Bellarmine · De Potestate Summi Pontificis in Temporalibus · On the Power of the Supreme Pontiff in Temporal Matters, against William Barclay
Chapter 36: The Second and Third Parts of the Fifth Principal Reason for the Power of the Supreme Pontiff in Temporal Matters Are Defended
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-fourth chapter Barclay, after a long digression on the exemption of clerics, returns to attacking the second part of my principal reason, which he had proposed at the beginning of chapter 32. My argument was this: It is the office of a shepherd to separate and shut up furious rams that are destroying the fold; but a prince is a furious ram destroying the fold when he is Catholic in faith, but so bad that he greatly harms the Church and religion, as if he sells bishoprics, plunders churches, and so on; therefore the shepherd of the Church will be able to shut him up and reduce him to order. To this argument Barclay answered in that chapter 32 that the whole argument can be granted, since nothing else is made of it than that a bad prince, harmful to the Church, can be separated from the fellowship of the flock by a sentence of excommunication. But we refuted that answer in chapter 33, to which we refer the reader. Now, then, in chapter 34 Barclay adds these things: “I now return,” he says, “to the argument which was proposed at the beginning of chapter 32, and I answer that it pertains nothing to the taking away of any temporal goods whatever, much less of a kingdom. For it is certain, and more certain than certain, that excommunication, by which alone perverse Christians are separated and shut out from the fellowship of the faithful and the communion of the Church, takes from no one his patrimony and temporal goods.” So he, who after many words spent in explaining this matter concludes that if the Pope cannot by excommunication take away patrimonies from private men, much less can he by the same censure deprive kings and princes of empires and kingdoms. “Is it established,” he says, “that more power over princes than over private men has been given him by the law of God? or must princes live on a harder and worse condition than private men, so that what the Church cannot exercise on a private man, it can on a prince?”
I answer: when I said that a furious ram can be separated and shut up by the shepherd, I did not understand by separation and shutting up excommunication alone, but excommunication and deposition; for as the shepherd not only separates the ram from the flock, but also shuts him up as in a prison, that he may no longer lead the flock, so the Supreme Pontiff not only separates a king destroying the Church by excommunication from the communion of the faithful, but also deposes him, and reduces him to order, that he may no longer rule the peoples. So that whole very long disputation, by which Barclay proves that men are not deprived of their own patrimony by excommunication, is superfluous, nor has Barclay grasped the force of our argument; just as he also expounded the word recludere by the word exclude, when it should have been expounded by the word shut in, as we taught in chapter 33. I add besides that there is a great difference between private wealth and public jurisdiction, as also between substance or riches and power or authority; for a man can be very poor in private wealth, and have a public and most ample jurisdiction; and on the contrary can be very rich in gold and silver, fields and vineyards and herds, and have no political power over other men. From which difference it comes about that, although excommunication does not deprive of one's own patrimony and wealth and riches, yet it deprives of the right and power of human intercourse, of elections and contracts and the like, and at the same time hinders public forensic jurisdiction; for it is not lawful for excommunicated men to exercise forensic judgments, to hear causes, to pass sentence, to punish the guilty, as we proved above from the chapter Ad probandum, on sentence and the thing judged. And although by force of excommunication alone, except in the case of heresy and apostasy, the loss of a kingdom or empire does not follow, yet the Supreme Pontiff, who by excommunicating can suspend jurisdiction, as we said, can also by deposing deprive of all jurisdiction and royal power; which, as we showed in the prolegomena, is the common opinion of the doctors and of the Church herself. Nor yet does it follow from this that the Pontiff has more power over princes than over private men; for private men cannot be deposed from a kingdom because they have no kingdom, not because they are less liable to the power of the supreme Shepherd; and yet they too can be deprived of the things they have, which happens when they are fined with a money penalty, or exile, or prison, or another bodily punishment; for it is false, what Barclay too often repeats, that bodily punishment is placed in the power of the political magistrate alone; the contrary of which practice shows, especially in the tribunal of the Holy Office.
