De locis theologicis

IN WHICH THE ARGUMENTS OF THE FIRST CHAPTER ARE REFUTED

The first argument of the adversaries, then, is very readily refuted by what was said in the preceding book. For we showed that the name “Church” is commonly applied to its leaders and chief men, and that authority in the commonwealth resides in those whom the Holy Spirit has appointed as bishops to govern the Church of God. If the Church is the pillar and foundation of truth, the Apostles too are the Church’s foundations, as Ephes. cap. 2 and Apoc. 21 say. The strength and stability of a body also depend on its head; if you remove it, the body must fall. Bishops, however, are the heads of their peoples. Peter is the head of the Church, as we shall demonstrate in the following book. But some bishops are unlearned. Valentinus once, along with other uninformed men, criticized the ignorance of holy presbyters, failing to consider how much more valuable a devout unlearned man is than a blasphemous and shameless sophist, as Irenaeus says, lib. 5, Adversus haereses. Sabinus also made the same objection to the Council of Nicaea, as is recorded in lib. 2 hist. trip. cap. 8. The Apostles too were unlearned, yet through them God confounded the wise of this world. “Consider your calling, brothers,” he says: “not many are wise … but God chose what is foolish in the world to confound the wise.” The Church’s pastors are firm in faith and teaching not because of greater learning but because of Christ’s special care, so that the people will not waver when pastors and teachers waver, and be carried about by every wind of doctrine. But what if the holy bishops are not saints? Do they lose the power to bind and loose? Do they lack the authority to feed the flock? “The scribes and Pharisees,” he says, “have sat on Moses’ seat: whatever they tell you, do; but do not act according to their works.” Since this has been shown and made clear by many others, and especially by Augustinus—that Christ’s rays shine into the Church even through evil ministers—it would be superfluous to answer at length an argument to which we have already replied sufficiently. The next point is not difficult to answer either. The deeds of the ancient priests were indeed opposed to Christ, but the judgment of men otherwise most wicked was not only perfectly true, but also very useful to the commonwealth. Indeed, the evangelist Ioannes testifies that it was a divine oracle. After the council’s long and varied deliberation, Caiphas, who presided over it as Supreme Pontiff, gave the judgment to which almost all agreed: “It is expedient for us that one man die for the people, and that the whole nation not perish.” The evangelist immediately added: “He did not say this of himself; but, being Pontiff that year, he prophesied.” It follows that although the lives and deeds of our Pontiffs may perhaps be contrary to the Lord Iesus, their judgments, when approved by the Supreme Pontiff, will be true and useful to Christians, since they are divinely instituted for the people’s salvation. Indeed, for the reason we learned from the evangelist, they will be so through the Holy Spirit: namely, because they are Pontiffs of Christ’s Church. Enough about the second argument. The third is refuted as follows. I deny that there is no covenant of Christ with the Church’s priests. There is one first with Peter and the others who succeed him in the pontificate, as can be seen in Matth. 16 and Lucae 22. Christ also promised the Apostles, and consequently their successors,

the Spirit of truth, Ioannis 14, 15 et 16. The covenant of truth made with the Church must ultimately be referred to the Church’s pastors and teachers. God does not govern his Church differently from the world, where lower things are administered through the middle by the highest, as Dionysius cautioned. The old covenants and agreements, however, were quite unlike ours. They were temporary, as were the law and priesthood. The kingdom was taken from the Jews, the law removed, and the priesthood transferred. Priestly truth and authority began to falter shortly before Christ’s coming. For what grows old and approaches its end must weaken and become infirm. The Prophets, especially those who lived nearest to Christ’s coming, repeatedly announced to the Jewish people the ruin of the law, truth, authority, priesthood, and scepter. Anyone who refuses to refer their oracles on this matter to Christ’s Church, even in part, plainly does not understand them: “You are a priest forever according to the order of Melchisedech”; “This is our God forever and ever; he will rule us forever”; “In everlasting mercy I have had compassion on you. The Lord your Redeemer has said: As I did in the days of Noe, when I swore that the waters would no longer cover the earth, so I have sworn not to be angry with you or rebuke you. For the mountains will move and the hills tremble, but my mercy will not depart from you, and my covenant of peace will not be moved”; “I will make a new covenant with the house of Israel and the house of Iuda, not according to the covenant I made with your fathers … which they broke,” and so on. A little later: “Thus says the Lord, who gives the sun for light by day … If these laws fail before me, then the seed of Israel too will cease to be a nation before me forever.” Again: “I will make with them an everlasting covenant, and I will put my fear in their hearts, so that they will not depart from me.” Again: “I will strike a covenant of peace with them; it will be an everlasting covenant for them.” The New Testament has similar passages: “He will reign over the house of Iacob forever, and his kingdom will have no end”; “Behold, I am with you all days, until the consummation of the age”; “I will ask the Father, and he will give you another Paraclete, who will remain with you forever, the Spirit of truth”; “Upon this rock I will build my Church, and the gates of hell will not prevail against it”; “This is the blood of the new and eternal covenant.” The Prophets’ general rebukes and threats should therefore be referred above all to the time of the Lord’s Passion; Hieronymus himself attests this more than once. What, then, is the point of taking everything said against the ancient priests and turning it against ours? Those things happened to them as figures, but were written for our benefit. Thus the things the Prophets criticized in that people also concern us, while preserving the distinction between synagogue and Church: the former was temporary, the latter is perpetual. It is established that the Church cannot exist in any way without law and teaching, without a priest and teacher, without Christ and the Spirit of truth. Since this has been sufficiently explained elsewhere, it need not be repeated here. To compare the priests of the new law with those of the old is also ignorance of Scripture, Hierem. 3 et 23; Ezech. 34; 2 ad Corinthios 3 et 4. To which of the priests of old was it ever said, “Upon this rock I will build my Church, and the gates of hell…”? And again, “I have prayed for you, that your faith may not fail”? To which priests and pastors of the synagogue was the Spirit of truth promised, to remain with them forever and teach them all truth? Hieronymus therefore speaks neither of a council of priests nor of all the Church’s pastors together. He refers the Prophets’ words to individual churches and their particular Pontiffs and priests. ¹

