, ch. vi. On the historical preparation of the temporal power of the Popes, see G. Glez, Dict. de theol. cath., cols. 2671-4. During the first three centuries the Popes testified by martyrdom to the supremacy of the spiritual over the temporal. In 313, with the Edict of Milan a new era opened. Christianity had become predominant. However, "from the civil and political point of view the situation of the Bishop of Rome remained the same. In fact, the Pope is neither politically independent nor sovereign: he is therefore a subject. But he could not be a subject like others, and that precisely on account of the penetration of civil society by the Christian spirit. The faith of princes and of peoples, the prerogatives of his supreme office, assure him an unique place and an incomparable dignity; no article of the Theodosian Code determines the honours due to his person, his religious and moral predominance rests on no civil or political title. The fact that from the beginning of the fourth century Rome was no longer the residence of the Emperors certainly had important consequences, but is an insufficient basis for the complete independence of the successor of St. Peter. "Already, after Constantine, the bishops could be judges in certain civil cases, and in the course of the barbarian invasions many found themselves invested with the functions of the defensor civitatis. The Bishop of Rome exercised these magistracies under conditions that brought him to the forefront, owing not only to the importance of the city but to its distance from the new capital. It was Justinian who, by his pragmatic sanction of 554, took the most effective steps towards what was to be the temporal power of the Roman Pontiff. Then we see a triple process. The Emperor attempts to meddle in papal elections, but he reveals his impotence to assure the material prosperity of the peninsula, and the Roman people rally round the Pope, who becomes the really effectual servant of the public necessities (ibid.)

971 Doc. cath., col. 475.

972 Doc. cath., col. 475.

973 ibid., col. 466.

974 Doc. cath., 1929,. 1605.

975 In the eighth century, at Rome, wrote Mgr. Duchesne, "The Pope was the head of the government: the militia, like everything else, depended on him and took his orders. He added no title to his ecclesiastical title. It was as head of the Ecclesia Dei that he was at the same time the head of the respublica Romanorum" (Les premiers temps de l'Etat pontifical, p. 98) When Pepin came to the aid of Pope Stephen II, it was, he said, for the love of St. Peter and the remission of his sins (ibid., p. 73) The distinctions came later on.

976 There very early appeared "The disadvantages of a situation which left the Pope without defence against arbitrary power. If this power wished to turn back the Christian current—and that was what Julian attempted—the Bishop of Rome would be delivered into the hands of the persecutors. If it wanted to favour heresy—as in the case of Constantius against Liberius—it would not hesitate to issue a sentence of exile. If it wanted to re-establish order in the seat of the Papacy itself and to settle differences arising amongst Christians, while itself maintaining a correct attitude—like Valentinian I in the case of Pope Damasus in 366—its intervention was bound to make it the judge of the supreme head of the Church. And if it sided with one of the opposing factions—like Honorius in favour of Eulalius, then of Boniface in 418—we may judge to what vicissitudes and dangers the Sovereign Pontiff would have been subjected if he were not master in his own house" (G. Glez, art. "Pouvoir temporel du pape," Dict. de theol. cath., col. 2672) In his allocution of the 20th April 1849, Pius IX said: "It is evident that the faithful, the peoples, the nations, and the kings will never turn to the Bishop of Rome with full confidence and obedience when they see him to be the subject of some prince or government, and are not assured that he is in full possession of his liberty. For then they will always suspect and fear that the Pontiff's acts will be influenced by that prince or government on whose territory he lives. And, on this pretext, the decisions of the Pope will often be disregarded. "The philosophers of the eighteenth century thought the same, and were persuaded that the fall of the States of the Church would involve that of the Church herself. "When the civil principate of the Popes has fallen" wrote Frederick II to his friend Voltaire, "Then we shall be victorious and the curtain will come down. The Holy Father will get a fat pension. But what will happen next? France, Spain, Poland, and, in a word, the Catholic powers, will not want to recognize a Vicar of Christ beneath the Imperial sceptre. Each will set up his own Patriarch.... Bit by bit the unity of the Church will dissolve, and in the end each kingdom will have its own religion, just as it has its own language" (cited by Glez, loc. cit., col. 2687)

977 P. L. CCXIV, col. 21.

978 "The Piedmontese government, having rejected our just protests, has arrived at such a degree of audacity as no longer to fear to attack the rights of the universal Church herself, by seeking to overturn the civil principate which God has joined to the see of Blessed Peter to protect and preserve the liberty of the apostolic ministry.... It has not only despised our warnings, our complaints and ecclesiastical penalties, but also.... it has not hesitated to invade our states.... That is a great sacrilege; it is, at the same time, a violation of another's rights, in contempt of all laws, divine and human, to the overturning of all justice, the destruction of the foundations on which every civil principate and every human society rests" (Pius IX, Letter Cum Catholica, 26th March 186 0

979 It is thus that Pastor justifies the wars of Julius II: "It is however objected that the Vicar of Christ should not be a warrior. This objection completely ignores the two-fold nature of the position created for the Papacy by its historical development. Ever since the eighth century the Popes, besides being Vicars of Christ, had also been temporal princes. As such they were compelled when necessary, to defend their rights against attacks and to make use of arms for the purpose" (History of the Popes, vol. VI, page 450)