Barclay afterwards adds another reason, which he arranges in the form of syllogistic reasoning in this way: “The Supreme Pontiff does not now have a greater rule over temporal princes than he had before he was himself a temporal prince. But before he was a temporal prince, he had no temporal rule over them in any way. Therefore now too he has none over them in any way.” And since the proposition seems manifest, he proves the assumption in this way: “No inferior and subject has rule over his superior and lord, so as to be able to judge him in that very thing in which he is subject to him. But the Pope, before he became a temporal prince, was inferior and subject to kings and emperors as to temporal things. Therefore he has no temporal rule over them, so as to be able to judge them in temporal matters.” I answer: the assumption of the former syllogism is false. Therefore the conclusion too is false. For the Supreme Pontiff did not acquire the right which he has in temporal matters over Christian kings and princes from the temporal principality which he now possesses, but had it from Christ, when he received from him the Apostolic and supreme power over the whole Church, to be his general Vicar, head and ruler and shepherd and prince of all the faithful; for although, as has often been said, that power is in itself spiritual, yet it extends to temporal things in that way in which the human spirit, although it is truly and properly spirit, not body or bodily, yet rules the members of the body over which it presides, and chastises and punishes them, as it knows to be expedient for salvation. Wherefore the proof of the assumption in the latter syllogism has no strength; for the assumption of the latter syllogism too is false, and thereby the conclusion of the whole syllogism is also false; for it is false that the Supreme Pontiff was ever by right subject to kings and emperors, nor did Barclay prove this, which he assumes as proved. But, he says, the adversaries say that the exemption of ecclesiastical persons was introduced by human law. I answer: Bellarmine, who is cited in the margin, does not say by human law only, but by human and divine law. Then, those very men who say that the exemption of clerics is of human law add that it is, as to persons, very conformable to natural and divine law, as is clear from Dominic Soto on the fourth, distinction 25, question 2, conclusion 5. Besides, the same authors who deny that the exemption of clerics is of divine law expressly affirm that the Supreme Pontiff could and ought to have exempted clerics, even without consulting temporal princes; and that temporal princes cannot establish the contrary by their laws, as we noted above from Vitoria, Soto, Ledesma, Bañez and Covarruvias; it is false, therefore, what Barclay repeats in this place with so many empty words about an exemption granted to clerics by the privilege and gift of princes alone.
Barclay afterwards passes to the third part of the fifth principal reason for the power of the Supreme Pontiff in temporal matters; for I pass over what he himself repeats from chapter 15, which was refuted in that place. He speaks thus: “There remains Bellarmine's last argument, in refuting which there is not much need of labour. The third argument, he says, is: A shepherd can and ought so to feed all the sheep as is fitting for them; therefore the Pontiff can order Christians to those things, and compel them to those things, to which each of them is bound according to his state, that is, compel each to serve God in that way in which according to his state he ought; but kings ought to serve God by defending the Church and punishing heretics and schismatics; therefore he can and ought to order kings to do this, and if they do not, even to compel them by excommunication and other fitting means.” To this argument Barclay answers that, if it is a matter of spiritual feeding and spiritual punishments, the whole argument can be granted; for the Supreme Pontiff is bound to feed all Christians with spiritual food; for to feed them with bodily food his means, however ample, would in no way suffice; so also he is bound to compel all to their duty by spiritual punishments, of which the gravest is excommunication; but he cannot go further; and to prove this he alleges John Driedo in book 2 on Christian liberty, chapter 4. But this answer of Barclay was refuted above in many places, and now can be refuted from Driedo himself, whom he cites; for Barclay writes that no other punishment of papal judgment and correction against offending emperors is set by Driedo except excommunication alone. But John Driedo is at odds with Barclay, and confutes him in these words, book 1 on Christian liberty, chapter 14: “But this is not to be passed over in silence, that the Pope, out of the fullness of power over all Christian princes, can deprive kings and princes on account of the crime of heresy of their kingdoms and empires, and in temporal matters wholly exempt the Christian people from obedience and subjection to them.” So Driedo, whom Barclay alleged as the patron of his opinion; and certainly that notable doctor John Driedo could not more clearly refute Barclay's lie and imposture. What we said, then, and all Catholics teach, that the supreme Shepherd of Christians can compel all to render their duty in the service of God, is not understood of compulsion by excommunication alone, but also by deprivation of kingdoms and principalities, if the same shepherd shall judge it expedient for the salvation of the flock.
