Bellarmine · De Potestate Summi Pontificis in Temporalibus · On the Power of the Supreme Pontiff in Temporal Matters, against William Barclay
Chapter 30: Answer to the Objections against the First Part of the Fifth Reason for the Power of the Supreme Pontiff in Temporal Matters
Our translation, from the Latin of the Opera Omnia (Paris: Vivès, 1870–74), vol. XII, De Potestate Summi Pontificis in Temporalibus adversus Gulielmum Barclaium, a treatise of 1610. 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).
In the thirtieth chapter Barclay, after long digressions, returns to the first part of Bellarmine's fifth reason, which in chapter 25 he had undertaken to refute. He says, then: “We admit indeed his proposition, namely that to a shepherd a power concerning wolves is necessary, that he may keep them off by every means he can. We admit also the assumption, namely that the wolves who lay waste the Church of God are heretics. From which he concludes in this way: Therefore if some prince from a sheep or a ram becomes a wolf, that is, from a Christian becomes a heretic, the shepherd of the Church will be able to keep him off by excommunication, and at the same time to order the people not to follow him, and therefore to deprive him of his dominion over his subjects. A faulty inference, in whose place in good dialectic should be set: Therefore if some prince from a sheep or a ram becomes a wolf, the prince of the Church will be able to keep him off by every means he can.” I answer: there is no fault here, but what could have been said by a longer circuit was said in short; for the means by which the shepherd of the Church can and is wont to keep heretics, as wolves, from his fold is this, that by a sentence of excommunication he removes them from the company of Catholics, and by absolution from the bond of subjection brings it about that the Catholic people no longer follows a heretical prince. Nor was it my purpose in writing books to form syllogisms properly according to figures and modes, as they do in the schools who dispute on a proposed question for the sake of exercise; but to explain and show the force of reasons, as others do who write theological books.
But, says Barclay, the shepherd of the Church can indeed by his own right excommunicate a heretical king; but he cannot by right absolve the peoples from the oath of fidelity, or order the Catholic people not to follow a heretical king in political matters, since this is repugnant to divine and natural law. And lest we perhaps object to him that he has not kept the form of arguing, he forms this syllogism: “The Supreme Pontiff can command or dispense nothing against natural and divine law; but the subjection and obedience owed to princes and superiors is of natural and divine law; therefore the Supreme Pontiff can command or dispense nothing against it; and consequently he cannot command subjects not to obey their temporal prince in that in which he is prince and superior; and if he should in fact command it, it will be lawful for subjects, as to one pronouncing law outside his territory, not to obey with impunity. Each premise is more certain than certain, from which the conclusion is brought in by necessary consequence. Whoever shall have weakened the force of this argument will win great favour with me. For my part, by Hercules, to confess frankly the slenderness of my wit, I do not see well enough by what solid reason it can be struck down.” I answer: all these things were refuted in chapter 26, nor has Barclay brought anything new in this place, but with other and other words, after his manner, has repeated the same. But lest he complain that we have answered nothing in form to his insoluble demonstration, I distinguish the assumption; for when he assumes, but the subjection and obedience owed to princes and superiors is of natural and divine law: if he understands it of princes and superiors for the time in which they are lawful princes and superiors, he assumes what is true, but can conclude nothing from it; for heretical princes, after the sentence of the Supreme Pontiff declaring them excommunicated and deposed, are no longer lawful princes or superiors; but if he understands it of princes and superiors for any time whatever, even after their rule has been taken from them, he assumes what is false, nor can there be any doubt on this matter. For by divine law subjects are bound to obey not only the king as excelling, but also governors as sent by him, as Saint Peter writes in the first epistle, chapter 2; and yet after the king has taken the power from the governor, they are no longer bound to obey him, just as they are not bound to obey the king himself when he has by right been cast down from the throne of the kingdom. Wherefore Barclay, if he had wished to bring anything solid, ought to have proved that the princes of the earth, when they have once obtained their principality, are by divine law so established in the principality that by no force and no right can they be cast down from the principality; but this, on which the whole hinge of the question turns, he could never prove.
