De locis theologicis

There follows a topic especially necessary to this discussion, containing the authority of the scholastic school. The younger heretics do not merely diminish and weaken it; they reject and deride it. Luther, standard-bearer of German impiety and in this, as in other matters, a disciple of Wicleff, asserts in his book against Iacobus Latomus that scholastic theology is nothing but ignorance of truth and empty deception, against which the Apostle warns in Colo. c. 2. In his book de abrogan. Missa priva. he calls the universities brothels of Antichrist. Philippus Melanchton, in his Apologia contra Parisien., says that profane scholasticism was born at Paris and that, once it was admitted, the Gospel was obscured and faith extinguished. In short, every Lutheran without exception both scorns our school’s authority and attacks it with hostility. Perhaps the other heresies of these men flowed from this as from their first source. For at the outset, after it was easy to scorn the school’s authorities, they also scorned the school’s judgments. Once these were neglected, it was soon necessary to neglect Hieronymus, Augustinus, Gregorius, Ambrosius, and Basilius, whom recent theologians regarded as the authorities for their dogmas. After the ancient saints had been pushed aside, their councils too were held in contempt. The result was that the Lutherans also cut down some canonical books and ecclesiastical authority. How true it is that whoever neglects the least things gradually falls away. Let no one take offense at the expression. The school’s authority cannot be so slight that anyone can make little of it without endangering the faith. Since the school arose, contempt for the school and the plagues of heresy have always been connected. I shall therefore defend this topic too, and, as it seems to me, not dispose of it easily or briefly. Although scholastic theology has expanded in us the ability to reason that we gained through dialectical exercises—and we have spent no small part of our earliest years’ effort and care on this study—here, though we are in our proper field, ^{1 2}

we do not wish to exercise our abilities in every direction for the sake of display, but to reason sparingly and narrowly in our usual manner. Throughout the whole discussion, Reader, remember that I am defending the school’s teaching insofar as it is founded on the basis of sacred Scripture. From this follows what, I see, I can say with everyone’s strong agreement: wretched is the school’s teaching that defends itself by the titles of mastership; wretched too—and perhaps much more so—is the teaching that, after setting aside the authority of sacred Scripture, speculates about divine matters with twisted syllogisms. Indeed, it speculates not even about divine matters, nor human ones, but about things that concern us not at all. I understand that there have been in the school certain counterfeit theologians who settled every theological question with frivolous arguments, and, by light and invalid little arguments, stripped great weight from the most serious matters and published commentaries on theology scarcely worthy of old women’s night work. Since testimonies from the sacred Bible are rare in them, councils are never mentioned, they smell nothing of the ancient saints or even of serious philosophy, but deal almost entirely with childish subjects, they are nevertheless, if heaven wills it, called scholastic theologians. They are neither scholastics, much less theologians: by inserting the dregs of sophistry into the school, they provoke learned men to laughter and more refined minds to contempt. But whom do we mean by a scholastic theologian? In whom do we place this title? I think it belongs to someone who reasons appropriately, prudently, and learnedly from sacred writings and institutions about God and divine matters. Although this must be discussed at greater length later, this much must be acknowledged briefly here: unless someone is such a person, no one is a theologian of the school. I also understand that there have been some in the school seemingly born to discord, who think they reason best when they contradict more learned men, appearing to seek not so much the truth as the defeat of their opponents, filling whole pages with contests and quarrels. Many in the Church, as if enlisted soldiers, defend or attack these men, and their entire discussion of theology is faction, contention, and division. I can neither approve nor ought I approve them. For although the mutual criticisms of those who disagree should not be condemned, stubborn contests in disputation seem unworthy of profane philosophy, much more of sacred doctrine. For, as Cicero said most eloquently, one cannot dispute rightly without criticism, nor with stubbornness. And what Publius said is true: truth is lost through excessive argument. I certainly do not agree with those who want to blame the stubbornness and itch to criticize everything on debates in scholastic circles. I think these evils are the fault of character, not of the school. For moderate people, who are neither quarrelsome nor stubborn, will define any matters soberly and with restraint. Everyone who professes any discipline must do this, but no one more than the theologian. There have undoubtedly been many in the school who, avoiding these faults, treated theology with serious modesty. Those whom these critics call stubborn theologians who pick everything apart are few, if they wish to speak truthfully. They displease me, if anyone, most of all; but the whole company should not be traduced for the faults of a few. Even if most theologians had these faults, this calumny would still be unjust. Just as no just and prudent person accuses all young people, although many are lustful, since lust belongs not to all young people but ^{3 4 5}

to those who are not good, so scholastic stubbornness belongs to shallow theologians, not to all of them. It is plainly unjust, as I said, to traduce the school for faults that belong not to the school itself but to an idle, empty, quarrelsome school. I therefore wish to assert and defend those scholastic theologians who alone deserve that name. I shall do this if I first set out the school’s proper purpose and method of teaching; without understanding these, no one can speak rightly either for or against them.

The proper first task of scholastic theology, as much as we have received from our elders and as we, its students, experience in nearly daily meetings, is to bring to light, as if from darkness, what is hidden in sacred Scripture and the traditions of the Apostles. For the theologian draws conclusions from principles of faith revealed by God, and by reasoning according to nature explains what is implicit in those principles. Just as the discipline of music connects by reasoning, from what is established in arithmetic, what is consonant or dissonant among sounding numbers, so the theology of the school uses what faith has laid down to establish by natural reasoning what follows, and what concerns God and divine things. If astrology, music, the art of observation, and other disciplines of this kind are valued as useful and necessary, although they are like beggars drawing from other fields, what evil spirit wants to destroy scholastic discipline, which teaches from sacred and divine writings and institutions—not from arithmetic, geometry, or physics—what follows and what conflicts? Nor should we listen to those who criticize scholastic questions as curious and accuse the school of rashness for daring to pronounce on matters far beyond our grasp, and to define so many things that could have been left unknown or uncertain without loss of salvation. They give examples of this kind: who distinguishes the Father from the Son, what distinguishes the Holy Spirit from both, what is the difference between the Son’s birth and the Spirit’s procession, whether the Holy Spirit proceeding from the Father and the Son has one source or two. They think it is the mark of excellent and great theologians to define nothing beyond what is set out in sacred Scripture—that is, to remain within theology’s principles and turn the mind away from what follows or conflicts with them. I do not understand what their position means. For what could be more absurd than to have only the principles of a discipline defined, while wishing the conclusions, which follow from them by certain and evident syllogisms, to be ignored or left uncertain? If anyone asserted this in geometry, physics, or astrology, he would rightly be considered utterly foolish. Enough of this. I do not wish to urge a matter already well established, as many learned men have often done. Let us proceed. This discipline of reasoning in the school has another aim: to defend our faith against heretics. For, as the Master of the Sentences teaches from Augustinus in his prologue, it is the scholastic teacher’s task to know how the Catholic faith can both assist the devout and be defended against the impious. If the school’s teacher cannot teach ¹