980 Dostoievsky attributed to the Roman Pontiff no petty desire for personal domination, but a great dream of empire of which the Pontifical State seemed to him to be the symbol and the initial fulfilment. Because he was never willing to recognize the essential duality of Church and State, he could but choose between two extreme and opposed tendencies: the Russian millenarianism aspiring to dissolve the State into the Church, and Western atheistic imperialism attempting to absorb the Church into the State. As a consequence he could not see the true character of the Pope's civil principate, which is not in the least meant to diminish the distinction between spiritual and temporal, nor to undermine the other temporal dominions—non eripit mortalia, qui regna dat caelestia—but to keep the exercise of the apostolic power free from their interference. The mystery that Dostoievsky saw in the Pontifical City was a mystery of iniquity, and he gave us the key to it in his Legend of the Grand Inquisitor. There he shows us the Pope ambitious to organize the kingdoms of this world, the kingdoms that Jesus disdained; he identifies him with the Beast of the Apocalypse, who receives authority over the nations from the devil. That, for him, is the secret of the Papacy; and, at bottom, the secret can be no other than the atheism of the Pope. "Your Inquisitor does not believe in God," said Aloysha: to which Ivan replied: "You have hit it at last; and indeed his secret is atheism." And Dostoievsky seriously thinks the same as Ivan Karamazov. In his Journal of an Author he says, not of any medieval Pope such as Gregory IX or Innocent IV, but of Pius IX, to whom he attributes stupid dogmatic definitions and absurd designs: "In proclaiming the dogma that Christianity cannot maintain itself in the world without the earthly possessions of the Pope, Catholicism has, by that very fact, proclaimed a new Christ, quite unlike the old, who has allowed himself to be overcome by the third temptation of the devil concerned with the kingdoms of earth: All this will I give thee if thou wilt bow down before me and worship me.... It is worthy of remark that the promulgation of this dogma, the revelation of the whole secret, took place at the moment when Italy was knocking at the gates of Rome.... There has always been a secret. For many centuries the Pope has made a show of being satisfied with his miniature domain, with his Pontifical States, but all that was simply allegorical. What matters is that beneath this allegory was hidden the germ of a profoundly important idea along with the confident hope of the Papacy that this germ would some day develop into a tree large enough to cover all the earth with its shade. So then, when his time has come, when the last fragment of his earthly power is about to be snatched from him, the head of Catholicism at the threshold of death arises and proclaims the truth in the face of the world: You thought that I would be content with the title of Sovereign of the Pontifical States? Know then that I have always regarded myself as the owner of the whole universe, of all the kingdoms of the earth, as their ruler not spiritual only but temporal, as their sovereign and emperor. I am king and lord of those who govern, and all destinies here below, all duration and time, depend on me alone. That is why I proclaim it today before the world in the dogma of my infallibility. Truly, there is power in that, nothing ridiculous, but an authentic air of majesty. It is the resurrection of the old Roman idea of empire and of unity which has never died in Roman Catholicism; it is the Rome of Julian the Apostate not yet conquered, but in some sort the conqueror of Christ in a new and supreme battle." To these aberrations we may oppose Berdaieff's quiet remark: "In his Legend of the Grand Inquisitor it is socialism rather than Catholicism, which he knew very superficially, that Dostoievsky envisaged. The future kingdom of the Grand Inquisitor accords less with Catholicism than with atheist and materialist socialism. The latter yields to the three temptations that Christ overcame in the desert" (L'esprit de Dostoievski, Paris 1929, p. 238; cf. p. 168)

981 Rene Grousset, Histoire des croisades, vol. I, p. 166.

982 C. Erdmann, Die Entstehung des Kreuzzuggedankens, Stuttgart 1935, p. 322.

983 Grousset, loc. cit.

984 La reforme gregorienne, vol. II, pp. 324-350. "We can conclude that Gregory VII exercised a genuine suzerainty over some states, usually solicited by the princes themselves, but that this suzerainty, prior to the proclamation of the sacerdotal government, was in no wise a temporal extension of the spiritual supremacy which the Pope claimed as the successor of the Apostle Peter, and in the name of which he constrained the kings to give an account of their actions ratione peccati. For the rest, the number of states which were bound by a feudal convention to the Apostolic See in the time of Gregory VII.... was quite small" (ibid., p. 333)

985 Institutes, bk. IV, ch. ii.

986 In II-II, q. 40, a. 2, no. 11.

987 In Praise of Folly, ch. lix.

988 The Prince, ch. xi; Discourses on Livy, bk. I, ch. xxvii.

989 History of the Popes, vol. VI, p. 449.

990 Kirche und Kultur im Mittelalter, Paderborn, 1930, vol. III, p. 394 (the word "Church" is taken by Schnurer in a descriptive, not in a theological, sense) St. Pius V, the Pope of Lepanto, had not the same confidence as Julius II in the forces of the Pontifical State: "The Cardinals, as Cusano wrote, were convinced that if the Pope lived a long time he would get rid of all his troops, and would even do away with the Swiss Guard" (Pastor, History of the Popes, vol. XVII, p. 80) He too, however, was forced to act as head of the State. In view of the Turkish peril "The city walls were repaired, the fortification of the Borgo was completed" (ibid., p. 126)

991 "The practical thesis which had for a long time seemed the most important to many men of goodwill was that things human should protect things divine. And man is so made that in a sense this is very true; the importance of human means, even for the propagation of the Gospel and the expansion of the Kingdom of God, ought not to be forgotten. So, then, it is true that human things should protect divine things; but is it the most important truth? Another practical thesis, more important, and one which Christian souls seem to understand more and more today, is that it belongs to things divine to protect things human, to protect them and to vivify them" (J. Maritain, "Choses divines et choses humaines", in Questions de conscience, p. 269)

992De Consideratione lib. II, cap. vi.

993Lib. IV, cap. III.

994 "The Son of God Himself, in His human nature, was a simple workman, a carpenter. Peter, who recognized in Christ the Son of God, was very much of an average man with all the usual human weaknesses and faults. It was precisely simple ordinary human nature that was destined to hear the Word, to contemplate the revelation of the divine light. It is worth while to insist on this social elementarization of the religious subject, for it has a universal and incalculable scope. It indicates that the way of salvation is accessible to all, that it is no longer the apanage of a few initiates, that the aristocratism of the ancient mystery cults is now abolished" (N. Berdiaeff, "Deux concepts du christianisme", in Revue de Zofingue, 25th December 1936)

995Paul can do so more than the other preachers: "If we have sown unto you spiritual things, is it a great matter that we reap your carnal things?... Nevertheless, we have not used this power but we bear all things, lest we should give any hindrance to the Gospel of Christ" (1 Cor. ix. 11-12) The greater the fervour of the whole Church, the more foolish do her prudences and those of her Popes sometimes appear.

996cf. the dialogue between Pope Pius and the Friar Minor in Claudel's Pere humilie: "Thus, I have no longer the right to give away what is not mine, what is not Ours, what belongs to all Our predecessors along with Us, and to all Our successors along with Us, what belongs to the whole Church and the whole world along with Us." And the Friar Minor replies: "Very well, what we cannot give them, let them take.... Holy Father, the world becomes too exacting, a machine that is far too complicated. If you want to work it, you have to become too much its slave..."

997In the etymological sense.

998Discourses on Livy, I, ch. xii.