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CAPUT XXXVI. Defenditur secunda, et tertia 'pars rationis quintae principalis pro potestate Pontificis Maximi in temporalibus. In cap. 34. Barclaius post longam digres¬ sionem de exemptione- clericorum, redit ad oppugnandam secundam partem rationis meae principalis, quam proposuerat initio cap. 32. Argumentum meum hoc erat : Pa¬ storis munus est arietes furiosos, atque ovile destruentes separare, et recludere : Prin¬ ceps autem est aries furiosus, atque ovile destruens, quando est Catholicus fide, sed adeo malus, ut multum obsit Ecclesiae, et Religioni, ut si Episcopatus vendat, Eccle¬ sias diripiat, etc. Ergo poterit Pastor Eccle¬ siae eum recludere, et in ordinem redigere. Ad hoc argumentum respondit in illo cap. 32. Barclaius , totum argumentum posse concedi, quoniam ex eo nihil aliud efficitur, nisi posse principem malum , et Ecclesiae noxium separari a gregis consortio per sen¬ tentiam excommunicationis. Nos vero eam responsionem in cap. 33. refutavimus, ad quam lectorem remittimus. Nunc igitur in cap. 34. Barclaius haec addit. « Ad argumentum, inquit, nunc revertor, quod cap. 32. initio propositum est, et re¬ spondeo, nihil illud ad bonorum quorumli¬ bet temporalium, nedum ad regni adem¬ ptionem pertinere. Certum enim est, et certo certius, excommunicationem, qua sola se¬ parantur, et excluduntur perversi Christiani a consortio fidelium, et communione Eccle¬ siae, nemini patrimonium, et bona tempo¬ ralia auferre ». Haec ille, qui post multa verba in hac re explicanda consumpta con¬ cludit, si non possit Papa per excommunica¬ tionem adimere patrimonia privatis homi¬ nibus, multo minus posse per eamdem cen¬ suram privare reges, ac principes imperiis, atque regnis. « Numquid, inquit, plus ei potestatis in principes, quam in privatos, Dei lege, tri¬ butum esse constat? aut numquid principi¬ bus, quam privatis duriore, et deteriore conditione est vivendum, ut quod Ecclesia in privatum nequeat, id in Principem possit exercere? » Respondeo : Cum dixi, arietem furiosum posse per Pastorem separari, et recludi, non intellexi per separationem et reclusio¬ nem, solam excommunicationem, sed ex¬ communicationem, et depositionem : quem¬ admodum enim pastor non solum separat arietem a grege, sed etiam recludit quasi in carcere, ut non amplius gregem ducat : sic Pontifex summus regem destruentem Ecclesiam, non solum separat per excom¬ municationem a communione fidelium, sed etiam deponit, et in ordinem redigit, ut non amplius populos regat. Itaque tota illa lon¬ gissima disputatio, qua Barclaius probat, per excommunicationem non privari homi¬ nes proprio patrimonio, supervacanea est, neque vim argumehti nostri Barclaius asse¬ cutus est : quemadmodum etiam vocem, recludere, exposuit per vocem, excludere, cum exponenda esset per vocem, includere, ut cap. 33. docuimus. 104 IN REBUS TEMPORALIBUS Addo praeterea magnum esse discrimen inter privatas opes, et publicam jurisdictio¬ nem ; ut etiam inter substantiam, sive divi¬ tias, et potestatem, sive auctoritatem : po¬ test enim homo aliquis pauperrimus esse privatis opibus, et jurisdictionem publicam, atque amplissimam habere : et potest contra ditissimus esse auro, atque argento, agris, et vineis, et armentis : et nullam habere in alios homines politicam potestatem. Ex quo discrimine fit, ut quamvis excommunicatio non privet