sound doctrine to the faithful and refute those who do not have it, he may sometimes be called a theologian by the crowd, but in reality he never will be. This is why heretics are so hostile to scholastic disputations: they understand that the Catholic faith they try to overthrow is fortified by these men’s study and teaching. Wolves recognize the dogs and pursue them with hatred; the name of the school is hateful to these men because it keeps wolves from the flocks and guards against their ambushes. There is nothing to wonder at in this. I never cease to wonder, however, at those who are and are considered Catholics, yet are accustomed to applaud men who do not know how to encourage the young to study languages without first nailing scholastic theologians with insults and cutting them down in entire volumes. They insult them most sweetly: the honey of their words covers the poison of their minds, made all the more harmful by being swallowed so pleasantly. “But scholastic theologians are peevish and long-winded, and, if we inquire closely, even superstitious.” These are faults of character, as I said, not of the school. Yet peevishness and the other faults charged against theologians have some excuse, whether a just one or one that seems capable of approval. Since they discuss many varied matters not only in general but also individually, they could not complete them in a brief speech. Hence the myriads of articles they criticize; if these were collections of maxims, they would admire rather than criticize them. Moreover, clarity is not usually joined to brevity. Those who strive to be brief become obscure. Thus theologians, wishing to be clear, have been somewhat long-winded. Add that difficult and obscure matters, of which theologians explain very many, cannot be described in a few words. The school also adapts itself to the unlearned and inexperienced, and therefore asks and defines more things that learned people, even those of great talent, would consider unnecessary. Finally, because theologians discuss both sides in the scholastic manner, they must cover whatever they teach in a longer discourse. As for the so-called anxious superstition, it is religion, not superstition. We do not permit everything among us to be treated casually; the school’s rule and decree require all who wish to dispute or write on theological matters to remain within certain limits and prescribed lines. Hence those tears. They want freedom—indeed, license—to speak and write; when we discuss theology, we dread every license and rashness. But the whole scholastic manner of reasoning is thorny: a foot pierced by thorns can no longer set down a step. These men’s feet are surely delicate; errors do not prick them, but discipline does. As I began to say, they hate it because it is an art that teaches both how to defend the faith and how to overthrow heresies. Since we shall explain this fully and carefully in the last book, it should now be stated briefly and without debate. It is not fitting to demonstrate everything in the same place. Finally, it is the scholastics’ task, insofar as possible, to illuminate and even confirm the teaching of Christ and the Church by means of human disciplines. Augustinus taught that we may rightly make our own the silver and gold vessels and other furnishings of the Egyptians, even if we received them on loan, and claim them for the use of the faithful; and, as Hieronymus advises, we may bring a foreign woman into God’s people after shaving her hair and removing what is superfluous. If this is done with appropriate restraint and seriousness, no one, I think, would be so foolish as to condemn it, unless he had never considered any of these things.

Theologians learn from David to take the sword from the enemy’s hands and cut off the head of proud Goliath with his own blade. From Paulus they learn to turn even an accidental inscription by art into an argument for faith, and to convert what was written for another purpose to the benefit of ecclesiastical teaching. With Daniel and Moyses they learn the wisdom of the Chaldeans and Egyptians, if not to follow it, then to expose and refute it. Nor is it reasonable that, if they argue against philosophers, they should be ignorant of the philosophers’ doctrines. For anyone who wants to write against mathematicians while ignorant of mathematics exposes himself to ridicule, 37 d.c. qui de mensa. I could pursue many arguments for this point, but I feel that what I have said is already too long. Let the Reader forgive me. I have been carried forward by zeal for our cause, and the school is somewhat too talkative, lest I seem to absolve it of every fault. Enough of this. I have acted contrary to what I said at the beginning, and seem to have sought room for speaking in a confined and narrow place. But it was difficult to mend even slightly a subject torn apart by outsiders and badly handled by some of our own. Three ends of true theology must therefore be established. I am not disputing only about scholastic theology but about theology as a whole. If the Lutheran heresy wishes to be consistent with itself, it cannot speak about the school’s purpose, since it admits that it has never exercised itself in that discipline. No one should be heard who argues about something he does not know through experience or reason. If those three ends are common to true theology and the school supplies them all, then certainly the error of those who think the school should be neglected is pernicious. For this is true theology, containing everything required in a theologian: knowledge of God, understanding of heavenly things, and wisdom and experience in human things. When these are present, the Christian teacher’s discipline is complete; without them, it cannot exist. Since this is the highest good, if we wish to attain it, we must devote ourselves to scholastic theology, without which we cannot attain any fully developed teaching in the Church. Those who neglect it and think themselves theologians will realize they have erred only when disputation with heretics or some serious and perplexing case of conscience puts them to the test. Nor should anyone devoted to sacred Scripture fear that the study of the school will slow his study of Scripture. To bear this fruit, the school not only does not delay it but invites and draws us to it. We ourselves, whatever we have contributed to sacred Scripture, if indeed we have contributed anything, approached it equipped and adorned by the teachers and teaching of scholastic theology. But now it is time to explain the main purpose of this discussion: whether the authority of the scholastics offers the theologian firm arguments or weak ones.

