Bellarmine · De Controversiis · On the Members of the Church · On the Clergy (Book I)
Chapter 2: The Question of the Institution of Ministers Proposed
Our translation, from the Latin of the Opera Omnia (Paris: Vivès, 1870–74), vol. II, De Clericis (De Membris Ecclesiae, Book I), On the Clergy (On the Members of the Church, Book I). The Latin source text is public domain; this English rendering is released with the site. Scripture quotations follow Bellarmine's Vulgate citations, rendered in Douay-Rheims wording where he quotes exactly. Click “Show the Latin” for the original (raw OCR of the scan; scanning errors remain — the scan itself is the authority).
There follows another question, on the institution of bishops and of the other ministers of the Church, which is both most grave and most useful — not only for that which we are now treating, but also for knowing the true Church of God. And this must be premised at the outset: that under the name of the creation of bishops three things are contained — election, ordination, and vocation or mission. Election is nothing else than the designation of a certain person to an ecclesiastical prelacy. Ordination is the sacred ceremony by which, by a certain rite, the future bishop is anointed and consecrated. Mission or vocation confers jurisdiction, and in fact makes him a pastor and prelate.
There arises, then, between us and the adversaries a controversy: to whom chiefly belongs the right in the Church of creating bishops, that is, of electing, calling, and initiating them. Again it must be observed that election can be made in many and various ways. For either God alone elects, in the way that Aaron and Peter were elected, or God through men. And when God elects through men, He does this either by natural propagation, in the way that the sons and grandsons of Aaron of old attained to the priesthood, or certainly by voluntary election. And if by voluntary election, either of one, in the way that Clement is said to have been elected by Peter, or of several; and if of several, either of the people, or of the clergy, or of both.
Now there are three opinions on this whole question. The first is of John Wycliffe and John Hus, who (as Thomas Waldensis testifies, Book II On the Doctrine of the Faith, chapters 39 and 40) taught that it is the office of God alone to elect the pastors of the Church; that only the pious and predestined can be bishops and pastors, and that God alone knows who are pious and predestined. See in the Council of Constance (sessions 8 and 15) the articles of these heretics.
The second opinion is of Martin Luther, John Calvin, Matthias Illyricus, John Brentius, Martin Kemnitz, and other sectaries of this time, who will have election and vocation to pertain, by divine right, to the universal Church, that is, to the clergy and people, so entirely that without the consent and suffrage of the people no one is held to be lawfully elected or called to the episcopate. But ordination, which is wont to be done by the imposition of hands, they attribute to the pastors alone. For it could not be done that the whole people should impose hands; but yet they so refer this office to the pastors alone that these, in the name of the whole clergy and people, impose hands on the new pastors, and it can truly be said that the whole clergy and people not only elect and call the pastors, but also initiate and ordain them. But let us hear their own words.
Martin Luther, in the book On the Power of the Pope: “This rite Cyprian commemorates through many letters, always alleging the suffrage of the people and the judgment of the neighboring bishops, so as to pronounce with confidence that this ordination is from God.” And below: “Nor is it necessary to relate how much more happily this divine rite would today be kept, especially with so many bad priests reigning and imposed on an unwilling people.” The same he demonstrates at length, and (as he boasts) from the word of God, in that book which he entitled On the Instituting of Ministers, to the Bohemians. John Calvin (Book IV Institutes, chapter 3, section 15): “We hold that this is the lawful vocation of a minister according to the word of God, when those are created, out of the consent and approbation of the people, who have seemed fit. But other pastors ought to preside over the election, lest anything be sinned by the multitude through levity, or through evil zeal, or through tumult.” Matthias Flacius Illyricus, besides the book which he wrote On the Election of Bishops — in which he contends with all his might that the right of electing and instituting bishops is to be permitted neither to the supreme Pontiff, nor to kings, nor to canons, but restored to the multitude of the faithful, to whom it belongs by divine right — wrote also much with his colleagues the Magdeburg Centuriators (in the Ecclesiastical History, Century 1, Book II, chapter 4, column 391): “The Church in any place, that is, the whole assembly both of (as we now call them) laymen and of clerics conjointly, has the power of electing, calling, and ordaining fit ministers.” Not unlike are the things which John Brentius writes (in the Prolegomena against Pedro de Soto), and Martin Kemnitz (in the Examination of the Council of Trent, in the disputation on the Sacrament of Order). This, then, is their opinion, from which they think it is not obscurely gathered that there are among us no bishops rightly called, because our men have long ago in the elections of bishops excluded the common people from casting a vote.
But against this the Catholic doctors teach with the highest agreement that the right of ordaining and calling bishops can in no way pertain to the common people; but that the right of electing was at some time, and in some manner, in the hands of the people, yet by the concession or connivance of the Pontiffs, not by divine law. From which we shall far more truly gather that there is among the heretics no true ordination, no vocation, no election, and accordingly no bishops, no Church. And that we may demonstrate all these things distinctly and in order, certain opinions or propositions being set forth, we will dispute first of ordination, then of vocation, and lastly of election.