He says nothing about the Catholic Church or its priesthood or truth. Yet someone may be troubled by what is written in Esai. 22 cap.: “I will expel you from your station and remove you from your ministry … I will call my servant Eliakim son of Helcias, clothe him in your tunic, strengthen him with your belt, and place your authority in his hands; he will be like a father to the inhabitants of Hierusalem and to the house of Iuda. I will place the key of the house of David on his shoulder; he will open and no one will shut, and he will shut and no one will open. I will fix him like a peg in a secure place, and he will become a seat of glory for his father’s house,” and so on. That this prophesies the transfer of the priesthood of the old law to the new priesthood of Christ cannot be doubted. But what follows seems contrary to our position: “The peg fixed in a secure place will be removed; it will be broken and fall, and what hung upon it will perish, for the Lord has spoken.” If Christ the Lord, fixed in the Church like a peg, is removed, and those who had previously hung upon him by faith afterward perish and fall, how can we promise the Church perpetual stability in faith? How can we also assert that Christ will always be with the Church’s pastors? Hieronymus resolves this in his commentaries by referring it to the last days, when the charity of many will grow cold and the saying will apply: “When the Son of Man comes, do you think he will find faith on earth?” As we said in the preceding book, this is not to be understood as if then there will be no Church, no faith in Christ, no mystical body of the faithful, or no spirit of truth in that body; all of these would contradict Scripture itself. Rather, in Scriptural usage, what is least in comparison with other things is said to be nothing. The number of the faithful will therefore diminish so much in those days that Christ will seem to have been removed from the midst of the Church. Yet their teacher will not fly away from the few who remain; at that time too Christ will provide pastors and teachers, “until we all meet in the unity of faith and knowledge of the Son of God, as a perfect man, to the measure of the stature of the fullness of Christ.” For we who live and remain until the coming of the Lord will meet him, and we shall be with the Lord together. The Church, then, and its form and visible character will remain until the end of the age; with it Christ and the Spirit of truth will remain, without whom it cannot exist. Hieronymus refers that prophecy of Esaias to Christ in the anagogical sense, since he had explained the historical and literal sense in the fifth book of his Commentaries. No certain argument is drawn from the anagogical sense. We should also consider that the Prophets’ rebukes are not to be applied to all the pastors and priests of their time as if none were excepted. Preachers are permitted to speak of what affects most as though it affected everyone. Thus the whole people is sometimes rebuked by Esaias as if no soundness were found in it from the sole of the foot to the top of the head. Yet the same Prophet admits that some just men were left, saying: “Unless the Lord of hosts had left us a seed,” and so on. Helias likewise attacks everyone as though he alone were left, but the divine response says to him: “I have kept for myself seven thousand men who have not bowed the knee to Baal.” Enough has been said about the third argument. It could also have been refuted sufficiently from the answers given in the preceding book.