patrimonio proprio, et opibus, et divitiis, privet tamen jure, et potestate com¬ mercii humani, electionum, et contractuum, et similium ; et simul impediat publicam forensem jurisdictionem : neque enim licet excommunicatis forensia judicia exercere, audire causas, sententiam ferre, insontes animadvertere , ut supra probavimus, ex cap. Ad probandum, de sent. et re judic. Quamvis autem ex vi solius excommuni¬ cationis, nisi in casu hseresis, et apostasiae, non sequatur amissio regni, vel imperii : tamen summus Pontifex, qui potest excom¬ municando suspendere jurisdictionem, ut diximus, potest etiam deponendo privare omni jurisdictione, et potestate regia : quae ut in prolegomenis ostendimus, communis est Doctorum, et Ecclesiae ipsius sententia. Nec tamen hinc sequitur, plus habere pote¬ statis Pontificem in principes, quam in pri¬ vatos : nam privati non possunt deponi a regno, quia regnum non habent, non quia minus obnoxii sint potestati summi Pastoris : et tamen possunt etiam ipsi privari rebus, quas habent ; quod fit cum poena pecunia¬ ria, aut exilii, aut carceris, aut alia corpo¬ rali poena mulctantur : falsum enim est, quod Barclaius nimium seepe repetit, cor¬ poralem poenam in solius politici magistra¬ tus potestate positam esse : cujus contra¬ rium praxis ostendit, praesertim in tribunali sancti Officii. Addit postea Barclaius aliam rationem, quam in forma syllogisticae ratiocinationis hoc modo disponit : « Summus Pontifex non habet nunc majus imperium in principes temporales, quam habuit antequam ipse esset princeps tempo¬ ralis. « Atqui antequam esset princeps tempo¬ ralis, nullum in eos temporale imperium ullo modo habuit. « Ergo nullum nunc quoque in eos ullo modo habet. » Et quoniam propositio manifesta videtur, probat assumptionem hoc modo : « Nemo inferior, et subjectus habet impe¬ rium in suum superiorem, et dominum, ut possit eum judicare in eo ipso in quo est ei subjectus : « Papa autem, antequam fieret princeps temporalis, erat regibus, et imperatoribus, quantum ad temporalia, inferior, et subje¬ ctus : « Ergo non habet in eos temporale impe¬ rium, ut possit eos in temporalibus judi¬ care. » Respondeo : Assumptio prioris syllogismi falsa est. Proinde etiam falsa conclusio est. Siquidem summus Pontifex jus, quod habet in temporalibus supra reges, et principes Christianos, non acquisivit ex Principatu temporali, quem nunc possidet, sed habuit a Christo, quando ab eo accepit potestatem Apostolicam, et supremam supra omnem Ecclesiam, ut essetipsius Yicarius generalis, caput, et rector, et pastor, et princeps om¬ nium fidelium : quamvis enim, ut saepe di¬ ctum est, ea potestas in se spiritualis sit, tamen extenditur ad temporalia eo modo, quo spiritus humanus, quamvis vere, et pro¬ prie spiritus sit, non corpus, vel corporalis, tamen regit membra corporis, cui prsesidet, et ea castigat, et punit, prout ad salutem expedire cognoscit. Quare probatio assum¬ ptionis in posteriore syllogismo, nullas vires habet, nam assumptio quoque syllogismi posterioris est falsa, ac per hoc est etiam totius syllogismi falsa conclusio : si quidem falsum est, summum Pontificem fuisse un¬ quam regibus, et imperatoribus jure sub¬ jectum, neque id probavit Barclaius, quod ut probatum assumit. At, inquit, adversarii dicunt, exemptio¬ nem personarum Ecclesiasticarum jure hu¬ mano introductam esse. Respondeo : Bellarminus, qui citatur in margine, non dicit jure humano solum, sed jure humano, et divino. Deinde illi ipsi, qui exemptionem Clericorum dicunt esse de jure humano, addunt eam, quoad personas, esse valde conformem juri naturali, et divino, ut perspicuum est ex Dominico de Soto in 4. dist. 25. quaest. 