Bellarmine · De Potestate Summi Pontificis in Temporalibus · On the Power of the Supreme Pontiff in Temporal Matters, against William Barclay
Chapter 32: Certain False Pronouncements of Barclay, Babbled Out in Digression, Are Refuted
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 thirty-first chapter Barclay repeats much of what he had said above about our forefathers, who patiently tolerated unbelieving princes when they could easily have crushed them; likewise about the disturbances stirred up in the Church on the occasion of Gregory VII and Boniface VIII, who either in fact deposed Christian princes or tried to depose them. But he adds a censure of Clement VII and Paul III in these words: “Of the last two Pontiffs I would dare to affirm (for it is most well known to the world) that they were the cause of the loss of religion in England, because they tried to take to themselves and exercise that so hateful and widely reaching power over the prince and people of that kingdom.” But this falsehood and calumny is so manifest and notorious that it is a wonder it could have come from a man who professes himself versed in the histories. But hatred of the Pontiffs, and the lust of speaking evil, not only blinds the mind but also destroys the memory. For who does not know that Clement VII desired by every means to gratify Henry VIII, king of England, his very close friend, provided justice and religion allowed it? But he struck Henry with anathema; and the sentence of Clement against Henry exists in Nicholas Sander, book 1 on the English Schism. It is true; but he was forced to it, and the cause of the anathema was so just that not even Barclay could censure it, however much he wished; namely, Henry, against all laws, with the greatest scandal to the whole world, while the suit was pending before the tribunal of the Supreme Pontiff, and the Supreme Pontiff himself openly forbidding it and threatening the censures of the Church, put away from himself Catherine his lawful wife, and joined in marriage Anne Boleyn, related to him by affinity in many ways; so he put asunder what God had joined, and joined what God had commanded to be kept apart. I ask Barclay, then, whether Pope Clement could, with piety safe, have done otherwise than he did? Certainly it is not lawful to sin for the sake of gaining any good; but how would the Pontiff not have sinned if he had broken the marriage of the king with Catherine, lawfully contracted, and approved the marriage of the same king with Anne, who was the king's own sister and daughter by affinity? For that this is so Nicholas Sander shows, from the confession of the king himself, in book 1 on the English Schism. Therefore the cause of the ruin of England was not the justice of the Pontiff, but the headlong lust of the king. Paul III indeed pronounced a severer sentence against Henry, but when the king had already fallen from the Catholic faith, and had made himself head of the Church by a new and unheard-of heresy, and had separated his kingdom from the communion of the mystical body of Christ. Wherefore Pope Paul could not be the cause of the ruin of England, which had already perished; nor had the Pontiff any other purpose than, if in any way he could, to find the lost flock and king, and to bring the wanderer back to the way of truth, and to call the dead in sins back to the life of grace; that he might say of him: My son was dead, and is come to life again; was lost, and is found. See in Sander, in the place cited, the defection of the king and kingdom in the year 1534, and the sentence of Pope Paul III in the year 1535; which sentence also the same Pontiff, on account of some hope shown of the king's conversion, as Sander notes in the same place, refused to have carried into execution.