To the fourth argument I answer first that the authority of councils does not rest on that testimony. In that passage Christ seems to establish nothing about Church councils, but to commend agreement in unity, which has great power in obtaining what is asked. If, because of Innocentius (20 dist. cap. De quibus), synodus 6 (actione 17), and the Council of Chalcedon in its letter to Leo, the passage is understood to concern synods, we can answer differently: just as a council is assembled in the name of a ruler when it is convened by his authority, so an ecclesiastical synod is convened in Christ’s name when it is called by Christ or his vicar. Councils held without the authority of the Roman Pontiff therefore need not have Christ in their midst. Such was the synod of Cyprian. Yet not even all just men gathered in Christ’s name, though they have Christ in their midst, always have the effect of being able to decide and uphold the truth of the question before them. But if the matter is necessary for salvation, the heavenly Father will enable them either to be approved by the one in whose name and authority they were assembled, if they speak the truth, or to be taught if they do not. That is enough for their prayers to be said to have been heard, according to the wording of the testimony in Matthaeus. Calvinus’s following calumnies are frivolous and not worth answering. I believe I have now answered the first; we answered the second in the third question of the preceding chapter, on the last argument, and the fourth in the final chapter of the third book. So much for the fourth argument. The answer to the fifth is plain from what has been said. The Council of Ariminum was assembled through the efforts of heretics against the will of Liberius Papa, as reported in historia ecclesiastica, in the letter of Damasus to the African bishops, and in 15 dist. cap. Sancta Romana, from Gelasius. The second Council of Ephesus, though convened at Leo’s initiative, was corrupted by Dioscorus through threats and favors, while the Pontiff’s legates and certain other good men opposed him. It was never confirmed anywhere; rather, it was condemned by Leo and the Council of Chalcedon. Finally, that Council of Constantinople was convened against the opposition of the Church’s Pontiff and later rejected at the seventh general synod by the 367 Fathers who assembled at Nicaea. This passage plainly refutes those who retain the council’s authority but think the Supreme Pontiff’s authority need not be retained. Why should the first Council of Constantinople, of 150 Fathers, be regarded like one of the Gospels, while the other Council of Constantinople, where there were many more bishops, is treated as nothing? The strength of councils comes from the one for whom Christ prayed that his faith might not fail, so that he could strengthen his brothers in the faith. We shall discuss these matters more carefully in the following book. Now let us dissolve the sixth argument. This raises a substantial question: whether the canons of Trullo have ecclesiastical authority. The following arguments are offered to show that they do. First, Gratianus repeatedly cited these canons under the name of the sixth synod, as is clear from 16 dist. cap. Placuit and cap. Quoniam; De consecr. dist. 1 cap. Iacobus; De consecr. dist. 2 cap. Didicimus; and 27 quaest. 1 cap. Si quis episcopus. There is no doubt that the sixth synod has the Church’s authority, as we shall show shortly. We ought therefore to approve the canons of Trullo as Catholics. This may also be supported by Innocentius III, De aetate et qualitate ordin. cap. A multis, who says that the sixth synod established this: if anyone among those who enter the clergy by right of marriage

wishes to be joined to a woman, he should do this before the order of subdiaconate. It is clear that this is canon 6 among the Trullani. Moreover, Adrianus Papa approves and receives these canons and the synod by which they were issued, as can be seen in 16 dist. cap. Sextam and De cons. dist. 3, cap. Sextam. A Catholic may not, therefore, doubt the canons of Trullo. The same point is demonstrated fourthly from the seventh synod, act. 3, where Tharasius says: “I rightly and devoutly receive the decrees issued and canons handed down by that same sixth synod.” In action. 4 Petrus episcopus said: “I have a book containing the canons of the sixth holy synod.” The most holy patriarch Tarasius added: “What is this ignorance from which so many suffer concerning these canons? It is scandalous to doubt whether they belong to a synod.” And in act. 6 Epiphanius, answering the Iconomachi on behalf of the synod, said: “After the holy sixth synod had pronounced its judgment under Constantinus on the one will of Christ, all its members later assembled unanimously, by God’s will, after four or five years and issued 102 canons.” If those canons were issued unanimously by the Fathers through God’s will, they were surely approved by the testimony of the seventh synod as well. The same seventh synod also says: “The holy Fathers of the sixth synod decreed that a meeting be held in each province once every year. We renew this canon.” Those Fathers therefore had authority to decide these matters; and if they were holy, as is said here, they usurped nothing against the Church’s rules. But if that council was convened without the Roman Pontiff’s judgment, it is clear it was convened against ecclesiastical rules. This Trullan synod therefore has solid authority, if we believe the seventh synod. In addition, the seventh synod, actione 5 et 6, Nicolaus in his letter to the Emperor Michael, and the Council of Florence, sess. 5, make use of these canons. Yet, on closer consideration, the contrary opinion has usually seemed to me more probable and weightier. I have as authorities for this view Anastasius, librarian of the Apostolic See, in the preface to the eighth synod, to which he came at the command of Adrianus secundus; he was highly proficient in both Greek and Latin, as 63 dist. cap. 2 says. The Greek historian Theofanes and Humbertus, bishop of Silva Candida and apocrisiarius of Leo IX, are of the same opinion in his booklet against the letter of Michael, patriarch of Constantinople. Gratianus cites that book as Leo IX’s book against the letter of the abbot Nicetas. Theodorus Balsamon and Mattheus monachus, both severe critics of the Latins, also report that the Latins do not receive these canons: one in his interpretation of the same canons, the other in his history of councils and illustrious men. The arguments confirming this opinion are unanswerable. First, the sixth synod, convened against the Monothelites by Agatho under the Emperor Constantinus and approved by Leo secundus, issued no canons. There is no reason why the synod convened later under the Emperor Iustinianus should be called the sixth synod. I will not quibble over the name. I assert only that neither the Roman Pontiff nor his legates attended that council. Let the bishops’ subscriptions be examined and the matter will be clear. Iustinianus subscribed first, followed by bishops who had attended the sixth synod, but they were neither equal in number nor entirely the same in name, as Theofanes and Anastasius proved; there is no subscription by the Roman Pontiff or his legates. The second argument is that Iustinianus is reported to have convened a synod at Constantinople twice, first under Sergius, Roman Pontiff, and later under Ioannes 7,