The first reason that all arguments derived from the school’s authority are weak is that the school’s authority is confirmed neither by sacred Scripture, nor by the institutions of the Apostles, nor by a definition of the Church. Since the Lord nowhere promised the Spirit of truth to scholastic authors,

they can err as human beings, and therefore no argument from their authority will be firm. Further, there is no certain dogma in the school; everything is full of factional parties. Nothing certain can therefore be established from the school’s authority. Moreover, all the school’s theologians have asserted that marriage contracted without a minister of the Church is truly and properly a sacrament of the new law. Yet this common opinion of everyone does not make the belief certain, and it does not even seem probable. The school’s testimony will therefore be certain in no other matter. We shall explain in the fewest words possible what we think and why we think it. We shall fight for the school’s authority by reason, not inclination, although we know that many will deliberately argue against us. We could not avoid this unless we wrote nothing at all.

What the beginning of academic theology was, how it developed, and who its founders and authorities were, although relevant to commending the school, is not for this place to discuss. Here we try only to explain how much force an argument drawn from the school’s authority has for establishing belief. In explaining this, let the first conclusion be as follows. First conclusion. Even the testimony of many scholastic theologians, when learned men argue against them, is no more valuable for establishing belief than the reasoning or even weightier authority by which it is supported. In scholastic disputation, the authority of the greater number should not overwhelm the theologian; if he has only a few serious men on his side, he can certainly stand against the many. These matters are judged not by number but by weight. I need not prove this conclusion with arguments. For I do not usually argue about anything evident and agreed upon by everyone; clarity, as Cicero says, is diminished by argument. Certainly, when the opinions of the most learned men vary and conflict, we ought to imitate the Academic restraint and withhold certain assent from uncertain matters. For, as that same Cicero teaches most elegantly, what could be more rash and unworthy of a wise man’s gravity and constancy than to defend without any hesitation something that has not been sufficiently examined and understood? At this point some scholastics deserve criticism: because of prejudices formed by the opinions they learned in school, they brand otherwise Catholic men with harsher censures, and do so so readily that they rightly invite laughter. Our school does indeed give us great license to defend whatever seems most probable, as our right; but we are not permitted to condemn rashly and lightly those who disagree with us. Some things are opinions of the school, which we shall discuss shortly; others are rules of the sect, which is what we are discussing now. Those that disagree with the former bear a mark of error; those that disagree with the latter do not. For it is not the case that

something contrary to Scotist or Thomist pronouncements is immediately an error. Enough of this. Second conclusion. The common opinion of all scholastic authors on a serious matter yields arguments so probable that it is rash to oppose them. For reason shows that experts in any art should be believed. No sane person would refuse to trust sailors in the art of navigation. Anyone who places no trust in those experienced and practiced in the art of discussing theological dogmas is therefore either not very sane or certainly rash. Further, in Clement. de summa Trinitate, the Fathers of the Council of Vienna say that the opinion which holds that both infants and adults receive sanctifying grace and virtues in baptism, as the more probable and more consonant and harmonious with the theology of modern teachers, should be chosen by Catholics. If, then, on a matter once disputed even among scholastic theologians, the concordant opinion of the younger ones carried such weight with the council Fathers, how much more ought we to hold and revere matters prescribed by the school at all times? And if the common opinion of recent theologians establishes belief for a council and inclines it to define that such an opinion must be held, what should we think when all theologians have established something not as an opinion but with a certain and wholly unshaken mind? Do you not think that the Council of Vienna would judge more severely concerning such a dogma firmly received in the school? We would therefore reject the school’s common agreement only impudently and rashly. Moreover, since scholastic theologians almost everywhere dispute with one another in considerable disagreement, and may perhaps rightly be criticized in this respect, surely they would not all assert the same thing unless moved by the same divine Spirit. It is no less remarkable that the school’s different factions and teachers, so divided among themselves, have converged on one and the same opinion than that the seventy interpreters, reportedly confined in separate cells, arrived at one and the same translation. What the chorus of scholastic theologians sings in harmony therefore cannot be false. Third conclusion. To contradict the concordant opinion of all theologians of the school on faith or morals is, if not heresy, at least close to heresy. The school’s opinions, if we may call them that, are of two kinds. One concerns matters of philosophy more than of faith; the other concerns faith and morals necessary for the Christian people. What disagrees with the former is not heretical for a scholastic theologian. What opposes the latter kind, however, we flee here as poison. We do not dare openly and simply to accuse them of heresy, a crime that is itself most grave. In this matter I often find theologians lacking prudence: it is absurd to bring a most serious charge unless the matters too are most serious. But to the point. My conclusion is first shown by this: no dogma can be found that all scholastics have certainly and firmly asserted with the same mind and voice without the whole Church holding it too, moved by their authority. If heretics can find one, let them produce it, and we shall be silent. If none can be produced, then, whether they wish it or not, what is confirmed by the authority of the whole school is true, provided, as I said, that it concerns faith and morals. ¹