He afterwards adds another falsehood, not in history, but, what is graver, in faith and the Catholic religion: “Kings,” he says, “are not in the same case, but are above all human laws and all positive law, to render account of their administration to God alone, and to be punished the more severely the later. Against private men execution is ready, which they cannot avoid except by the indulgence of the prince. Against princes what execution can be made, since they are held by no sanctions of human laws, and are called to punishment by no laws, being safe by the power of their rule? For what is expressed in the law, that the prince is loosed from the laws, they understand of all laws, but most of all of penal laws, so that the prince, even if he offends, is not restrained by them.” But this opinion of Barclay first fights with itself; for if kings are loosed from all human laws, certainly they do not offend when they do not act according to them. For where there is no law, neither is there transgression, says the Apostle in Romans 4; how then did Barclay say in his last words that princes are not punished even if they offend? For he admits that they offend when they do not keep human laws, and yet affirms that they are not held by the laws; but those who are not held by laws certainly do not offend if they do not keep them. He will answer perhaps that princes are not held by laws as to coercion, but are held as to direction. But although his words seem to free princes from all obligation of human laws, yet, the answer just brought forward being admitted, I ask again whether Barclay wishes princes to be loosed from the coercive force of all human laws, both civil and ecclesiastical, or of civil only; for if he says that they are loosed from the force of civil laws only, certainly he thinks one thing and speaks another; for in express words he says that princes are above all human laws and all positive law, and are held by no sanctions of human laws; but that ecclesiastical laws, which are made by Supreme Pontiffs or councils of bishops, are human, and pertain to positive law, cannot be doubted. But if, as the words sound, Barclay wishes princes to be loosed from the ecclesiastical laws of Pontiffs and councils, he errs manifestly in the doctrine of the faith, and is at odds with what he himself has repeated more than once above, that all Christian princes are subject to the spiritual power of the Supreme Pontiff, as sheep to the shepherd's staff, and can be restrained by ecclesiastical censures, and even by excommunication itself; and in chapter 32 he adds that princes can be deprived by the Supreme Pontiff of all the benefits of regeneration in Christ, likewise delivered to Satan until lawful satisfaction for their error and contumacy. And since to be deprived of so many benefits, and delivered to Satan, is a most grave punishment by the consent of all, he ought to confess that execution is ready against princes, and that they too are called to punishment by laws; which are wholly contrary to what he wrote in this place. But let us come to those things which properly pertain to our purpose.
Show the Latin (Vives edition, OCR)
CAPUT XXXII. Refutantur falsa quaedam pronunc iata Bar- claii, quae digrediendo effutiit. \ In capite trigesimo primo Barclaius multa repetit, quae supra dixerat de majoribus no¬ stris, qui Principes infideles, cum facile pos¬ sent eos opprimere, patienter tolerarunt : item de turbis excitatis in Ecclesia occasione Gregorii VII et Bonifacii VIII qui Principes Christianos, vel re ipsa deposuerunt, vel deponere tentarunt. Addit vero reprehen¬ sionem Clementis Septimi, et Pauli Tertii in haec verba. «De postremis duobus Pontificibus ausim affirmare (est enim orbi notissimum) in cau¬ sa eos fuisse perdendae Religionis in An- glia, quod istam tam invidiosam, et late pa¬ tentem potestatem in regni illius principem, et populum sibi assumere, et exercere conati sint. Haec vero falsitas et calumnia tam est ma¬ nifesta, et notoria, ut mirum sit ab homine, qui se in historiis versatum profitetur, pro¬ ficisci potuisse. Sed odium in Pontifices, et maledicendi libido, non solum mentem ex- ceecat, sed etiam memoriam perdit. Quis enim ignorat Clementem Septimum optasse modis omnibus Henrico VIII. Angliae regi sibi amicissimo gratificari. modo justitia, et Religio id paterentur? At Henricum anathe¬ mate feriit; et extafc sententia Clementis in Henricum apud Nicolaum Sanderum lib. i. de Schismate Anglicano. Verum est, sed coactus fuit, et causa anathematis adeo ju¬ sta fuit, ut ne Barclaius quidem eam repre¬ hendere possit, quamvis maxime vellet : ni¬ mirum Hernicus contra omnia jura, cum maximo totius orbis terne scandalo, lite pen¬ dente