also Roman bishop. Of the first, Beda says in De natura rerum cap. 67: “Iustinianus ordered Sergius, Pontiff of the Roman Church, to be taken to Constantinople because he refused to support and sign his errant synod, which he had held at Constantinople; but later, deprived of imperial glory for the fault of his perfidy, he withdrew into exile in Pontus.” Thus far Beda. Platina likewise writes in the life of Sergius: “Iustinianus held a synod at which some things were approved that were by no means consonant with orthodox faith. Sergius’s apocrisiarius, who was then at Constantinople, foolishly confirmed the same things with his signature. But when Sergius later rejected them after they were brought to Rome, Iustinianus, enraged, sent Zacharias to drag Sergius to him in chains.” Thus far Platina. Of the later synod, the same Platina writes in the life of Ioannes 7: “Iustinianus, afflicted by the same madness as before the loss of his empire, sent two metropolitans to Rome to Pope Sergius, urging Ioannes to hold a synod so that the Westerners would affirm what the Easterners believed about homusio, with documents placed before him for signature. The Pontiff, however, sent the men back to the emperor without accomplishing their business.” So he writes. If anyone examines the words of the Council of Trullo, he will immediately recognize what sort of council it was. It says: “Since the fifth and sixth holy ecumenical synods, after fully discussing the mystery of faith, made no canons, we have therefore assembled in this imperial city and written sacred canons. For it was fitting that an ecumenical synod promulgate ecclesiastical canons.” So says the council. To begin with, since you assembled in Constantinople, tell me who summoned you. Did some Roman bishop call you to council? Certainly not. The Roman Pontiff at that time was legitimate, Catholic, and, I add, upright. To convene the Church’s primates without the will of its ecclesiastical ruler, who is true Catholic and pious, is not to seek to hold a synod but to conspire against the ruler of the Church. Just as if the leading men of a kingdom met to transact public business without the king’s permission, that would be considered a conspiracy rather than an assembly. “Iustinianus,” you say, “made them assemble.” That is a fine account, for it is recorded that he was a wicked man and an enemy of the Roman Church. What sort of synod should we expect from such a man? But let us hear the reason for the assembly: “Since the fifth and sixth holy ecumenical synods made no canons, we assembled in this imperial city and wrote sacred canons. For it was fitting that an ecumenical synod promulgate ecclesiastical canons.” This Trullan synod is thus said to supplement the two earlier ones, adding what the fifth and sixth lacked. That is why, they say, it is not properly counted as the sixth, but called πενθεκτη, that is, “Quinisext.” At first it wanted to pass itself off under the name of the sixth synod; now it is neither the sixth, nor the fifth, nor the seventh, but a certain monster, the Quinisext. Who can tolerate the charge these Fathers make against two most weighty councils, as if they were mutilated and incomplete, so that a reason for their own assembly might appear necessary? Indeed, the Church never held even one ecumenical council without a cause of heresy or schism. This Trullan synod alone was convened not to crush heresy or remove schism but to issue canons. Was there any need to summon pastors from all the Churches so that, after nearly innumerable canons—the Apostolic, Nicene, Ancyrene, Neocaesarean, Antiochene, and those of many other martyrs and confessors, which canon 2 of Trullo approves—these Fathers might issue 102 more?