999Machiavelli's objection was taken up by Auguste Comte in his Cours de Philosophie positive, vol. V, pp. 254-258. According to him, Christianity, far from being able to separate the spiritual from the temporal "with the energy, spontaneity and precision which will certainly characterize the Positive Philosophy in this matter", can "in no wise dispense, as so many other examples of a vain monotheism have clearly verified, with the continued help of purely political conditions, amongst which especially we may count the need of a certain territorial sovereignty large enough to be self-sufficing.... and so to offer an assured refuge for the members of this great hierarchy in case of collision with temporal powers which, without this safeguard, would always have held it in too strict a local dependence". Hence undoubtedly there would result inevitable "disadvantages for the Papacy enmeshed in all the cares of a provincial government", and for Italy a political state always anomalous. "As for Italy, although her intellectual and even moral progress has been speeded up by this privilege [that the spiritual head of Europe is an Italian prince], it had to lose its political nationality. For without a total perversion of its own nature the Papacy could not extend its temporal dominion over all Italy, and Europe moreover would have taken joint steps to prevent it; and yet the Papacy could not, without gravely compromising its indispensable independence, allow any great Italian sovereignty to be formed around its own special territory. The unhappy result of this fundamental conflict.... has been the political sacrifice of this most precious and interesting part of the European community, agitated as it has been for ten centuries past by fruitless efforts to achieve national unity, necessarily incompatible.... with the whole political system based on Catholicism." On this we may remark (1) that the national unity of Italy is compatible not only with Christianity, but even with the ideal of a Christian polity. Comte goes astray in affirming an "essential" solidarity between the existence of the Church and that of the States of the Church, between the fate of Christianity and that of medieval Christendom. The end of a Christendom heralds neither the end of Christianity nor its replacement by the Positive Philosophy. (2) If the old State of the Church was morally necessary it was not because the spirituality of Christianity was deficient, or because it stood in any need of being put to rights by Positive Philosophy; it was solely because it appeared, at this moment of the cultural evolution of the West, as the best way to guarantee the Sovereign Pontiff the civil principate which was his right. (3) For Italy, it can be said that the situation in which she found herself served on the one hand to hasten her intellectual and moral progress, and, on the other, to retard the formation of her national unity. Did she, on the whole, lose or gain by remaining longer under the feudal regime? It is a matter of historical judgment. But the historian who wishes to make one in this connection ought to ask himself what would have become of Italy in face of the barbarians and then of Islam, if the seat of the Papacy had been elsewhere, say in England.

100 0A. A. S., 1929, p. 109.

100 1 ibid. 1929, p. 108. (My italics.)

100 2 "Art. 8: Italy, considering as sacred and inviolable the person of the Sovereign Pontiff, declares that any attempt against him, or provocation of such attempt, shall be punishable with the same penalties as are prescribed for any attempt or provocation of attempt against the person of the King. Public offences and injuries committed on Italian territory against the person of the Sovereign Pontiff by speeches, acts or writings, are to be punished like similar offences and injuries against the person of the King" (A. A. S., 1929, p. 213)

100 3 "Art. 22: At the request of the Holy See and by a delegation given either in each case or permanently, Italy will see to the punishment on her own territory of crimes committed in the Vatican City—but when the author of the crime takes refuge on Italian territory he will be proceeded against under Italian law without any other formality" (ibid., p. 219)

100 4 ibid., 1929, p. 107.

100 5 1 2th February 1929. cf. Doc. cath., 1929, col 461.

100 6 J. Maritain, Art and Scholasticism, London 1930, p. 81.

100 7 In this sense Moehler was therefore right in maintaining that the Roman primacy could not be brought fully into view during the first Christian centuries. But he adopts a far too rudimentary explanation of the situation when he represents the primacy "as the personified reflection of the unity of the whole Church", He sees it as willed no doubt by God, but created by the need for unity in the believers—as though the universal unity of the believers had to be historically realized before it could condense itself, as it were, in the person of the Sovereign Pontiff (cf. Die Einheit in der Kirche, pt. ii, ch. iv, 67, p. 250) But: (1) The Roman Primacy has given more to the unity of the Church than it has received. (2) If the East failed to see it clearly, Rome has always explicitly asserted it. (3) Above all, the primacy of the Sovereign Pontiff is an expression of the unity of the Holy Spirit and of the unity of Christ, before being an expression of the unity of the Church, the Pope is, properly speaking, the Vicar of Christ and not of the Church; the Christ-given privilege of Peter, which is that of the Pope, is represented to us in Scripture much more as a source of the unity of the Church than as its effect.

100 8 "Les trois zones de la ' potestas ' papale," in Cathedra Petri, Etudes d'Histoire ancienne de l'Eglise Paris 1938, p. 41.

100 9 ibid., p. 46.

101 0 ibid., p. 54. The baptismal controversy involved a point of faith. This was not so in the case of Felix of Saragossa. He had accused two of his colleagues of being guilty of idolatry during the persecution.

101 1Batiffol, "La ' potestas ' papale et l'Orient", op. cit., p. 75.

101 2 ibid., p. 76.

101 3Batiffol, "Le siege de Rome et l'Orient", op. cit., p. 205.

101 4 ibid., p. 205.

101 5 ibid., p. 207

101 6Can. 1.

101 7Apologia de Comparata Auctoritate Papae et Concilii, cap. v III. Joseph de Maistre was justified in saying that Christianity rests wholly on the Sovereign Pontiff (Du pape, "Discours preliminaire"), and citing Bellarmine. But when he writes "The Pope and the Church are all one" (tout un), the formula is not theologically happy. That of St. Ambrose ("Ub1 Petrus, ibi Ecclesia") has a surer touch.

101 8For the news of Herr Oscar Cullmann see p. 479.

101 9 These were neither new nor isolated accusations. cf Schnitzer, Savonarola, Italian translation by E. Rutili, Milan 1931, vol. ii, p. 303.

102 0 His Holiness Pope Pius XII takes up the same theme again in his address to Catholic Jurists of 6th Dec. 1953, reprinted in A. A. S., 1953, p. 800 "La istituzione di una Comunita di popoli, quale oggi e stata in parte attuata, ma che si tende ad effetuare e consolidare in piu elevato e perfetto grado, e un' ascesa dal basso verso l'alto, vale a dire da una pluralita di Stati sovrani verso la piu alta unita. La Chiesa di Cristo ha, in virtu del mandato del suo divino Fondatore, una simile universale missione. Essa deve accogliere in se e collegare in una unita religiosa gli uomini di tutti i popoli e di tutti i tempi. Ma qui la via e in uno certo senso contraria; essa va dall' alto al basso. In quell prima teste ricordata, l'unita superiore giuridica della comunita dei popoli era o e ancora da creare. In questa, la comunita giuridica col suo fine universale, la sua costituzione, le sue potesta e coloro che ne sono rivestiti, e gia fin dal principio stabilita per la volonta e la istituzione di Cristo stesso."

102 1" By reason of the power to refuse, which is a natural element of all created freedom, the first initiative in evil-doing comes always from the creature; God has the power, but does not will, to prevent the creature (when it is so inclined) from interposing its refusal. For the hands of God are tied by the inscrutable designs of His love as were those of the Son of Man upon the cross" (J. Maritain, Freedom in the Modern World, p. 27)

102 2" Now although God is all-powerful and supremely good, nevertheless He allows certain evils to take place in the universe, which He might prevent, lest, without them, greater goods might be forfeited, or greater evils ensue" (St. Thomas, II-II, q. 10, a. 11)

102 3 "Despite all the mass of sensible material that conditions it in the order of nature, history is fashioned above all things by crossing and commingling, by chase and conflict, of Uncreated Freedom and created freedom. It is invented (so to say) at every instant by concordant and discordant initiatives of these two types of Freedom, the one within Time, the other outside of Time, able in a single glance from the heights of Eternity (where all the movements of Time are indivisibly present) to know the whole succession of things in Time. And the Divine Freedom is all the more wonderful and glorious for the liberty it gives the created freedom to undo its work; for only the Divine Freedom can, out of a wealth of destruction, draw forth a superabundance of Being. But we, poor mortals, who are part of the tapestry of history, are conscious only of the confused tangle of threads that is knotted on our heart" (J. Maritain, Freedom in the Modern World, pp. 27-8)

102 4Can. 108, 3.