Add that no decree proper to the school lacks a definite origin either in sacred Scripture, the tradition of the Apostles, or the definitions of councils or Pontiffs. Those who have refuted the school’s decrees have always been found to reject the source from which they flow. In a word, no one regarded as Catholic has rejected all theologians without distinction. This is strong enough evidence that such opinions of the school cannot be denied without endangering the faith. Further, if all theologians agree with one another on some question, then, if they err in it, they expose the Church to the danger of error as well. For both those who hear confessions and those who preach to the people instruct the faithful in what they have received from theologians. Thus, if the Church concealed their common error in faith, it would deceive Christ’s faithful by its silence. “An error that is not resisted is approved; just as truth, when it is not defended, is suppressed,” as Innocentius says (83 dist. error). If God did not reveal an error shared by all theologians, he would fail the Christian people in matters necessary for them. What could an uninformed people do but follow those they had accepted at that time as teachers of ecclesiastical doctrine? Should scholastic theology be despised after all this? I would think so, were it not that the Church has defined many matters by its authority. For three hundred years now, whenever the Church has condemned heresies or issued decrees about faith and morals, it has been greatly assisted in both by the aid and diligence of the scholastics. Since this is acknowledged by everyone familiar either with the acts of councils or with the matters of faith under discussion, we must admit that scholastic teachers cannot all err together in faith and morals. Moreover, when the Lord said, “He who hears you hears me, and he who rejects you rejects me,” he referred these words not only to the first theologians, that is, the Apostles, but also to teachers who would be in the Church as long as the sheep were to be fed with knowledge and teaching. Just as someone who despised theologians succeeding Christ despised Christ the Lord himself, so anyone who scorns younger theologians succeeding the ancients must also scorn Christ himself. Hence Chrysostomus, or whoever the author was, says in his commentaries on Matthaeus imperfecti, homi. 42: “When you hear someone praising certain teachers, examine how he regards his own teachers. If he tolerates and honors those with whom he lives, he would surely have honored those too, had he lived with them. If he despises his own teachers, he would have despised them too, had he lived with them.” Thus far he, commenting on Christ’s words: “Woe to you who build the tombs of the Prophets and adorn the monuments of the just, and say, ‘If we had lived in the days of our fathers, we would not have been their accomplices in the blood of the Prophets.’ Thus you testify against yourselves that you are sons of those who killed the Prophets. And you, fill up the measure of your fathers.” Heretics reason like the Pharisees. “If the scholastic teachers were like Hilarius, Hieronymus, and Basilius, we would follow them; if we had lived in the days of Augustinus, Ambrosius, and Hieronymus, we would not have been accomplices of Mani, Novatus, Vigilantius, Pelagius, or Iovinianus.” They therefore testify that they are sons of those who scorned the ancient saints, since they regard the younger theologians of the school as nothing. Finally, as the Apostle teaches in Ephes. 4, Christ gave some in the Church as Apostles, some as Prophets, others as Evangelists, and others as pastors and teachers, for the perfecting of the saints, for the work of ministry, for the building up of the body

of Christ, until we all meet in the unity of faith as a perfect man, so that we are no longer children tossed about and carried by every wind of doctrine. Therefore, as long as the body of Christ, that is, the Church, exists, divine providence will ensure that those regarded in the Church as teachers of sacred doctrine, given as if by God, hold the truth in faith, lest the people be carried about like children. Nor, when we say that this testimony of the Apostle applies equally to the ancients and the younger teachers, do we immediately make the younger theologians equal to those of old (for we know how much is owed to antiquity and also to holiness). We contend, to the best of our ability, that this topic is firm on many other grounds and also on this testimony of the Apostle. Whether rightly or otherwise is for others to judge. For we have explained to our readers what seemed most probable to us on a new argument for which we had no model to follow. If anyone rejects our view while offering better reasons, we shall gladly and willingly embrace them. There is no need for me to say anything about myself. I need not fear that speaking truthfully and openly about myself may make me seem too boastful or talkative. However I have treated this topic of the school, I think I have made it very serious for theologians. Since I have discussed the matter fully, they will learn from me today the easiest arguments by which they can assert the weight and authority of scholastic theology. Enough of this. Let us now repel the objections raised at the beginning.

To refute the first argument, nothing needs to be added to what has already been said. For, I think, we have shown that the Church’s and sacred Scripture’s testimony is not lacking for upholding scholastic theology. We have already brought forward the testimonies we have, and perhaps more and weightier ones will be brought forward later by others. The second argument has likewise been refuted. We have said—and although we have said it often, it must still be said again—that factions in the school, as if sworn together, a desire to contradict, and similar evils arise from the faults of people, not the school. Otherwise, many decrees among the scholastics are certain and firm, all the more so because no faction has ever called them into question. The third argument, however, is very difficult and requires considerable inquiry. If the difficulty of this argument demands a longer discussion, the Reader should not be troubled: the length of the speech will be balanced by the greatness of its benefit. First, I would have all theologians warned to set aside not only their inclinations but also the prejudices of their opinions, and to judge matters of faith prudently and seriously. For if something has become customary in the school, even in good times, it must not immediately be regarded as a dogma of faith. Some people, however, pass judgment on the most serious matters with a certain rashness and without judgment, carried by the opinions with which they were imbued from the beginning, as if by a sudden wind. Their judgment would be quite different if they had made it carefully and steadily. They first err by failing to distinguish the school’s opinions from its certain and established decrees. They also err by confusing two kinds of things: one kind consists of matters that concern religion, the other of matters that do not touch it at all.