But he will say: granted that princes can be deposed, yet they cannot be deposed except by a superior. I answer: the Pope is altogether superior, since he is the Vicar of Jesus Christ, not of a mere man, but of God and man, and thereby is in Christ's stead the shepherd and father and ruler and head of all Christians, even princes, kings and emperors, as has often been said, and is manifestly deduced from the divine letters themselves. “But,” says Barclay, “the Pope is indeed superior, but not in the same kind of superiority; for he is superior to kings and princes in divine and spiritual things; but in temporal things the Pontiffs themselves confess that they are not superior to kings, as is known from the chapter Per venerabilem, which children are legitimate, where the Pontiff says that the king has no superior in temporal matters.” I answer that all these things have already been treated and discussed above; for we showed that the Pontiff is superior to kings even in temporal matters, when on account of spiritual things it is necessary to dispose of temporal, which ought to be subordinated to spiritual; and this we showed from the common opinion of the doctors, with above seventy testimonies brought forward; likewise from not a few general councils of the Church; lastly from reason founded in the divine letters; against which Barclay has brought nothing but tragic cries and swollen but empty words. But what Innocent writes, that kings have no superior in temporal matters, is most true in that sense in which Innocent says it, namely that kings are supreme temporal princes, and have above them no other kings or emperors, except God, who is King of kings and Lord of lords; but this does not prevent kings from having a spiritual superior endowed with so great a power that he can direct temporal things to spiritual, since the reason of order demands that the temporal power be subject to the spiritual when they come together into one and make one Church, as the body in man is subjected to the spirit, and is ruled by it, and, where need is, corrected and chastised.
Barclay afterwards adds a very long apostrophe of the peoples to the Pontiff, in which what he himself has repeated a thousand times he attributes, by repeating it again, to the peoples; which might perhaps move the ignorant and the light; but sensible and prudent men will easily understand that these are the refuges of the wretched, who try to wring out by groans and importunity what they cannot obtain by strength. Nevertheless, lest the reader think that we wish to shirk the labour of answering, or that what Barclay says in the person of the people is greater than it really is, I shall set up my answer in the manner of a dialogue, and bring in the people speaking in Barclay's words, and the Pontiff answering in mine.
Show the Latin (Vives edition, OCR)
CAPUT XXX. Respondetur ad objectiones contra primam partem rationis quintae pro protestate Summi Pontificis in temporalibus. In cap. 30. Barclaius post longas digres¬ siones revertitur ad primam partem rationis quintae Bellarmini, quam in cap. 25. sibi re¬ futandam susceperat. Ait igitur : « Admittimus quidem ejus propositionem, Pastori scilicet necessariam esse potestatem circa lupos, ut eos arceat omni ratione qua potest. Admittimus et assumptionem, lupos viOelicet, qui Ecclesiam Dei vastant, esse haereticos. Ex quibus concludit hoc modo • Ergo si princeps aliquis ex ove, aut ariete fiat lupus, id est, ex Christiano fiat haereticus, poterit pastor Ecclesiae eum arcere per ex¬ communicationem, et simul jubere populo ne eum sequatur, ac proinde privare eum dominio in subditos. Vitiosa collectio, cujus loco in bona dialectica reponendum est : Ergo si princeps aliquis ex ove, aut ariete fiat lu¬ pus, poterit princeps Ecclesiae eum arcere omni ratione qua potest. » Respondeo : Nullum hic est vitium, sed compendio dictum est, quod longiori circuitu dici potuisset : nam ratio, qua potest, et so¬ let Pastor Ecclesiae haereticos, quasi lupos ab ovili suo arcere, illa est, ut per sententiam excommunicationis eos removeat a commer¬ cio Catholicorum, et per absolutionem a vin¬ culo subjectionis efficiat, ne populus Catholi¬ cus principem haereticum deinceps sequatur. Neque propositum mihi fuit in libris scri¬ bendis, syllogismos proprie formare secun¬ dum figuras et modos, ut in scholis laciunt, qui de proposita quaestione, exercendi gratia disputant : sed vim rationum explicare, at¬ que ostendere, ut alii faciunt, qui libros theologicos scribunt. At, inquit Barclaius, potest quidem Pastor Ecclesiae jure suo excommunicare regem haereticum : sed absolvet e populi m a jura¬ mento fidelitatis, aut jubete ne populus Cn- thol.cus regem haereticum in rebus politicis sequatur, jure non potest, cum hoc juti di¬ vino, et naturali repugnet. Ac ne illi fortasse obj.ciamus, quod non servaverit formam argumentandi, format hunc syllogismum. « Summus Pontifex nihil praecipere, vel