102 5I have indicated this more summarily above, p. 24.

102 6cf. St. Thomas, III, q. 68, a. 9, ad 1, 2, 3.

102 7cf. P. Galtier, S. J., art. "Imposition des mains", Dict. de theol. cath., col. 1411.

102 8Billuart, De Ordine, dissert. 2, a. 1, solv. obj.

102 9Denz. 701.

103 0cf. above, p.

103 1L. Billot, S. J., De Ecclesia Christi, q. 9, th. 15, Rome 1921, p. 341. It is the power of jurisdiction taken in the strict sense which thus requires order. The dominative power, which is a form of spiritual jurisdiction found in the superiors of religious, demands order only in the Sovereign Pontiff from whom it flows. cf. above, p. 187.

103 2Barth adds here "and not an idea of God which we acquire". Revelation is first of all the action of God speaking supernaturally to men; but the term can also be applied to the word spoken, the doctrine, the truth supernaturally revealed to men.

103 3Revelation, Eglise, theologie, Paris 1934, p. 12. (These lectures were originally delivered in French in Paris. They were published in German in the same year at Munich under the title Offenbarung, Kirche, Theologie.)

103 4" Is Christ divided?" (1 Cor. i. 13)

103 5Symbolik, v, 37.

103 6Die Einheit in der Kirche, pt. ii, ch. 1, 50, p. 199.

103 7Die Einheit in der Kirche, pt. i, ch. ii, 10, p. 31. A propos St. Paul, let us note that the meaning of 1 Cor. xi. 23—For I have received of the Lord that which also I delivered unto you—is: "I have learnt through a tradition which goes back to Christ." the hypothesis of an immediate revelation made to Paul on the origin and meaning of the Eucharist must be rejected. Paul knew this mystery through the Christian community to which he had been admitted after his conversion. That does not contradict Gal. i. 11-12 (in which St. Paul affirms that he did not receive his gospel from men), for the Apostle is there speaking of the fundamental revelation that illuminated his mind, not of the various beliefs and events of the life of Christ. cf. 1 Cor. xv. 3: "For I delivered unto you first of all, which I also received..." [Mgr. Knox has: "The chief message I handed on to you, as it was handed on to me.... "]. cf. E. B. Allo, Premiere epitre aux Corinthians, Paris 1935, pp. 277-9. However, the light of the divine revelation would alone allow him to get to the bottom of the teachings delivered or handed on to him.

103 8cf. 1 Tim. i. 3-4; III. 1-13; v. 17-22; vi. 3-20; Tit. i. 5-9,

103 9What I have called continuity and instrumentality I shall later on call succession and mediation, p. 527.

104 0"there we have the inner essence of the Catholic Church. The episcopate, the juridical constitution of the Church, etc., are but her exterior manifestation. We must insist on this capital distinction: the exterior unity arises from the interior, of which it is, so to speak, the outcome" (Moehler, Die Einheit in der Kirche, pt. ii, ch. III, 64, p. 248) Similar texts are easily discoverable.

104 1The aspect insufficiently emphasized by Moehler.

104 2 St. Thomas, In II Sent., dist. 9, q. 1, a. 1: "Utrum definitio hierarchiae data a Dionysio sit conveniens."

104 3I, q. 109 a. 2: "Utrum in daemonibus sit praelatio."

104 4 ibid., a. 3.

104 5 "The state of the New Law is intermediate between the state of the Old Law, whose figures are fulfilled in the New, and the state of glory, in which all truth will be fully and perfectly manifested. Then there will be no more sacraments; but now, inasmuch as we see only through a glass darkly, we have to enter into spiritual things through sensible signs" (St. Thomas, III, q. 61, a. 4, ad 1) cf. Cajetan: "Just as, in the fatherland, there are to be no more sacrifices or temples, as it says in the Apocalypse xxi. 22: And I saw no temple therein, our text [" He hath made us a kingdom and priests to God and his Father," Apoc. i. 6, cf. v. 10] makes no mention of any sacerdotal action in its vision of the future, although the sacerdotal dignity itself remains for eternity" (Jentaculum Tertium De Sacerdotio)

104 6 Innocent III, cited in the Decretals, lib. V, tit. xxxv III, cap. x.

104 7 On the priesthood of Our Lady, see above, p. 91, n. 3.

104 8 When St. Augustine declares that the sacraments do not confer grace outside the Church, he takes it for granted, as Billot rightly remarks, that they are received by those who are personally guilty of heresy or schism: "We say that those who receive Baptism outside the communion of the Church, among heretics or in any schism whatsoever, obtain no profit of it in so far as they partake in the perversity of the heretics or schismatics (De Baptismo Contra Donatistas lib. Ill, no. 13) Cf. Billot, De Ecclesia Christi, Rome 1921, p. 339.

104 9 The marriage of two baptized non-Catholic is also valid, and, indeed, sacramental.

105 0 III, q. 63. disp. 25, a. 2, no. 98; vol. IX, p. 345.

105 1 The decree Spiritus Sancti Munera of the Sacred Congregation of the Sacraments, 14 Sept. 1946, permits certain priests, under certain conditions, to be the extraordinary ministers of Confirmation to the sick in danger of death—for example, parish priests and parochial vicars within the limits of their territories (A. A. S., 1946, p. 349)

105 2 Martin Jugie, A. A. Theologia Dogmatica Christianorum Orientalium, Paris 1930, vol. III, p. 163.

105 3 cf. Ami du clerge, 1914-1919, vol. XXXVI, p. 318, and T. H. Metz, "Le clerge orthodoxe a-t-il la jurisdiction?", in Irenik on, March-April 1928, p. 145.

105 4 Denz. 1628.

105 5 ibid., 1629.

105 6 ibid., 1086 .

105 7 De Extrema Unctione, a. 2, §11.

105 8 God. Jur. Can., can. 882; cf. can. 892, 2.