If, as was established in the preceding book, we are not to follow and hold the consensus of the ancient saints in every question of law but only in the rule of faith, and if not every common opinion of theirs, even on a serious matter, binds the faithful, but only a firm and settled judgment, what should we say about the more recent theologians of the school, whom those ancients far surpassed in merit of life, use of Scripture, and weight of authority? I need not say what many devout men want me to mention about these matters; although the case calls for it, it does not demand it, so I shall pass it over. Since I have often given examples of both errors, and will add various ones in book 12, I shall now be content with one, which will be enough to warn those who are accustomed to be rash in theological censures. The Master of the Sentences said that the sacrament of baptism was instituted by Christ before his death and was administered by Christ himself and by the Apostles. D. Thomas and the other scholastic theologians agreed with him. The Master was evidently following Divus Augustinus, whose opinions the school gladly embraces. But if someone happened to think that baptism of the new law, a true and proper sacrament, was not instituted by Christ until after he had suffered on the cross, we should not immediately harass him with a grave theological censure. First we should consider whether the theologians on this point define something in their own judgment as a certain and settled matter, or instead offer a probable opinion on something not yet sufficiently investigated. We should then examine whether it pertains to the Catholic faith that Christ instituted this sacrament before his Passion or not. The Master of the Sentences states nothing with certainty, but chooses the more probable opinion: “It is more conveniently said,” and so on. Augustinus too says: “Christ baptized, not by himself but through his disciples.” We understand that they had already been baptized, either with the baptism of Ioannes, as some think, or, what is more credible, with the baptism of Christ. Here Augustinus does not state with certainty that the Apostles had been baptized with Christ’s baptism before administering the baptism mentioned in Ioannes, chapters 3 and 4. Indeed, he teaches everywhere that we do not know when the Apostles were baptized. It is not at all plausible that if the Apostles were already ministers of the true sacrament of baptism, they had not first received that same sacrament. It follows that both opinions are held with neither a weak nor a firm and settled decree. Moreover, scholastics disagree even about the form of that baptism. The Master and Adrianus think the Apostles baptized then in the name of the Trinity, something I cannot persuade myself to believe. Others teach that they baptized in the name of Iesus Christus, which is more plausible. Such disagreement about the form of baptism is foreign to the certainty of dogma. The theologians therefore did not intend to establish anything certain about this matter. The words of Divus Thomas do not indicate anything else, if read attentively. “It seems,” he says, “that baptism was instituted before the Passion of Christ,” and so on. Divus Thomas generally uses this word when the matter is not clear and settled. I therefore think that when D. Thomas said “it seems,” he meant exactly that: it only seems so, not that it must be so. What would an otherwise prudent and serious man have defined about a matter he understood did not pertain to faith? For it cannot be established with certainty from sacred writings or the institutions of the Apostles that the baptism in use among the Apostles immediately after their conversion remitted sins and conferred grace.

For the words Augustinus cites, “He who has bathed needs only to wash his feet, but is entirely clean,” should not be understood about cleansing through baptism, but about what follows: “You are already clean because of the word that I have spoken to you.” What some cite—“I did not know him; but he who sent me to baptize in water told me, ‘The one on whom you see the Spirit descending and remaining is he who baptizes in the Holy Spirit’”—does not compel this conclusion either; even those who misuse that testimony readily admit as much. It is established that the Apostles baptized in Ioannes 3 and 4, and, as is well known, not with the baptism of Ioannes; therefore, they baptized with Christ’s baptism. This is the Master’s argument. But the argument is too weak and uncertain to establish anything firm and certain. For “the baptism of Ioannes” can be understood in two ways: as baptism administered at the institution and by the authority of Ioannes, or as baptism with water, such as Ioannes’s baptism was, namely a kind of meditation and preparation for the sacrament of the new law. “The baptism of Christ” can likewise mean either baptism administered at Christ’s command and by his authority, or baptism instituted by Christ to wash away sins. It can therefore be said, without absurdity, that the baptism of the Apostles mentioned in Ioannes 3 and 4 was not that of Ioannes the Baptist in the first sense, but only in the second. It was Christ’s baptism because the Apostles baptized by his command and authority. If someone concludes from this that it was already the true sacrament of the new law, he will by the same reasoning argue that the anointing used by the Apostles before the Passion was from the beginning the true and proper sacrament of extreme unction. Some theologians have asserted this, but it is not settled. Among serious and genuine theologians, it is a dogma of faith that extreme unction is a sacrament; they consider it irrelevant whether it was instituted before or after Christ’s Passion. They think the same about the sacraments of confirmation and penance. I do not see why we should think differently about baptism or suppose that it is a question of faith whether this sacrament was instituted before Christ’s Passion. It is easy to say that it was instituted, and theologians generally speak that way; but who has shown this to be true with suitable arguments? Moreover, Theophylactus in his commentary on Ioannes 3 and Chrysostomus, homilia in Ioannem 28, explicitly deny that the baptism we are discussing was a sacrament that remitted sins and conferred grace. Hieronymus, in his dialogue against the Luciferians, after distinguishing two baptisms, perfect and imperfect, teaches clearly enough that before the Cross and Resurrection there was no perfect baptism; Ioannes’s baptism was therefore imperfect. Leo, in his letter to the bishops of Sicily, also seems entirely to support those who maintained that the sacrament of baptism was issued and established not when Christ was baptized by Ioannes but after the Resurrection. I have said these things, candid Reader, not to disapprove of the school’s common opinions. For we use that theology most in which matters that do not differ greatly from the common opinion are stated. What, then, is my point? First, we want an opinion to be distinguished and recognized as distinct from a dogma. Second, theologians must be warned to pronounce on these matters not from a passing and temporary inclination of the mind, but with a mature judgment, especially when it cannot readily be determined whether they pertain to faith. ¹

For if we wished to add to the example just given the arguments and scriptural testimonies by which the opposing side might attack the school’s common opinion, the question might become so ambiguous on both sides that it would be difficult to judge which agrees more with faith and religion. But, as I said, I am not now disputing whether the school’s common opinion is true or false. Although this may not be entirely outside my purpose, I am concerned to show that scholastic opinions must be distinguished from decrees, and questions of faith from those matters that shift this way and that and can be disputed on either side without loss of piety. We must hold decrees firmly and defend them carefully; opinions are different. They should be held not with the Academic but with Christian restraint. Fight for the faith, even at risk of life; if you wish, fight for matters that are not of faith, but let the fight be bloodless. Anyone who observes these rules may argue nobly, seriously, and with spirit; may judge steadfastly; and may do so truly and usefully for both the learned and the unlearned. “Why,” you will ask, “have these matters been repeated at such length, not only far from the topic but with such long detours?” To explain what was stated briefly in the conclusions of the preceding chapter: we have sworn allegiance not to the school’s opinions but to its certain and settled judgments on faith and morals. This topic must defend those judgments; the opinions belong to another place and time. With these points explained, the third argument can, I think, readily be refuted. I deny that the school has by a certain and settled decree established that marriage contracted without a minister of the Church is truly and properly a sacrament. I deny that the matter pertains to faith and religion. I deny that all the school’s theologians have asserted it. Once I establish these three points, the argument will have been refuted in every respect. I will therefore show first that this common opinion is not a firm dogma or judgment of the school. How can this be understood? Because the theologians discuss this matter in such a way that they do not seem to want to settle anything. Read the Master, D. Thomas, Scotus, Bonaventura, Richardus, Paludanus, Durandus, and the other scholastic theologians; if you do not immediately find their minds hanging and wavering, then judge me foolish or rash. When they ask whether marriage confers grace—the point that most needed to be settled there—they do not define it, but instead report the views held by people. They are likewise so inconsistent and varied, so uncertain and ambiguous, in determining the matter and form of this sacrament, that anyone would be foolish to try to establish anything certain, settled, and verified amid such diversity and disagreement. If theologians speak ambiguously and inconsistently, and define nothing, about the form and matter of the sacrament, one of the most serious matters in the treatment of the sacraments, why should we admit that they prescribed something certain on a question that is less important and less necessary to the constitution of this sacrament? The Council of Florence certainly prescribed nothing about the matter, form, or minister of the sacrament of marriage. It would undoubtedly have done so, as it did for all the other sacraments of the Church, if it had seen that the theologians had established anything about these matters in the school. Further, theologians neither explicitly and properly raised the question whether marriage without an ecclesiastical minister is a sacrament of the new law, nor investigated it by the method and reasoning they usually use, nor concluded it with any arguments. Anyone who wants to say they pronounced with certainty on theological matters without careful inquiry, diligent treatment, or suitable arguments should take care not to insult them and at the same time undermine the credibility of the most serious matters. ²