dispensare potest contra jus naturale, et di¬ vinum : atqui subjectio, et obedientia prin¬ cipibus, et superioribus debita, est de jure naturali, et divino : argo summus Pontifex nihil contra eam praecipere, vel dispensare potest : et per consequens non potest praeci¬ pere subditis ne principi suo temporali obe- diant in eo ; in quo princeps est, et superior, et si de facto praeceperis, licebit subditis, tamquam extra territorium jus dicenti, im¬ pune non parere . Utrumque propositum est certo certius, ex quibus conclusio neces¬ saria consecutione inducitur. Qui hujus argumenti vim enervaverit, is magnam me- cum gratiam inibit. Ego mehercle, ut ingeni mei tenuitatem ingenue fatear, non satis perspicio, qua possit solida ratione elidi. » Respondeo : Haec sunt omnia refutata in cap. 26. neque aliquid novi Barclaius attulit hoc loco, sed aliis, et aliis verbis more suo eadem repetivit. Sed ne queratur nihil nos ad insolubilem ejus demonstrationem in forma respondisse, distinguo assumptionem : nam cum assumit : Atqui subjectio, et obe¬ dientia principibus, et superioribus debita de jure naturali, et divino ; si intelligat de principibus, et superioribus, pro tempore quo principes, et superiores legitimi sunt f verum assumit, sed nihil inde concludere potest : nam principes haeretici post senten¬ tiam Summi Pontificis declarantis illos ex- communicatos. et depositos, non sunt amplius legitimi principes, vel superiores : sin autem intelligat de principibus, et superioribus, pro quocumque tempore, etiam post abrogatum illis imperium ; falsum assumit, neque de hac re ullum esse dubium potest. Nam jure divino tenentur subditi non solum obedire regi tam¬ quam praecellenti, sed etiam ducibus, tam¬ quam ab eo missis, ut scribit S. Petrus in priore epist. cap 2 ; et tamen po^teaquam rex abrogavit duci potestatem, non tenentur amplius illi obedire, quemadmodum neque i^si regi obedire tenentur, quando jure a regni solio dejectus est. Quare Barclaius si aliquid solidi adferre voluisset, debuisset probare, principes terrae cum semel princi¬ patum adepti sunt, jure divino in principatu ita stabilitos esse, ut nulla vi, nulloque jure dejici po sint a Principatu : hoc autem, in quo totius vertitur cardo quaestionis, num- quam probare potuit. 8ed dicet, esto Principes depori possint, non tamen deponi possunt, nisi a superiore* 88 DE POTESTATE PAPJE Respondeo : Papam omnino superiorem esse cum sit Vicarius .Tesu Christi, non puri hominis, sed Dei et hominis, ac per hoc sit vice Christi pastor, et pater, et rector, et caput omnium Christianorum, etiam princi- pum, regum, et imperatorum, ut sseqe di¬ ctum est, et ex ipsis divinis litteris manifeste deducitur. « At, inquit Barclaius, Papa quidem supe¬ rior est, sed non in eadem specie superiori- tatis : superior enim est regibus, et principi¬ bus in rebus divinis, et s. iritualibus : in temporalibus autem fatentur ipsi pontifices, se regibus superiores non esse, ut notum est ex cap. Per Venerab., Qui filii sint legitimi. Ubi Pontifex dicit, regem non habere supe¬ riorem in temporalibus. » Respondeo : Jam haec omnia supra esse tractata, et discussa : ostendimus enim Pon¬ tificem superiorem esse regibus etiam in temporalibus, quando propter spiritualia ne- cesse est disponere de temporalibus, quae spiritualibus subordinata esse debent : idque ostendimus ex communi sententia docturum, allatis testimoniis supra septuaginta ; item ex conciliis Eccleshe generaiibus non paucis, denique ex ratione in divinis litteris fundata adversus quae nihil attulit Barclaius , nisi clamores tragicos, et verba turgida, sed na- nia. Quod autem Innocentius scribit, reges non habere superiorem in temporalibus, ve¬ rissimum est in eo sensu, in quo id Innocen¬ tius dicit, quod videlicet sint reges, supremi principes temporales, neque habeant super se alios reges, vel imperatores, excepto Deo, qui est rex regum, et Dominus dominantium : sed hoc non prohibet, quo minus habeant reges superiorem spiritualem tanta praeditum potestate, ut possit temporalia dirigere ad spiritualia, cum ordinis ratio postulet, ut potestas temporalis subjecta sit spirituali, quando in unum conveniunt, et unam Eccle¬ siam faciunt, quomodo corpus in homine subjicitur spiritui, et ab eo regitur, et, ubi opus est, corrigitur, et castigatur. Subjungit postea Barclaius longissimam apostrophem populorum ad Pontificem, in qua quod ipse millies repetivit, iterum repe¬ tendo tribuit populis ; qua; imperitos, et le¬ ves permovere forsitan possint : sed homines cordati, et prudentes facile intelligent, hsec esse refugia miserorum, qui quod viribus obtinere non valent, ea gemitibus, et impor¬ tunitate extorquere conantur. Yerumtamen ne lector existimet, nos laborem respondendi subterfugere velle , aut quse Barclaius in persona populi dicit, majora esse, quam re vera sint, instituam responsionem per modum dialogi, et populum verbis Barclaii loquen- tem, et Pontificem verbis meis respondentem inducam.