Show the Latin (Vives edition, OCR)
CAPUT II. Proponitur quoestio de institutione ministrorum Ecclesiae. Sequitur altera quaestio de institutione Episcoporum, aliorumque Ecclesiae Ministro¬ rum, quae sane cum gravissima , tum etiam utilissima est, non ad id modo, de quo agi¬ mus in praesentia , sed etiam ad veram Dei Ecclesiam cognoscendam. Illud autem ini¬ tio praemittendum est; appellatione creatio¬ nis Episcoporum tria contineri : electionem, ordinationem , et vocationem seu missio¬ nem. Electio nihil est aliud, quam designa¬ tio certae personae ad Ecclesiasticam praefec¬ turam. Ordinatio, sacra caeremonia est, qua certo ritu futurus Episcopus inungitur et consecratur. Missio seu vocatio jurisdictio¬ nem tribuit, ac re ipsa Pastorem, ac Praesu¬ lem facit. Existit igitur inter nos et adversarios con¬ troversia, cui potissimum jus sit in Ecclesia Episcopos creandi, id est, eligendi, vocandi, atque initiandi. Rursus observandum est, electionem multis ac variis modis fieri pos¬ se : Nam aut Deus solus elegit , quomodo Aaron, et Petrus electi fuere, aut Deus per homines. Cum autem per homines Deus eli¬ git, aut id facit naturali propagatione, quo¬ modo filii Aaron , et nepotes olim ad sacer¬ dotium perveniebant , aut certe voluntaria electione. Quod si voluntaria electione, aut unius, qua ratione Clemens a Petro electus dicitur, aut plurium; et si plurium, aut po¬ puli, aut cleri, aut utriusque. Sunt autem tres de hac tota quaestione sententiae. Prima Joannis Wiclef, et Joannis Hu ss, qui teste Thoma Waldensi lib. II doc- ctrin. fidei cap. 39. et 40. docebant, solius Dei munus esse eligere Pastores Ecclesiae ; quod soli pii , et praedestinati , Episcopi et Pastores esse possint, et solus Deus noverit, qui sint pii, et praedestinati. Vide in Conci¬ lio Constantiensi sess. VIII. et XV. articulos horum haereticorum. Altera sententia est Martini Lutheri, Joan¬ nis Calvini, Matthiae Illyrici, Joannis Bren- tii, Martini Kemnitii, aliorumque hujus tem¬ poris Sectariorum, qui electionem, et voca¬ tionem, jure divino ad Ecclesiam universam, hoc est, ad Clerum et Populum spectare vo¬ lunt, ita prorsus ut sine populi consensu ac suffragio nemo legitime electus, aut vocatus ad Episcopatum habeatur. Porro ordinatio¬ nem, quse per manus impositionem fieri so¬ let, solis Pastoribus tribuunt. Nec enim fieri posset ut totus populus manus imponeret, sed ita tamen ad solos Pastores munus hoc referunt , ut illi nomine totius Cleri ac Po¬ puli novis Pastoribus manus imponant , ac vere dici possit totus Clerus ac Populus non solum eligere ac vocare Pastores , sed eos¬ dem etiam initiare et ordinare. Sed verba ipsorum audiamus. Martinus Lutherus in lib. de potestate Pa¬ pae : « Hunc ritum, inquit, per multas epis¬ tolas Cyprianus commemorat, semper suf¬ fragium populi, et judicium propinquorum Episcoporum, ita allegans, ut hanc ex Deo ordinationem esse cum fiducia pronuntiet. » Et infra : « Nec referre est necesse quanto foelicius hodie is ritus divinus servaretur, praesertim tot sacerdotibus malis regnanti¬ bus, et invito populo impositis. » Idem, fuse atque ex verbo Dei, ut ipse jactat, in eo libro demonstrat, quem inscripsit de instituendis ministris, ad Boliemos. Joannes Calvinus lib. IV. Institut. Christianae cap. 3, §. 15 : « Ha¬ bemus, inquit, esse hanc legitimam ex verbo 420 UBER I. Dei ministri vocationem, ubi ex populi con¬ sensu et approbatione creantur, qui visi fue¬ rint idonei. Praeesse autem electioni debere alios Pastores, ne quid vel per levitatem, vel per mala studia, vel per tumultum a mul¬ titudine peccetur. » Mattbias Flaccius Illyri¬ cus praeter eum librum, quem scripsit de electione Episcoporum, in quo totis viribus contendit, jus eligendi, atque instituendi Episcopos, neque summo Pontifici, neque Regibus, neque Canonicis permittendum, sed multitudini fidelium, cui convenit jure divino, esse restituendum ; scripsit etiam multa cum collegis suis Magdeburgensibus Centuriatoribus in histor. Eccles. Centur. I, lib. II, cap. 4, coi. 391 : « Habet, inquit, Ec¬ clesia in quolibet loco, hoc est, totus coetus, tum, ut nunc vocamus, laieorum, tum cleri¬ corum conjunctim potestatem eligendi, vo¬ candi, et ordinandi ministros idoneos. » Non dissimilia sunt quae scribunt Joannes Bren- tius in Prolegomenis adversus Petrum a So- to, et Martinus Kemnitius in Examine Con¬ cilii Tridentini in disputatione de ordinis Sacramento. Heec igitur eorum sententia est, ex qua non obscure colligi putant, nullos esse apud nos Episcopos rite vocatos, quod jamdudum nostri in Episcoporum electioni¬ bus plebem excluserint a ferendo suffragio. Contra autem Doctores Catholici summa consensione docent, jus Episcopos ordinandi ac vocandi ad plebem nullo modo pertinere posse; jus autem eligendi fuisse aliquando, et aliquo modo penes populum, sed Pontifi¬ cum concessione vel conniventia, non lege divina : Ex quo nos longe verius colligemus, nullam esse apud haereticos veram ordina¬ tionem, nullam vocationem, nullam electio¬ nem, proinde, nullos Episcopos, nullam Ec¬ clesiam. Ut autem haec omnia distincte, at¬ que ordine demonstremus, propositis ali¬ quot sententiis seu propositionibus, disputa¬ bimus primum de ordinatione, tum de voc¬ atione, postremo de electione.