105 9 Ami du clerge, 1914-1919, vol. XXXVI, p. 318. To those who contest these views one could show the validity of absolution given by dissident priests by insisting "on the principle, admitted by all, of good faith and colourable title.... As regards the people, good faith, since their priests are sent them by their bishops and patriarchs and are taken by all for legitimate pastors. As regards the pastors, colourable title, since the priests are deputed by a bishop and held to be legitimate pastors" (ibid., 1927, vol. XLIV, p. 569) But it is only a momentary, fugitive jurisdiction, valid for these particular cases, that can be established in this way, not one that is durable and continuous.

106 0 Can. 892, 2.

1061 Can. 882.

1062 De Ecclesia Christi, q. 10, th. 16, 3, Rome 1921, PP 380-7

1063 Pere Congar mentions, in the Protestant communities, the presence of the Bible, "The study of which, though very imperfect, is very active and produces true holiness in many souls. Theologically and historically Protestantism takes the Bible from the Church, apart from which no book is recognizable as the Word of God. Thus Protestantism derives from the Church an incomplete but genuine possession of the Word of God" (Divided Christendom, p. 243 n. 1)

1064 On incorporation with Christ the Priest by means of the sacramental character, see above, p. 60; on incorporation with Christ the Saviour through sacramental grace, see below, p. 513.

1065 To justify this expression "The created soul of the Church" we may cite the Catechism of Pius X: "In che consiste l'anima della Chiesa? L'anima della Chiesa consiste in cio che essa ha d'interno e spirituale, cioe la fede, la speranza, la carita, i doni della grazia e dello Spirito Santo e tutti i celesti tesori che le sono derivati pei meriti di Christo Redentore e dei Santi" (Compendio della Dottrina Cristiana, prescritto da sua Santita Papa Pio X, alle Diocesi della Provincia di Roma, Rome 1905, p. 119)

1066 Cursus Philos., Phil. Nat., II, q. 1, a. 7; Vives ed., II, p. 548.

1067 On incorporation into Christ the Priest by the sacramental characters, and into Christ, King and Prophet, by union with the jurisdictional power, see above, pp. 60 and 511.

1068 Sermons, vie spirituelle ed., vol. II., pp. 25, 247.

1069 cf. Mary of the Incarnation: "I entered into this state which had been shown me and for which I was waiting. It issued from the apostolic spirit, which is none other than the spirit of Jesus Christ, and it so absorbed my spirit that this had no longer any life save in His and by His, being wholly given up to the interests of this divine and superadorable Master and to zeal for His glory, that He might be known, loved and adored by all nations whom He has redeemed by His precious blood. My body was in our monastery, but my spirit, which was united to the Spirit of Jesus, would not be shut up. This Spirit carried me in spirit to the Indies, to Japan, into America, into the East and the West, into the parts of Canada and into the lands of the Hurons and all the habitable earth where there were rational souls who I saw belonged to Jesus Christ" (Ecrits spirituels Paris 1930, vol. II, p. 310) cf the invocation written by Charles de Foucauld at the head of one of his lessons on the Catechism: "My God, bring all men to heaven. Amen."

1070 J. Maritain, "Qui est mon prochain?" in Vie intellectuelle, Aug. 1939.

1071 III, q. 7, a. 1.

1072 In the De divinibus Nominibus, cap. 2, Dionysius writes that the divinity of Jesus is at once "form [idea] making the form of things without form, as archiform", and "without form in forms, as above all form" (P. G. III, col. 648)

1073 Those who at various times have attempted to exalt Uncreated Grace by rejecting created grace, have merely misconceived its exigencies and its virtue. The traditional doctrine is richer and more penetrating. For example, St. Cyril of Alexandria writes, "Christ is formed in us when the Holy Spirit introduces into us a kind of divine conformation by sanctification and justice; thus is imprinted on our souls the character of the hypostasis of the God who is Father, when the Holy Spirit forms us anew by sanctification in Him" (In Isaiam, lib. IV, orat. 2; P. G. LXX, col. 936)

1074 "Le principe mystique de l'unite", in L'Eglise est une, hommage a Moehler, Paris 1939, pp. 208-9. For the relation of Schleiermacher and some of the Catholic theologians of the Wurttemberg School, cf. Edmond Vermeil, Jean Adam Moehler et l'ecole catholique de Tubingue, Paris 1913, pp. 12 ff., 280 ff.

1075 The expression comes from J. E. Vierneisel, "L'Actualite religieuse de Moehler", in L'Eglise est une p. 305

1076 "L'Heresie, dechirement de l'unite" in L'Eglise est une, hommage a Mochler, p. 257; cf. "L'esprit des Peres d'apres Moehler", in Vie spirituelle, 1st April 1938, of which these are the final lines: "Everything in the Fathers is attributable to the fact that they were, in a specially perfect way, men living in the Church. We cannot pass over here albeit it does not come from Moehler, the beautiful text from the Mass of Doctors: In medio Ecciesiae apemuit os ejus Truly it was in the bosom of the Church and in brotherly communion with all the body that the Fathers opened their mouths. Hence they proclaimed no purely personal things coming from their own minds, but implevit eum Dominus spiritu sapientiae et intellectus, it was the Spirit of the Lord who opened their mouths and filled them with the spirit of wisdom and understanding."

1077 According to P. Marin-Sola, already cited, there are two ways of ascertaining whether a truth is really and objectively contained in the revealed deposit, and, consequently, whether it could eventually be defined by the Church: the one way is intellectual, the method of the theological conclusion strictly so called; the other is affective, by way of the common feeling of the faithful, the "sense of the faith", "While this sense of the faith is found only in some here and there—even if they are saints—or only in certain parts of the Church, its theological weight is very slight. As soon as it becomes general and the common patrimony of bishops, theologians and faithful, it is in itself, and prior to any definition, an argument as strong as the most evident theological reasoning. So that either on the one hand evident reasoning, or on the other the assured and general consensus of the Christian society as to the inclusion of a doctrine in the revealed deposit, is, for the Church, a sufficient criterion of its definability." the author then makes the following valuable distinctions which are lacking in Moehler. "We must however carefully distinguish this sense of the faith from the ordinary magisterium of the Church. The former may be found in all the faithful, especially in those in a state of grace and still more so in the saints, even when these are neither theologians nor bishops. The latter belongs exclusively to the bishops. The former is neither a teaching nor a magisterium, but simply the experimental conviction that a truth is so. It is not, in itself, a definition; but when found in all the faithful it becomes a proof or a preparation sufficient for the purposes of a definition by the Church. The latter is not only the conviction of a truth, it is a teaching; and when this teaching is universal and definitive it constitutes a true definition of faith by the ordinary magisterium, of no less weight than one put forth by the solemn magisterium. To possess the convection, it is sufficient to be in a state of grace, or at least to have a genuine divine faith. For the teaching, episcopal jurisdiction, which is doctrinal by nature, is needful and suffices, though lacking grace or even faith." Let us note that in each individual subject the episcopal jurisdiction is normally sustained and penetrated by the life of grace, and that if the jurisdiction of the Church is taken as a whole this normal condition is always realized; it becomes a condition of existence. Pere Marin-Sola concludes: "Nor must we confuse the general consent of the faithful posterior to a definition of the Church, with that which precedes it. The former, bearing on a truth already defined, is infallible, like the definition. The latter, on the contrary, can rest only on two foundations: the speculative reasoning of theology, or the intuitive and experimental sense of the faith, both absolutely fallible without a definition of the Church, the sole beneficiary of the promise of infallibility" (L'Evolution homogene du dogme catholique, vol. I, pp. 370-1) Speaking properly, faith and the gift of understanding are by nature infallible, but the man in whom they reside is not, and without the magisterium of the Church he is bound at times to confuse them with things other than themselves.