Add that in the writings of councils and decretal letters of Supreme Pontiffs, not every simple affirmation or denial is a certain and established judgment. Certain distinctive marks let us recognize the definite decisions of councils and Pontiffs, as was explained more fully in book 5; we must use these marks, even more carefully, to distinguish the school’s decrees. Otherwise, if every simple assertion of scholastics were a certain dogma of faith, their authority would be greater than that of Pontiffs and councils. Since no one can prove this, everyone must accept at least that theologians defined absolutely nothing on this question. They neither called the contrary opinion heretical or erroneous nor said that what they asserted must be firmly embraced by Catholics; in short, they gave none of the signs that usually indicate certain and settled judgments. Thus what first had to be established has been: on the matter we are discussing, theologians decreed nothing with certainty or constancy; through uncertain and inconsistent opinion, the others followed the probable view of one man. Their common agreement may therefore have arisen by chance. The opposite could also have happened: if the first had asserted that not every marriage of the faithful is a sacrament, but only one solemnly and sacredly constituted, the second, third, and the rest might have followed the same opinion because it too was probable. It follows that I must show that whatever theologians happen to think, it does not pertain to faith whether a marriage of this sort is or is not a sacrament of the Church. One argument, I think, settles this easily and clearly. Three things establish that something pertains to faith: it is written in the sacred books, handed down in apostolic institutions, or clearly inferred from certain premises and consequences of either kind. None of these can establish that a marriage contracted without a minister and sacred rites is a sacrament of the new law. Even if all the Thomists and Scotists stood against me, and younger theologians joined the ancients in fighting me, I would still prevail. Not everything, as some think, depends on theologians’ authority. There is a truth so evident that nothing can weaken it. Let those who would speak against me test their strength; when sacred Scripture, apostolic traditions, and the school’s syllogisms have failed them in this case, they will understand with me, unless unlearned and dull, that this question does not pertain to faith. Someone may argue that the marriage of the faithful is a sacrament of the new law, and there is no greater reason for one marriage than another; therefore every marriage of the faithful is a sacrament. Would such a person be called a theologian, or even worthy of the name? Reasoning in this way would make him neither theologian nor philosopher nor even dialectician. Do serious theologians reason so? Do they decide matters of faith on these arguments? I know baptism is a sacrament, but without sacred form or minister it is baptism, not a sacrament. I acknowledge the sacrament of unction, but without sacred form and a minister of the Church there may be an anointing, not a sacrament. I embrace the sacrament of penance, but without sacred form and minister I find penance, not a sacrament. ^{3 4}

Thus, although marriage is a sacrament, we are not obliged to revere every marriage, but only one that has sacred form and is consecrated by a true minister of the Church. Otherwise, if every marriage of the faithful must necessarily be a sacrament according to theologians, who will defend Scotus, who denies that marriages contracted by nods alone are sacraments? The Master, Divus Thomas, and the Council of Florence teach that every sacrament consists of words, without which no sacrament is effected. If gestures could replace a sacrament’s words of form, a mute priest could absolve from sins and a mute bishop initiate someone into sacred orders. Moreover, marriage is sometimes contracted through no gestures other than sexual intercourse: after betrothal, bride and groom unite with marital affection, and jurists and theologians all admit that a true marriage is thereby formed. But it is absurd to call sexual union itself properly a sacrament of the new law. The Holy Spirit and sacramental grace are not given through intercourse. 32. quaest. 2. cap. connubia. The Church therefore does not teach that every marriage of the faithful is a sacrament. Unless someone is so foolish as to condemn Caietanus, who, most probably and in my judgment most truly, denied that a marriage contracted by letters and agents between absent parties is a sacrament. Those who cry that Caietanus erred do not understand what they say or assert. If they persist in refuting opinions with foolish, disruptive shouts instead of suitable, necessary arguments, and condemn what has been said probably and truly, we shall sit quietly and laugh at their folly. Let them grant that one sacrament is received on behalf of another when someone contracts for another; let them grant that Christ’s sacraments are administered to absent people, conferring grace and remitting sins for them. Since these claims are absurd, we prefer not to grant that contracts made between absent parties are true marriages but not true sacraments. These points show not only that it is no dogma of faith that every marriage of the faithful is a sacrament, but also that the contrary opinion is more probable. If Scotus and Caietanus were permitted, as they were, to exclude from the Church’s sacraments marriages contracted by signs rather than words, or through agents, what religious obligation binds us to say that a marriage contracted civilly and profanely in the manner of Jews, Saracens, and pagans, without sacred ceremonies or a Church minister, is properly a sacrament? Especially since the contrary opinion is more probable, easier for defending the Catholic faith, and stronger for repelling Lutheran attacks. Since my discourse has brought me here, let us try to persuade the reader by the same arguments that persuaded me that such a marriage is not properly a sacrament—that is, neither a sign of sanctification nor a cause of it in those who worthily receive it. I hope this labor will not be in vain, since arguments, testimonies, and the whole nature of the sacraments agree with me. First, I have persuaded myself that sacraments properly so called are sacred rites of religion. Sacred rites belong to religion, by which we worship God; a sacrament is therefore an act of religion. In the sacraments too we profess that we ⁵