ad tribunal Summi Pontificis, et ipso Summo Pontifice palam prohibente, et cen¬ suras Ecclesiae comminante, Catharinam le¬ gitimam conjugem a se abdicavit, et Annam Bolenam sibi multis modis affinem matri¬ monio junxit; ita separavit quod Deus con¬ junxit, et conjunxit quae Deus separari man¬ davit. Quaero igitur a Barclaio, an potuerit Clemens Pontifex, salva pietate, aliud agere quam quod egit? certe peccare non licet ul¬ lius boni acquirendi gratia : quomodo au¬ tem Pontifex non peccasset, si matrimonium regis cum Catharina jure contractum dire¬ misset : et matrimonium ejusdem regis cum Anna, quae ipsius regis soror et filia ex affi¬ nitate erat, approbasset? id enim ita se ha¬ bere, ex confessione ipsius regis, Nicolaus Sanderus demonstrat lib. i. de schismate Anglicano. Ergo causa perditionis Angliae., non Pontificis justitia, sed regis impetens libido fuit. Paulus vero tertius severiorem quidem sententiam in Henricum protulit, sed quando jam rex a Catholica fide defece¬ rat, seque per novam et inauditam haeresim caput Ecclesiae constituerat, et regnum suum a communione corporis Christi mystici sepa¬ raverat. Quare non poluit esse causa Paulus Pontifex perditionis Angliae, quae jam perie¬ rat : neque aliud propositum fuit Pontifici, nisi utgregrcm, et regem perditum, si quo modo posset, inveniret, atque ad viam veri¬ tatis errantem reduceret, et mortuum in peccatis ad vitam gratiae revocaret; ut de eo dicere posset, Filius meus mortuus erat, et revixit, perierat, et inventus est. Vide apud Sanderum loco citato, defectionem re¬ gis, et regni anno 1534. et sententiam Pon¬ tificis Pauli III anno 1535. quam etiam sen¬ tentiam idem Pontifex ob spem aliquam conversionis regis ostensam, ut in eodem loco Sanderus notat, exeeutioni mandari noluit. Subjungit postea falsitatem aliam, non in DE POTESTATE PAPiE 94 historia, sed quod gravius est, in Fide, ct Religione Catholica: «Reges, inquit, non in eadem causa sunt, sed supra omnes leges humanas, omneque jus positivum, soli Deo administrationcm reddituri, et quanto tar¬ dius, tanto severius puni, ( ndi. Adve;sus pri¬ vatos executio para' a est, quam nequeunt nisi ex indulgentia principis evitare. Adver¬ sus Principes , quae potest lieri executio , cum nullis humanarum legum sanctionibus teneantur, nullisque ad poenam vocentur legibus, tuti imperii potestate? Nam quod in jure expressum est, ptincipem legibus esse solutum, cum de omnibus legibus, tum maxime de poenariis intedigunt, ut iis Prin¬ ceps, etiam si delinquat, non coerceatur. » Haec vero Rarclaii sententia primum se- cum ipsa pugnat : nam si legibus omnibus humanis reges soluti sunt, certe non delin¬ quunt, cum secundum eas non operantur. Ubi enim non est lex, nec praevaricatio, in¬ quit Apostolus ad Rom. iv; cjuo modo ergo Barclaius in ultimis verbis dixit, Principes non puniri, etiam si delinquant? admittit enim eos delinquere, cum leges humanas non servant, et tamen affirmat eos legibus non teneri: qui autem legibus non tenentur; utique non delinquunt, si eas non servent. Respondebit fortasse, principes non teneri legibus, quantum ad coactionem, teneri au¬ tem quantum ad directionem. Quamvis au¬ tem videantur verba ejus principes ab omni legum humanarum obligatione liberare: ta¬ men admissa responsione paulo ante allata, iterum quiero, velit ne Barclaius principes solutos vi coactiva legum humanarum om¬ nium tum civilium, tum Ecclesiasticarum, an civilium tantum : nam si dixerit, eos so¬ lutos esse vi legum civilium tantum; certe aliter sentit, aliter loquitur : disertis enim verbis dicit, principes esse super omnes le¬ ges humanas, omneque jus positivum, et nullis humanarum legum sanctionibus te¬ neri : leges autem Ecclesiasticas, qua) a summis Pontificibus, conciliisve Episcopo¬ rum conduntur, humanas esse, et ad jus positivum pertinere dubitari non potest. Sin autem, ut verba sonant, solutos vult esse Barclaius Principes legibus Ecclesiasticis Pontificum, et Conciliorum, errat in doctri¬ na fidei manifeste, et repugnat iis, qua) su¬ pra non semel repetivit, Principes Christia¬ nos omnes subjectos esse spirituali potestati summi Pontificis, ut oves baculo pastoris : et posse censuris Ecclesiasticis, et ipsa etiam excommunicatione coerceri, et cap. 32. ad¬ dit, Posse Principes per summum Pontifi¬ cem pr vari omnibus commodis regenera¬ tionis in Christo, item tradi Satana) usque ad legitimam errati,- et contumacia) satisfa¬ ctionem. Et quoniam privari tot commodis, et Satanae tradi, gravissima poena est om¬ nium consensu, fateri debet, paratam esse adversus principes executionem, et eos quo¬ que ad poenam legibus vocari : quae sunt omnino contraria iis, quae hoc loco scripsit, sed veniamus ad ea, quae ad institutum no¬ strum proprie pertinent.