1078 Die Einheit, pt. i, ch. ii, 10, p. 34.

1079 ibid., pt. i, ch. III, 31, pp. 110-16. On Goethe's part in this organic conception of the world, and more generally on the genesis of the ideology of the school of Wurttemberg, see Edmond Vermeil, Jean-Adam Moehler, pp. 1-32.

1080 It is only materially that the sacramentals are to be likened to the sacraments; they depend formally on the jurisdictional power.

1081 Thus Moehler says rightly that the law of ecclesiastical celibacy is the spontaneous outcome of a movement of charity in the Church.

1082 Die Einheit, pt. ii, ch. 1, 49, p. 198, n. 1.

1083 ibid., pt. ii, ch. i, 55, p. 221

1084 ibid., pt. ii, ch. III, 64, p. 248. The love of the Christian community being divine, the episcopate, its fruit, is also divine—"this institution is indeed a divine law"—and Moehler can write that the bishop, albeit born of the community, "does not, for all that, act from a mandate received from his people; his office is at no one's beck and call, since it is not the upshot of any human convention. It is positive, and of divine origin" (pt. ii, ch. i, 53, p. 213) But this explanation remains insufficient.

1085 What can we retain of Moehler's views on the primacy of the Roman Pontiff (pt. ii, ch. iv, 67, p. 260)? It is true that Christ, who never revealed anything prematurely, led His Apostles to divine, in a way, His own divine sonship before speaking of it expressly; and that He left many truths to be explained by the Church in later times as need arose. But for myself I regard the primacy of the Roman Pontiffs as having been revealed in substance from the beginning, and as having been always clearly recognized by the Roman Church. However, as I have admitted, outside that Church the knowledge of this dogma was obscured, and for long centuries she tolerated the canonical constitution of the Eastern Church, imperfect as it was, so that the whole true import of the primacy might be rediscovered there by sad experience. Unfortunately, the schism cut across this hope.

1086 §52. Visibly under the spell of the letters of St. Ignatius of Antioch, Cyprian and Athanasius, Moehler thinks of the bishop who is a saint, and sometimes forgets to distinguish the greatness of the hierarchy and the greatness of sanctity.

1087 It is a doctrine of St. Paul's that the law disappears in love, which makes it superfluous (Gal. iv. 25), and St. John of the Cross could write in the middle of his diagram of the Ascent of Mount Carmel, that "here already there is no longer any road, because for the just there is no law". And the reason is that "The just man has become a law unto himself, and more than the law, the king".

1088 Even in the very fine passage cited by Pere Chaillet as summing up the whole of the Symbolik, the shortcomings of Die Einheit in der Kirche are not, I think, wholly absent: "It is worthy of remark that for Protestantism justification is a thing chiefly external, and the Church a thing chiefly internal; so that it is unable to bring the inward and the outward into synthesis. There is of course a logical connection, their way of seeing justification determines their way of seeing the Church: if justification is external, the Church cannot be an external society. When justification is not the inmost property of man, it lacks the energy to externalise itself in a genuinely objective Christian body. The inward Church cannot become simultaneously and indubitably an outward one. Hence that painful oscillation between the invisible and the visible Church, because justification was not conceived to be an internal thing" (Symbolik, 9th ed., 13, p. 127. cf. Pierre Chaillet, S. J., Introduction to the French translation of Die Einheit in der Kirche, p. xxxix) It is true that in the Catholic conception it is interior regeneration, orientated sacramental charity. which by its inner energy organizes and animates the body of the Church; but we must be careful to add that the hierarchy, inasmuch as it is the cause of this inner regeneration, is prior to it and cannot possibly be its objectification. It is also true that the doctrine of imputed justice leaves grace no energy that would be capable of exterior objectification—but it tends still more directly to the success of the thesis of the invisible Church and to the ruin of the Catholic doctrine of sacramental efficacy, and, more generally, of the hierarchy.

1089 III, q. 60, a. 5, and ad 3.

1090 ibid., pt. ii., ch. 3, 65.

1091 In my esquisse sur Ie developpement du dogme marial: l'immaculee conception, Paris, 1954, I have distinguished the three principal theological senses of the word traditio (paradosis) The word means: (1) the transmission of the totality of the revealed deposit, made by Christ and the Apostles to the primitive Church—and by extension the whole of the revealed deposit thus transmitted; (2) in a narrower sense, the part of the revealed deposit transmitted not by way of writing but orally; (3) the transmission from generation to generation, by the divinely assisted magisterium, of the whole of the primitive revealed deposit. The deposit revealed by Christ and the Apostles and handed on to our own day by the magisterium is destined for the orientation of the Church's charity.

1092 Cited, by Pierre (Chaillet, in L'Eglise et une, hommage a Moehler, p. 211.

1093 " Ad hoc igitur quod ipse Deus per essentiam cognoscatur, oportet quod ipse Deus fiat forma intellectus ipsum cognoscentis..." (St. Thomas, Compendium Theologiae, cap. cv)

1094 I-II, q. 106 a. 1.

1095 " Exteriora opera", q. 108, a. 2.

1096 loc. cit., a. 1.

1097 q. 106 a. 2.

1098 q. 108, a. 1.

1099 Pius IX, Denz. 1686.

1100 To the succession and the mediation there correspond respectively the continuity and the instrumentality of which I have spoken above, p. 500, n. 1.

1101 It belongs to her ratione causalitatis, secundum perseitatem quarti modi.

1102 The words "instrumental cause" are here taken in a large sense, since only the sacramental power and not the jurisdictional is strictly instrumental. We could say "ministerial cause",

1103 See p. 47.

1104 Apostolicity pertains to her no longer ratione causalitatis, but ratione formae, secundum perseitatem secundi modi.

1105 Some consider, on the contrary, that the concept of "note" includes the concept of "property," to which it adds that of visibility. If one adopts the other viewpoint, it is so as to keep in mind that since the Church is at once mysterious and visible, her essential properties are also at once mysterious and visible. Catholic theologians who, at the time of the Reformation, were concerned to describe the notes that mark the true Church, were forced, I think not to enrich the property concept, but to isolate its visible aspect so as the better to emphasise its importance.