How much more seriously the sixth synod acted: after completing the matter of faith for which it had assembled, it did not want the Church to leave burdened with canons. It was therefore not necessary to make canons. If you wish to tell the truth, Iustinianus had another reason for your assembly: namely, to persecute the Latins and especially the Apostolic See, and, as Platina says, to approve by your authority certain things by no means consonant with orthodox faith. For if, as you yourselves say, you assembled at Constantinople under Iustinianus, son of Constantinus, four or five years after the sixth synod had ended (calculate the dates), this is the errant synod to which Sergius refused to subscribe, according to Beda. Let us now set aside what is not extant and see why Sergius neither wished nor ought to subscribe to these 102 canons. In canon 2 you receive and confirm 85 Apostolic canons; the Apostolic See did not receive them, as Isidorus attests in 16 dist. cap. Canones. This can be shown from Leo IX, cap. Clementis, in the same distinction, and still more from Gelasius, 15 dist. cap. Sancta Romana. Why should the Apostolic See approve canon 84, which you approve, when it admits three books of Machabaeorum against the consensus of all the Churches? In the same canon 2 you approve the synod of Cyprianus on baptizing heretics, as if that rule had been established according to the custom handed down to the Africans, rather than standing in greater opposition to all God’s Churches. For Cyprianus’s decree cannot be explained in accordance with canon 95 of Trullo and canon 19 of Nicaea. Cyprianus’s canon was prescribed for all heretics in general, especially the Donatistae, who are known to have baptized in the name of the Trinity. The universal Church therefore rejected Cyprianus’s decree outright; Sergius ought not to have approved it, as the Trullan synod did. In canon 3 you call the Roman Church’s law against ordaining bigamists “the strictest right” and severe in its rigor, while you call the mildness and laxity of the See of Constantinople “kindness.” You seem to compose a middle course from the two, but it is one the Latin Church has always rejected. Sergius was therefore right to reject your synod. Canon 13 orders that subdeacons, deacons, and presbyters not be separated from their lawful wives. This custom has indeed become established among the Greeks, but the general synod wrongly prescribed it for the whole Church, contrary to Latin usage. Sergius was right, then, to reject your canons. In canon 36 you decree that the throne of Constantinople should have privileges equal to the Apostolic See and take precedence over Alexandria, Antioch, and Hierusalem. You know that holy Pope Leo once fought against this canon. Although he argued on grounds of reason, later Roman Pontiffs did not wish to oppose this ambition and vanity of Constantinople. In canon 62 you command that throughout all the days of Lent, except Saturdays and Sundays, no new offerings be consecrated, but that the sacrifice of the preconsecrated be celebrated, as among us on Good Friday. Prescribe this to your Greeks, if you wish; the Roman bishop would not approve this decree for the whole Church. Canon 55 needs no refutation from us; it is absurd in itself and plainly insults the Roman Church. Let us hear it: “Since we have learned that in the city of the Romans, during the holy days of Lent, people fast on Saturdays contrary to the ecclesiastical custom handed down, the holy synod has judged that if anyone is found fasting in the Roman

Church, if anyone is found fasting on Saturday in the Roman Church, a cleric is to be deposed and a layman separated.” Do you think any Roman Pontiff would approve this canon? Absolutely not. What of canon 67? See whether it should be approved: “Sacred Scripture commands us to abstain from blood and from what is strangled. We therefore rightly condemn those who prepare the blood of any animal by some art and then eat it.” What could be a greater ignorance of Scripture than to think that apostolic precept lasted until our own time? How much more truly did the Latins interpret the decree of Hierusalem concerning blood and strangled meat as remaining only briefly, until the customs of Jews and Gentiles blended and the Church could bury the synagogue with a measure of honor. Let Gratianus now go and attribute the Trullan canons to the sixth synod. Innocentius, however, cited Gratianus’s decree under the same name Gratianus had used; this has sometimes happened to D. Thomas and other learned men as well, who, trusting Gratianus’s diligence, cite passages in the decree under fictitious authors and titles. The same happened to Gregorius IX, who, under the title De Constitut., attributed commentaries on Proverbs to Hieronymus, though it is certain they are not Hieronymus’s. The chapter Innocentius cites is found at 32 dist. cap. Si quis eorum under the name of the sixth synod. So far is it from the truth that Adrianus received the Trullan canons that nothing could be more contrary to the truth. Those words occur in Tharasius’s letter to Adrianus, not, as Gratianus mistakenly thought, in Adrianus’s letter to Tharasius. It was Tharasius, then, who received them, not Adrianus, as is clear in actiones 2 et 3 of the seventh synod. Adrianus quotes Tharasius’s words in order to strike the Constantinopolitans with their own weapon: “If you admit,” he says, “that those canons are divine and lawful, and in canon 82 allow that the image of Christ is to be venerated, why are you now fighting against sacred images?” If the seventh synod uses one canon to prove, by the testimony of the Greeks themselves, that images are to be venerated, what argument does that provide for its approval of the remaining canons? It would be like saying Paulus approved all of Menander, Aratus, or Epimenides because he once used their testimony. Nor are the words we cited from the seventh synod the synod’s own, but those of Tharasius, Petrus episcopus, and Epiphanius. It was not the synod’s time or purpose to examine this question. The issue then was not whether the Trullan synod should be approved, but whether images should be venerated. The Fathers wisely passed over statements made in passing and outside the purpose of the council by private individuals, so that no new disputes would arise—especially since, in the principal question then under dispute, they freely used the authority of the Trullan synod. To show that we are not inventing this, Nicolaus must be cited. In a letter to the Emperor Michael, when he wished to use a certain canon of this Trullan synod to support an argument, he reasoned as follows: “The Constantinopolitan synod is known to prohibit this prudently in canon 6 of its canons. This, however, is not found among us, but is said to be held among you. Yet we, instructed by Apostolic teaching, know that we may use even sayings of pagans, much more those of Christians, even against the very people whose life we do not follow and whose erroneous thought we do not imitate. The Apostle Paulus, after all, included certain things from pagan books in his writings; does that mean we must accept everything said alongside them?” Thus far Nicolaus.