seek salvation from God our Savior. This outward profession of inward faith belongs to the virtue by which we worship God; sins in abusing sacraments oppose religion. Augustinus defines not every sign of a sacred thing as a sacrament, but a sacred sign. Sacraments are thus sacred acts of divine worship. Marriage contracted civilly and profanely by the mere words of a man and woman, although it signifies a sacred thing, is not a sacred act of religion and is therefore not properly a sacrament. Otherwise, the bronze serpent and manna would be sacraments, as would everything instituted to signify sacred things. Since this is absurd, let us agree that marriages without a sacred minister and religious ceremony are not sacraments of Christianity. Further, after listing the seven sacraments of the new law, the Council of Florence says all are completed by three things: things as matter, words as form, and the person of the minister who confers the sacrament. If any is lacking, the sacrament is not completed. But the marriage in question has no sacramental minister, so no sacrament is effected. We should not listen to those who say the man and woman are each other’s ministers; I could refute them plainly were I not hastening to weightier matters. The faithful do not consider themselves sacrilegious if they lack grace when contracting this profane marriage. Their minds therefore recognize it is not a sacrament of the Church. If it were, marrying in mortal sin would be sacrilege; an excommunicate contracting it would be doubly sacrilegious, unworthily intruding on sacraments from which the Church had deprived him. This plainly conflicts with the faithful’s common understanding. Augustinus also teaches in his letter to Bonifacius that the bodily things constituting sacraments must bear the image and likeness of the sanctification of which they are signs and causes. Baptism’s outward washing figures the spiritual cleansing it effects; the Eucharist’s visible food and drink foreshadow invisible refreshment. Likewise, the other sacraments present inward sanctification by outward action. But civil, profane marriage bears no image of sanctification and is not presented to sanctify under an outward appearance of holiness; it is therefore not properly a sacrament. The Council of Florence further teaches, as all theologians decree, that every sacrament consists of words as its form. A sacrament is completed by its form, as human form makes a human being and whiteness makes something white; every sacrament must exist by its sacred form. But civil, profane marriage has no sacred words, and thus not even the semblance of a sacrament. Nor can the words of those marrying—“I take you as my own,” and so on—be its form. First, the recipient’s words

may be the matter but not the form of a sacrament. Form proceeds from the agent to the recipient through instrumental causes. The forms of sacraments therefore come from God through sacred ministers to their recipients. This is evident by induction from every unquestioned sacrament. Further, although a sacrament’s matter may be a material thing previously used by people, its form must be supernatural, its force and meaning arising from a higher cause, not nature. A sacrament is supernatural, so its form must be received through faith, not nature. But “I take you as my own” is entirely natural and used by all peoples, including those who contract without faith. A sacrament’s form also signifies the spiritual effect it causes: sacraments, as the school’s proverb says, effect what they signify, and this meaning shines especially in the form. Those words signify no spiritual effect. Moreover, sacramental forms are prescribed by divine institution and cannot be altered at human discretion, as D. Thomas demonstrates in the third part. No words for contracting marriage have been defined; countless varied and dissimilar verbal forms can make such a contract. The words used by bride and groom are therefore not a Christian sacrament’s form. Further, if words are a sacrament’s form, replacing them with gesture, writing, or any sign makes the action empty. Yet those contracting can replace words with gestures or writing and form a marriage just as well as with a thousand words. This is no small argument that the parties’ words are the sacrament’s matter. The recipient may administer its matter but not its form; when words serve as matter in one sacrament and form in another, gestures and other signs can replace words serving as matter, but not those serving as form. This is clear in penance. The contracting parties’ words, for which other signs may be substituted, might be sacramental matter, but cannot be its form. The name “sacrament” is also usually applied to the matter, not the form, as D. Thomas teaches in 4. Sen., d.1, q.1, art. 1; q.5, art. 1 and dist. 3, q.1, ar.1; q.1, ad 2. Baptism, that is, washing, is a sacrament, not “I baptize you”; likewise unction, confirmation, and penance. But the contracting parties’ words are called the sacrament, as the same author testifies in additionum q.44 art. I ad I. We say marriage is a sacrament, but marriage is the contract formed by both parties’ words. Their words are therefore the matter, not the form. Who does not see that the younger theologians invented false claims to defend this civil human contract as a sacrament of Christ and the Church? Most are foolish to unbelievers and not solid to the faithful. One says the parties are the matter; another, their consent; another, the gestures and nods used by the man and woman in addition to words,