1106 "Proprietates ipsae dicuntur notae in ordine ad nos, quatenus nempe proprietates illae extrinsecus patentes et cognitae, nobis notificant veram Christi Ecclesiam" (T. M. Zigliara, O. P., Propaedeutica ad Sacram Theologiam, Rome 1903, p. 404 ).

1107 "the true Church of Jesus Christ, by virtue of a divine authority, is constituted and made manifest by that quadruple note in which we affirm our belief in the Creed; and each one of these notes is joined to the others in such a way that it cannot be separated from them; so that the Church, which is and is truly called, catholic, must be glorious with the prerogatives of unity, sanctity and apostolic succession at one and the same time" (encyclical of the Holy Office, 16th Sept. 1864 , Denz., 1686).

1108 This last is described thus by Gustave Thils: "The apologists endeavour to show, by the examination of ancient documents, that the Catholic Church is really this indefectible Christian Church, which appears in history as a society, one, visible, permanent, hierarchically and monarchically organized; the via primatus is a mere simplification of this first way, since, neglecting the other types of historical continuity, it would establish the truth of the Roman Church simply by proving that her head is the only bishop who can legitimately call himself the successor of Peter" (Les notes de l'Eglise dans l'apologetique catholique depuis la Reforme, Gembloux 1937, p. x). Does that sufficiently bring out the essence of the argument from prescription? Moehler insisted, with real depth of insight, on the fact that what he calls Tradition—the living doctrine and faith of the Church as a whole—is not obliged to prove its titles: "It presupposes the truth into which each soul is to penetrate. Its aim is to exclude those who would propose as Christian conclusions that are foreign to the teaching of the Church. That is why the Fathers of the Church stigmatized these attempts as novelties." When, he says, the Christian refuses to accept a new doctrine, he does so because it contradicts his conscience as believer, and the conscience of the whole believing community in which he was born to the faith. In the face of heresy "The Christian is not alone; he has the unbroken belief of the entire Church at his side, as the historical basis of his feeling. Those who are not integrated in the unbroken traditional faith cannot invoke the argument from prescription" (Die Einheit in der Kirche pt. ii, ch. ii, 12 and 13, pp. 42 and 46).

1109 Sermo XLVI, cap. v III, 18.

1110Contra Cresconium, lib. III, cap. lxvii, 77.

1111De Baptismo contra Donatistas, lib. II, cap. 1, no. 2; cap. iv, no. 5; lib. VII, cap. l III, no. 102.

1112Commonitorium, II, 5 and 6.

1113 St. Augustine, Epist. XLIX, 2.

1114Contra Maximinum, lib. II, cap. xiv, 3.

1115Commonitorium, IV, 3.

1116See Excursus XII on Newman's conversion.

1117" It was to Peter that Christ said: Thou art Peter, and on this rock I will build my Church. Where therefore Peter is, there is the Church: where the Church is, there is no death but eternal life. That is why He added: And the gates of hell shall not prevail against it; and I will give unto thee the keys of the kingdom of heaven. Blessed Peter, against whom the gates of hell have not prevailed, for whom the gates of heaven are not closed, but who, on the contrary, has destroyed the antechambers of hell and opened the heavens! Standing on the earth he opens heaven and shuts hell" (St. Ambrose, Enarr. in Psalm., XL, 30; P. L. XIV, col. 1082 ).

1118Sermo CXXXI, 10.

1119De Baptismo Contra Donatistas, lib. III, cap. ii,

1120Commonitorium, II, 6

1121 ibid., IV, 3.

1122" It would be futile to conclude on this account [the dissimilarity between acorn and tree] that trunk and branches and leaves will later be supplied artificially from outside, to deny that the acorn can produce them, to deny the tree itself and admit the existence only of the acorn as we see it. It is equally unreasonable to deny the more complex, more clearly manifested forms which divine grace assumes in the Church and to want to go back to those of the primitive Christian community" (God, Man and the Church, p. 151).

1123If the heresies seek to bring Christianity back to its origins, it is because they overlook this fundamental law of life. They proceed mechanically. For them, says Moehler, "Christianity is something that was wholly achieved, finally and immutably formed from the start. After that, they entertain the illusion that a biblical, a Gospel Christianity can be dug up again, even should it have disappeared for a hundred or a thousand years. What would they say of one who, losing his reason for a period of years, but enjoying from time to time certain recollections of infancy, should accuse the others of deviating and want them to return to a state of infancy with him?" (Die Einheit in der Kirche, pt. i, ch. III, 18, p. 69).

1124De Civitate Dei, lib. XVI, cap. ii.

1125De Baptismo Contra Donatistas, lib. II, cap. III, 4.

1126XX III, 1-3.

1127For example, in Chapter xxvii of the Commonitorium, in which, summing up his doctrine, he recommends the children of the Church to follow "universality, antiquity, general consent. If the part should revolt against the whole, novelty against antiquity, the particular opinion of one or some against the unanimous opinion of all Catholics or of the great majority, let them prefer to the corruption of the part the integrity of the universality; within this same universality let them put the ancient religion above all profane novelty; and within this antiquity itself, let them set above the rashness of some one man, or of a very small number, first the general decrees of an universal Council, if there was one; and, if not, let them follow the next best thing, namely the concordant opinions of many eminent doctors. By observing this rule, God aiding us, with fidelity, prudence and zeal, we shall be able to recognize without great difficulty all the pernicious errors of the heretics." Vincent remarks in Chapter xxx, that at the Council of Ephesus it was enough to show the agreement of ten Fathers or principal Doctors of the Church, to attest the faith of the Church.

1128Commonitorium iv, 2 and 6. Vincent reserves the title of Papa for the Popes. Till then it had been given to all bishops.

1129De Poenitentia, lib. I, cap. vii, 33. P. L. XVI, col. 476.

1130Art. "Eglise", Dict. apol. de la foi cath., cols. 1273-9.

1131 "The four notes, or at least the first three, postulate the note of ' romanity" not for their material but their formal existence For nothing save communion with the Roman Pontiff, successor of Peter, provides the true principle of unity, and prevents the Church from splitting up into various national Churches, and, above all, imparts apostolicity of succession to the other Churches" (De Christi Ecclesia, 1926, p. 111).

1132Apud Eusebium, Hi St. Eccl., lib. III, cap. xxxix; P. G. XX, col. 297.

1133Stromata, lib. VII, cap. xvi; P. G. IX, col. 544.

1134De Praescript., xxi

1135 ibid., xxxi, 3-4.

1136De Praescriptione, xxxii, 1-2.

1137 ibid., xxxvi-xxxvii, 1.