Therefore, if Innocentius, the seventh synod, Nicolaus, or the Council of Florence makes use of the authority of these canons, by approving one or another they have not approved the rest. I am entirely unaware, however, of the Fathers of the Council of Florence citing these 102 canons. For what is reported in action. 5 was drawn not from the synod held at Trullo under Iustinianus, where these canons were issued, but from the sixth ecumenical council under his father Constantinus, as is clear in action. 17 of that same sixth council. Since this synod was also held at Trullo, namely the royal palace, what is said of the latter was mistakenly believed to concern the Trullan canons. We have weakened their authority so that no one deceived by a false error might set them against true and legitimate councils. I see, however, that someone may ask why, among the other canons contrary to the Roman Church, we did not also mark canon 82, which forbade depicting Christ henceforth under the figure of a lamb. I did not wish to attack these Trullan rules with hostility. I therefore deny that canon 82, according to its true reading, forbids anything of that sort. On the contrary, it receives and commands that the venerable image in which the lamb is shown by the finger of the Forerunner be preserved in the Church from then on. This can be gathered from Adrianus’s letter to Tharasius, 7 synodo action. 2, and actione 4 of that same seventh synod. So much for the canons of Trullo and, consequently, the sixth argument. In the seventh argument we must expose Pighius’s obstinate contention: to defend an opinion he had once adopted, he continued with vain conjectures to undermine synods received by decree of the Church. Such is the power of the desire to contend, once it has flared up, and of stubborn persistence. I have no need here to fight on behalf of the sixth synod, from which the dispute arose: Agatho convened it and Leo secundus confirmed it; Beda, lib. De temp. rat. cap. 65, and the other Catholics after him approved it; the Council of Florence, sess. 5, receives it, and Eugenius quartus venerates it in the decree on the union of the Iacobini. Let others write an apology for the sixth and seventh synods, if the diligence of Franciscus Turensis has not yet satisfied them. We assert the authority of councils in doctrines of faith and decrees necessary for the faithful’s salvation; we do not assert it in judgments about historical events and their order. Nor do we spend time and effort on matters that concern us little or not at all. To the eighth argument, then, Caietanus replies in his booklet de auctoritate Papae et concil. cap. 8 that the Council of Constance was not universal and complete when it issued that decree. At the time, there was a schism in the Church under three Pontiffs: Ioannes 23, Gregorius 12, and Benedictus 13. To claim that the council was general at that time is therefore simply to revive the old schism and condemn those who followed Benedictus and Gregorius, which was and remains uncertain. If you object that Martinus quintus, in the final session, approved each and every decree on matters of faith previously issued by the Council of Constance, Caietanus replies that what properly pertains to faith, and what Martinus approved as a decree of faith, is what had been defined against heretics, as was done in sessions 8, 15, and 21. That Martinus approved only these matters is clear, first, because this approval was made at the request of the ambassador of the King of Poland, who required only that the acts of the council against heretics be confirmed. It is also clear because Martinus says that he approves all these matters as conciliariter done, and not otherwise or in any other way. For he assumed that certain things had not been done conciliariter. For, as the same Caietanus points out, in sessions 4 and 5 neither disputation nor any investigation had taken place,

