Bellarmine · De Controversiis · On Councils · On the Authority of Councils, Book I
Chapter 1: The Order of the Disputation
Our translation, from the Latin of the Opera Omnia (Paris: Vivès, 1870–74), vol. II, De Conciliis (De Conciliorum Auctoritate), On Councils, Book I (of the controversy On Councils and the Church). 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).
We have hitherto discoursed of the Head of the Church militant; now we must discourse of the Church itself. But because the Church can be considered in two ways — as it is seen gathered in Councils, and as it is spread throughout the whole world — therefore we too will dispute first of Councils, then of the Church itself. And we set the disputation on Councils before the disputation on the Church, although the order of nature would seem to persuade the contrary, because the disputation on Councils is more closely connected with the disputation on the supreme Pontiff, which has already preceded, than is the disputation on the Church.
The controversy on Councils, then, is placed in two things: in the definition of a legitimate Council, and in the authority of that same Council. For the heretics of this time feign a new form of Councils, and then attribute to them almost no authority. We, however, will add to these two parts a third.
And so the whole disputation will be divided into three parts. In the first we will premise certain things which may open, as it were, an approach to the disputation itself: who have written on this matter, what a Council is, of how many kinds, how many and which have hitherto been celebrated — all which we will treat without contention, after the manner of a simple narration. In the second we will define what the nature of a legitimate Council properly requires; where there will be treated of the matter, form, end, and efficient cause of Councils, and also of those things which the adversaries require in Councils. In the third we will discourse of the authority of Councils, both absolutely, and also by comparison with the authority of Scripture and of the supreme Pontiff.
Show the Latin (Vives edition, OCR)
CAPUT I. \ Ordo Disputationis. Disseruimus hactenus de Capite militantis Ecclesiae; nunc de ipsa Ecclesia disserendum erit. Quia vero Ecclesia bifariam considerari potest, ut in Conciliis congregata cernitur, et ut toto Orbe terrarum diffusa est; propte- rea nos quoque primum de Conciliis, tum de ipsa Ecclesia disputabimus. Praeponimus autem disputationem de Conciliis disputa¬ tioni de Ecclesia, licet Ordo naturae contra suadere videretur, quoniam disputatio de Conciliis magis connexa est cum disputatione de summo- Pontifice, quae jam praecessit, quam disputatio de Ecclesia. Igitur controversia de Conciliis duabus in rebus posita est, in definitione legitimi Con¬ cilii, et in ejusdem Concilii auctoritate; Hae¬ retici enim hujus temporis fingunt novam formam Conciliorum, et iis deinde nullam fere tribuunt auctoritatem. Nos tamen his duabus partibus addemus tertiam. Itaque in tres partes dividetur universa disputatio. In prima praemittemus quaedam, quae ipsi disputationi quasi aditum aperiant; qui scripserint de hac materia, quid sit Con¬ cilium, quotuplex, quot, et quae hactenus ce¬ lebrata sint : quae omnia tractabimus sine contentione ad modum simplicis narrationis. In secunda definiemus , quid proprie postu¬ let natura legitimi Concilii ; ubi tractabitur de materia, forma, fine, et efficiente Conci¬ liorum, necnon de iis, quae adversarii requi¬ runt in Conciliis. In tertia disseremus de auc¬ toritate Conciliorum, tum absolute, tum etiam per comparationem ad Scripturae, et summi Pontificis auctoritatem.