1138Contra Haereses, lib. III, cap III; P. G. VII, col. 848.

1139 ibid., col. 855.

1140It would be gravely erroneous, remarks Billot, to restrict the question of apostolic succession to the validity of ordinations (De Ecclesia Christi, Rome 1921, p. 345) A purely material continuity, such as that observed in the Anglican or Swedish Churches, where invalidly consecrated bishops have supplanted the authentic ones, might be called an apparent apostolicity; one which results in the valid transmission of order alone, as in the Graeco-Russian Churches, might be called a partial or mutilated apostolicity; and where there are both powers of order and jurisdiction we might say plenary apostolicity. Apparent apostolicity is purely exterior; partial apostolicity might be called material apostolicity, and the plenary might be called formal. But if theologians agree here in substance, they do not always use the words "material" and "formal" in the same way. 1141If it is true that spiritual jurisdiction, the pastoral power, resides, not indeed exclusively but totally and primarily in the Supreme Pastor of the Christian flock, then in principle it ceases to exist in an episcopate that breaks with him: "The bishops would lose the right and the power to govern," says Leo X III, in the Encyclical Satis Cognitum, "if they wilfully separated themselves from Peter and his successors." However, in point of fact, the dissident Churches that have kept the power of order, such as the Graeco-Russian, can, by express or tacit concession of the Sovereign Pontiff, possess a partial but genuine jurisdiction. I have pointed this out already and it should be borne in mind.

1142As a sign of the always possible disintegration of the traditional belief in the Graeco-Russian Church, we may recall that belief in the Immaculate Conception of Our Lady was peacefully preserved in the Greek Church till near the end of the fifteenth century, and that it disappeared from the sixteenth century onwards, partly, though undeniably, through the influence of Protestantism. Similarly, the "deuterocanonical" books of the Old Testament were received as inspired after Photius up to the eighteenth century; from then on they were openly rejected by the Russian Church, and then by numerous Greek theologians. That is the natural tendency outside the Catholic Church.

1143Leo X III, letter Apostolicae Curae, on Anglican ordinations, September, 1896. Thirty years before, in his Apologia Pro Vita Sua, note E, Newman wrote on the subject of the Anglican Church: "As to its possession of an episcopal succession from the time of the Apostles, well, it may have it, and if the Holy See ever so decides, I will believe it, as being the decision of a higher judgment than my own; but.... antiquarian arguments are altogether unequal to the urgency of visible facts"—that is to say to the manner in which Baptism and the Eucharist are administered, and her own apostolic succession so often denied, in the Anglican Church.

1144 Denz. 1794.

1145 Geschichte Papst Innocent des Dritten, Hamburg 1834, vol. I, p. 79. A little above, the author, always abstracting from dogmatic considerations, sees in the medieval Papacy "a spiritual power whose origin, development, growth and influence is the most extraordinary phenomenon in the history of the world."

1146 Gustave Frommel, Etudes religieuses et sociales, Saint-Blaise 1907, p. 298. So also further on: "If on the one side it is historically certain.... that the Church gets its effective constitution and its mode of realizing its basic unity from the prevalent political ideal; if, on the other, it is true that the political ideal today is that of democracy, and that democracy is the inescapable form of future governments, we conclude that the ecclesiastical constitution which is called to realize the Christian Catholicity of the reformed evangelical Churches of the future—for only these are in question—must be sought in the democratic ideal. And, to say it at once, the ecclesiastical equivalent of political democracy may be defined as a federated congregationalism" (p. 308 ).

1147 At the source of the miraculous development of this Christian doctrine may be noted the miracle of a monotheism which remains unaltered even when the plurality of the Divine Persons has been revealed. cf. J. Lebreton, S. J., Les origines du dogme de la Trinite, Paris 1919, e. g. pp. 342 and 436.

1148 Oeuvres du cardinal Lavigerie Paris 1884, vol. I, p. 94.

1149 He wrote in the Revue Thomiste (1894, pp. 176-78): "The Church is a living organism: her materials change, her surroundings change, and so she changes herself were it only to assimilate these materials and adapt herself to these changing surroundings. But is that the whole truth? Do not these changes in the Church show special characters, unique characters, absolutely incommunicable characters?.... What then becomes of the claim to reduce the evolution of the Church to merely natural laws? The truth is that it cannot be done.... An institution that propagates herself, establishes herself, acclimatises herself everywhere, without ever splitting up or altering, is certainly no simple natural product of any particular milieu. She evolves; but under a law completely opposed to the common law of the evolution of races and their institutions. Every race, every institution, transforms itself and becomes something other whenever the surrounding conditions are changed.... But when the Catholic Church goes out from this old Europe, when she enters the New World, she adapts herself to the new milieu and assimilates its living forces without ever ceasing to be herself.... The Church evolves therefore, but according to a law that is not natural. That is why ill theology we regard the historical and social fact [of the persistence of the Church, or again of her Catholicity] as a note, that is to say a visible sign and an effect proper to her supernatural constitution."

1150 I use this word here to signify an ontological consecration.

1151 Russia and the Universal Church, p. 107.

1152 Commonitorum, II, 5 and 6.

1153 Commonitorium, XX III, 1 and 2.

1154 cf. F. Marin-Sola, O. P., L'evolution homogene du dogme catholique, 1924, vol. I, pp. 257-8, and on the dogma of the Immaculate Conception, pp. 322-31.

1155 De Locis Theologicis, lib. V, cap. v.

1156 De Synodo Diocesana, lib. X III, cap. ii, 3.

1157 Commonitorium, IV, 3.

1158 Understood in this way, which remains superficial and inadequate, the quod semper and the quod ubique can provide only a preliminary indication at the most, a vague presumption. They can never amount to more than a probable—and therefore fallible—sign.

1159 "What is held by the whole Church and what has been held always, even when not defined by the Councils, is rightly held to have been handed down by apostolical authority" (De Baptismo contra Donatistas, lib. IV, cap. xxiv, 31).

1160 The resolutions of the Councils of Carthage and of Milevis "have been sent on to the Apostolic See. Inde etiam rescripta venerunt. Causa finita e St. Utinam aliquando finiatur error" (Sermo CXXXI, 10)

1161Apologia Pro Vita Sua, ch. III.

1162The Donatists were only an African sect; the Monophysites tried to array the Eastern Church against that of Rome.

1163Apologia, ch. IV.

1164 Apologia, ch. IV.

1165 Essay on the Development of Christian Doctrine Introduction.

1166 ibid.

1167 ibid.

1168 ibid., ch. V. The Pope can neither define things contrary to the revealed deposit, nor things outside it, as, for example, the number of the stars.

1169 ibid., ch. IV.

1170 ibid., ch. III.

1171 ibid., ch. IV.

1172 ibid., Note E