nor had learned men yet been selected to discuss and treat the matters of doctrine that were to be established; the council provided for this later in sess. 6. Thus, anyone who carefully considers what was handed down in session 4 will find that it does not have the form of a decree by which the faithful are obliged or dissenters rejected. This is finally clear from the letters of Martinus quintus, which explicitly condemn the errors of Ioannes Wicleff, Ioannes Huss, and Hieronymus Pragensis, without mentioning the question of whether a council is above the Pope. Since what is commonly called into question about the Council of Constance is explained so admirably by the disciples of D. Thomas, especially Caietanus, a man of great distinction in our order, we shall say nothing about it beyond what we have already said. So much, then, for the eighth argument. As for the ninth, I am amazed at the blindness of those who wish to defend the Council of Basel, when it is clear that although it was initially assembled with Eugenius IV’s consent, it was later transferred by him first to Ferrara and then to Florence, where the Basilians’ efforts were suppressed by the Church’s public authority. The union of the Armenian and Greek peoples with the Christian community was approved not at the Council of Basel but at Florence. Even after the Basilians’ sentence of deposition, the Church regarded Eugenius as the true Pontiff and scorned Felix, whom they elected at the synod. Why, then, cling so stubbornly to the Council of Basel? Why favor heretics who claim that councils’ judgments against heretics are invalid, when the Council of Basel condemned as heretics men who are still judged Catholic? Anyone who does not understand this seems incapable of understanding anything at all. I therefore do not doubt that it is now a grave offense to take the side of the Council of Basel, since nothing could more readily revive that extinguished schism. Nicolaus V plainly holds that Felix was not the true shepherd of the Church but only a named one. He does not call it a true general council, but says it was assembled under the name of a general council. He speaks of Eugenius, however, as his predecessor of blessed memory, with greater honor. In his letters he approves only the appointments to benefices, as is customary in such language, and similar matters, which, if declared invalid, would greatly inconvenience the people whenever pastors or officials changed. Leo X also clearly defined in the Lateran Council, sess. 11, that the Council of Basel was not lawfully held. Later, when a certain sanction issued by the Council of Basel was under discussion, he said: “Just as Leo caused the things rashly done against justice and the Catholic faith at the second synod of Ephesus to be revoked afterward at the Council of Chalcedon, so we cannot in good conscience and with honor to the Church be held back from revoking so wicked a sanction. For all these things were done after the transfer of that Council of Basel by our predecessor, Pope Eugenius IV of blessed memory, by the Basel assembly—or rather, gathering—and therefore could have no force. It is also manifest, not only from the testimony of sacred Scripture, the statements of the holy Fathers, and the decrees of other Roman Pontiffs, but by the councils’ own confession, that the Roman Pontiff alone, as having authority over all councils, has full right and power to summon, transfer, and dissolve councils.” Thus far the Lateran Council. It supports what it said with many testimonies and examples, which we omit so as not to make this too long.

But the doctors of Paris appealed from the Lateran Council, and an appeal is circulated in the name of the university. I will not discuss whose it was; I assert that circulating it is not without scandal and danger to the Church. There is an anathema of Pius II against those who appeal to a future council. Even apart from the reasons Pius gave at length in his letters, it is clear that this is the greatest support for all heretics and opens an enormous door to the loss of ecclesiastical obedience and the destruction of true piety. But this is not the place or time to discuss these matters. You object that the decrees made in sess. 2 of the Council of Basel were decrees of a legitimate council, as is clear from Eugenius’s letters read in sess. 16 of the same council. We answer briefly that Eugenius did not approve the issued decrees, but only that the general Council of Basel had been lawfully continued from the time it began. Further, the council was not full in its second session, since most of the bishops were absent and very few were present. It was general in its initial convocation, then, but was not yet truly and fully general in fact. Moreover, the legate proceeded to issue those decrees without a commission, as can be gathered from Eugenius’s letter to Iulianus. Add that, since Catholics had always had a serious and difficult dispute over whether the Pope is above the council or the council above the Pope, the ambiguous point was asserted without inquiry or prior examination. It was therefore not a decree of faith, but a simple recollection of the teaching handed down at the Council of Constance. Seeing this, the parties at this synod treated the same matter differently again in sess. 33, defining that those points should henceforth be accepted as decrees of faith. But by then all the legates’ authority had been abolished and the synod transferred to Florence. It is therefore no wonder that it erred shamefully and childishly by condemning as heretics men who are now without dispute held to be faithful. The answer to the tenth argument is very easy: plenary councils not confirmed by the Supreme Pontiff can be corrected by other legitimate and approved councils. But no example at all can be produced of a plenary council confirmed by the Supreme Pontiff being corrected by a later one. Augustinus does not weaken such councils but defends them in the same book, cap. 4. Although Augustinus seems to speak not of correcting matters of faith but of laws relating to past or future events. “Plenary councils themselves,” he says, “are corrected by later ones when experience of events reveals what was hidden.” This can hardly refer to the truth of faith, which does not become known through experience of events. Thus nothing prevents some laws, in which councils can err through imprudence, from being corrected by later councils. Isidorus can also be answered from these points. We need not explain every detail. On the eleventh argument, we have often said that we defend complete councils made perfect by the authority of their head against error. Nor, if the Supreme Pontiff is a firm judge in matters of faith, are councils convened in vain. First, as we observed in the preceding chapter, the Roman Pontiff considers controversies of faith not rashly or foolishly but carefully and wisely, calling advisers, more or fewer according to the seriousness of the matter under discussion. The Fathers of a council help the Supreme Pontiff’s faith and teaching. Thus at the Council of Hierusalem, after a great inquiry, Petrus gave his judgment without supporting it with any testimony from sacred Scripture, and Iacobus approved it by adding