2. conci. 5. Praeterea iidem auctores, qui negant exemptionem Clerico¬ rum esse de jure divino diserte affirmant, summum Pontificem potuisse, et debuisse eximere clericos, etiam principibus tempo¬ ralibus inconsultis : neque posse temporales IN REBUS TEMPORALIBUS 105 principes contrarium suis legibus constitue¬ re, ut supra notavimus, ex Victoria, Soto, Ledesmio, Bannesio, et Covarruvia : falsum est igitur quod tot verbis inanibus hoc loco Barclaius repetit de exemptione solo princi- pum privilegio, et munere clericis concessa. Transit postea Barclaius ad tertiam par¬ tem rationis quintse principalis pro potestate summi Pontificis in temporalibus : omitto enim quee ipse repetit ex c. 15. quse ibidem refutata sunt, sic autem loquitur : « Superest supremum Bellarmini argumentum, in quo refutando non multa opera opus est. Ter¬ tium, inquit, argumentum est » : Potest Pastor, ac debet omnes oves ita pascere, ut eis convenit : ergo potest Pontifex Christia¬ nis ea jubere, atque ad ea cogere ad quse quilibet eorum secundum statum suum te¬ netur, id est, singulos cogere, ut eo modo Deo serviant, quo secundum statum suum debent : debent autem reges Deo servire de¬ fendendo Ecclesiam, puniendoque haereti¬ cos, et schismaticos : ergo potest, ac debet regibus, jubere ut hoc faciant, et nisi fece¬ rint, etiam cogere per excommunicationem, aliasque commodas rationes. Ad hoc argumentum Barclaius respondet, si agatur de pastu, et poenis spiritualibus, totum argumentum concedi posse : tenetur enim summus Pontifex pascere omnes Chri¬ stianos pastu spirituali : nam ad pascendum pastu corporali, facultates ejus quantumvis amplse sint, nullo modo sufficerent : sic etiam tenetur cogere omnes ad officium suum poenis spiritualibus, quarum gravissi¬ ma excommunicatio est, sed ulterius pro¬ gredi non potest : et allegat ad hoc proban¬ dum Joannem Driedonem in lib. ii. de liber¬ tate Christiana cap. 4. Sed hsec Barclaii responsio supra refutata est multis in locis, et nunc ex ipso Driedone, quem ipse citat, refutari potest : scribit enim Barclaius a Driedone nullam aliam judicii, et correctionis Papalis in imperato¬ res delinquentes poenam, nisi solam excom¬ municationem poni. At Joan. Driedo repu¬ gnat Barclaio, eumque his verbis confutat, lib. i de libertate Christiana, cap. 14. « Ve¬ rum hoc non est silentio prsetereundum, quod Papa ex plenitudine potestatis super universos principes Christianos, potest reges ac principes propter hseresis crimen privare suis regnis, atque imperiis, et in temporali¬ bus prorsus eximere plebem Christianam ab obedientia, et subjectione eorum. » Hsec Driedo, quem in patronum sententise suse allegavit Barclaius ; qui certe insignis Do- ctor Joannes Driedo non poterat clarius mendacium, et imposturam Barclaii redar¬ guere. Quod ergo nos diximus, et docent omnes Catholici, posse Pastorem summum Christianorum cogere omnes- ad officium suum praestandum in obsequium Dei ; non intelligitur de sola coactione, per excommu¬ nicationem, sed etiam per privationem regnorum, et principatum, si ad salutem gregis idem pastor expedire judicaverit. *