testimonies from the Prophets. He also added, as if on his own initiative, a most necessary law about abstaining from things sacrificed to idols, fornication, things strangled, and blood. Divine providence thus extends through the Church in such a way that the chief members, although they depend on the head, nevertheless protect and assist it. A council also makes the faith more persuasive to the people through the widely accepted testimony and judgment of many. For people accept laws proposed and enacted by the common consent of the leading men more willingly than those issued by the king alone. Beda therefore wisely observed in lib. retr. in actus apostolorum that Paulus discussed with the other Apostles the Gospel he preached to the Gentiles, carefully inquiring in council whether he rightly taught that the observance of the law had ceased: “Not because he himself,” he says, “had any doubt about this, but so that the minds of those who doubted might be strengthened by the authority of the Apostolic synod.” Gregorius, however, spoke of provincial synods, which could accomplish little in matters of faith unless strengthened by the authority of the Supreme Pontiff. Gregorius had experience of those; he had not experienced these. Although even at that time the usefulness of the Council of Nicaea had not yet been sufficiently established. The last argument is difficult to discuss. I see what theologians generally think. Yet I can truly say that the Roman council of Nicolaus spoke in a way much better suited to the understanding of the faithful. Let us first hear the council’s words, then consider whether they are true or false. “I profess,” said Berengarius, “that not only the sacrament but also the true body of Christ is handled by the priests’ hands, broken, and ground by the faithful’s teeth.” This is the form of confession prescribed to Berengarius by the synod. One part may raise a question: whether Christ’s body can truly be said to be handled and broken by reason of the sacramental species. The other part admits no doubt: Christ himself is neither handled nor broken in himself by the priests. Others may each speak according to their own judgment; at this time and in this question, however, we will follow above all Thomas Waldensis, who teaches in lib. sacramental. tit. 4, cap. 42 that such expressions are entirely true and were also used of old by the Fathers. He cites Dionysius in cap. 3, lib. de eccles. Hier., and Chrysostomus in Matth. Homil. 83. In the preceding chapter he also cited Paschasius in lib. de corpore et sanguine Christi. When the faithful see the sacramental species, they testify that they have seen Christ; when they touch them, they testify that they have touched him. This is surely a strong reason for believing it so. “You take this,” you say, “from the common people of the faithful.” I feared you would say it came from pimps. “Unlearned Christians speak this way.” That is a fine point. In a question of faith, the common understanding of the faithful does carry considerable weight. I ask you: when we dispute among ourselves about Christian faith, not philosophical doctrines, should we inquire instead what philosophers and pagans think, or what people formed by Christian teaching and faith think? Especially since even the ancient Fathers agreed with this view, as was shown just above. Further, when the sacramental species are moved—and most learned people generally agree on this—Christ too is moved, accidentally indeed, but moved nonetheless. There is therefore no obstacle to the body of Christ being seen and touched when the species are seen and touched. For even sensible substance cannot be perceived except through accidents. The Church also acknowledges that the body and blood of the Lord are mingled when the species of bread and wine are mixed; therefore when the species are seen and touched, the body of Christ is seen and touched. Why say more? I am persuaded of this and hold that Christ’s body has succeeded to the place of bread in such a way that, except for what

conflicts with the faith of this sacrament, it claims everything that bread formerly claimed by reason of its accidents. Otherwise, someone who ate the species of bread would not eat Christ’s body, and someone who drank under the species of wine would not drink his blood. Yet it is written: “Take and eat; this is my body.” Again: “Whoever eats my flesh and drinks my blood…” And again: “He who eats unworthily eats judgment upon himself, not discerning the body of the Lord.” If Christ’s flesh is eaten in the sacrament, it is certainly broken and ground by the faithful’s teeth. Both features belong to and are proper to the food we eat. What is more, if we consider the Greek wording, the Lord says through Lucas: “Take; this is my body, which is broken for you.” Nor should Divus Thomas in 4 sentent. be brought against us, since in 3 part. quaest. 77, part 7, ad tertium argumentum, he was one of the principal authorities for our view. Who would not prefer him to six hundred Oecolampadii? Enough, then, about the last argument, and consequently enough about the fourth place. Let us proceed to the next.

ON THE AUTHORITY OF THE ROMAN CHURCH, WHICH IS CONTAINED IN THE FIFTH PLACE