another claims the first speaker’s words are the matter and the second speaker’s the form. If only they said these things seriously, truly, and probably, so heretics would not rightly laugh at them! Why philosophize thinly, even ridiculously, about a grave matter? Why so much variation and inconsistency on what is necessary to faith and religion? Hieronymus says what varies can never be true; again, “That which varies is not true,” even slanderers attest. We ask about a sacrament’s matter and form—that is, things sacred by religion—while they answer about the matter and form of a profane natural contract. Pagans disputing that contract would speak no differently. Thus Luther wittily mocked theologians for making the sacrament of our religion complete from things entirely found in pagan marriages. That the matter and form of a civil natural contract, always used under every law by faithful and unbelievers alike, are precisely those constituting our religion’s perfect sacraments: scarcely anyone, not even Luther, could be persuaded of this unless so prejudiced that opinion prevailed without reason. When preparing to answer Luther’s many arguments against this sacrament, I do not undertake to defend a marriage of this sort—with no sacred appearance and not even conceivable as univocally a sacrament alongside the others—as a sacrament. Whether our opinion is true or false, if Lutherans debate this sort of marriage, they should understand that they have entered school disputes; a Catholic need not answer their arguments. But if they argue that marriage administered with sacred ceremonies, matter and form, and a sacred minister—as in the Roman Church from the Apostles onward—is not a sacrament, a Catholic should answer confidently and defend it boldly. He can give reasons consistent with the Church’s firm, perpetual teaching, commend our faith gently to the faithful, and defend it against unbelievers’ slanders. I would gladly undertake this debate with the Lutherans if this book’s purpose allowed. I have digressed beyond what the argument required. Yet it is no digression to insist that what can be argued probably on either side should be referred not to Catholic faith but to school opinions. This could have been said in fewer words, but words do not always match the matter exactly. I added many arguments that marriage without a Church minister is no sacrament, to show that the question does not pertain to faith, as I promised. Attend, Reader, as I settle the last point: not all scholastic theologians agreed with this opinion, as the argument

claims. Indeed, serious authorities agree with us. Guillermus Parisiensis, libro de sacra. tracta. de Matrimonio c. 9. q. 1, denies that marriage is properly a sacrament or has sacramental power unless consecrated by priestly ministry. I omit the Master and Durandus, who generally hold that marriage does not confer grace; they would not have erred here unless the common opinion were strongly against them. The Fathers of the Council of Cologne also deny that clandestine marriage is properly a sacrament. They assert that one word contracts marriage and another effects its sacrament; mutual-consent words do not suffice. Another word is needed which, as in other sacraments, joins the element and makes the sacrament; it must be of faith, not nature. Their view is difficult not to approve. I do not approve that they fail to seek the sacrament’s form where Catholics always have: the Church’s rites and words are found most safely and certainly in the Roman Church’s perpetual custom. This is not the place to discuss it; perhaps later we shall explain this sacrament’s proper matter and form. Now to our subject. Petrus Paludanus, 4. sent. dist. 5. q. 2, also adopts our view, though imprudently. He does not believe that a man and woman who contract civilly, even as sinners without penance, commit sacrilege. This would be improbable if such marriage were a true Church sacrament; everyone agrees that receiving Christ’s sacraments after mortal sin without penance is sacrilege. D. Thomas, though generally following common opinions in his writings, was finally compelled by truth and reason to support ours. In 4 dist. 1, q. 1, art. 3, after teaching words are necessary in every sacrament, he raises a fifth objection: “Penance and marriage are sacraments, but neither has words as part of its integrity.” He answers that marriage as a duty and penance as a virtue have no verbal form; but as sacraments consisting in the Church ministers’ dispensation, each has words. So D. Thomas. In 4. lib. adversus gent., c. 78, he likewise teaches marriage is a sacrament only when dispensed through Church ministers: “What is dispensed to the people through Church ministers is called a sacrament. Marriage, insofar as it is the union of man and woman intending to generate and educate children for God’s worship, is therefore a Church sacrament. Hence Church ministers give a blessing to those marrying.” The Fathers’ testimony likewise shows marriage was held properly a sacrament only when priestly ministry intervened: Calixtus’s letter to all bishops of Gaul; Cyricius to Cumerius, bishop of Tarraco, cap. 4; Nicolaus, 31. q. 2. c. Lotharius; and Hormisda, Evaristus, and Isidorus, as Gratianus reports, 30. q. 5. So the Council of Carthage, 4. c. 13, cited in 30. q. 5. c. sponsus; the Council of Lyon, cited in 35. q. 3. c. Nulli; and the Lateran Council, de

symo. c. cum in ecclesiae corpore; the Council of Constance under Martinus V at its conclusion; Clemens, de privile. Religiosi; and Ambrosius, lib. 1. epi. epist. 1, to Vigilius. I neither quote nor examine their testimonies, since that debate belongs elsewhere. Evaristus not only refuses to acknowledge as a Church sacrament a clandestine marriage without a priest, but calls it an adulterous union. Almost all jurists also agree with us. When they deny that marriage confers grace, they mean a civil contract, which they call a sacrament in the broader sense. When priestly administration is added, jurists clearly teach that grace is conferred through the consecrating priest’s act. Therefore no payment may be accepted, because it is an ecclesiastical sacrament. Here jurists speak more probably, I think, than theologians, though some learned, serious theologians have also rejected the others’ common opinion. If anyone still opposes us, he must not immediately condemn our claims but refute them by a suitable argument. I do not claim never to approve anything false, but I do not assert what I discuss arrogantly or make my judgment the rule; I support it with saints’ testimony or probable, consistent reasoning. I may rightly ask learned men to judge me only after examining the case. If they prove my view false by argument, I shall gladly accept it. But no one can readily defeat me by assertion alone. Enough about the school’s authority. ⁶

ON THE AUTHORITY OF EXPERTS IN PONTIFICAL LAW

This book could now close, except that theology is joined with expertise in pontifical law, so we must explain how much experts in this law help a theologian’s arguments. Some are so hostile to learned men in this field that they exclude their authority from theology. We shall briefly show how much a theologian should value these teachers, beginning with this principle: theologians who do not know the Pontiffs’ canons lack too much of what theology needs. If care of souls is not foreign to theologians, but rather governing souls is their special task, knowledge of canon law is necessary. Just as no one should be chosen as abbot unless competently instructed in the rule, so governing a church should not be entrusted to someone ignorant of its rules. A theologian who is to become a bishop or parish priest, if he has not first learned the canons by which the faithful are instructed in the Christian religion and the Church’s ceremonies, will not have a sufficiently equipped workshop of theology for this public task.

This same rule appears in the passages from Caelestinus, Leo, Augustinus, the seventh synod, the Council of Carthage, the fourth Council of Toledo, and the fourth Council of Orléans, cited in part by Gratianus and in part by Burchardus: priests should know the ecclesiastical canons. Bishops’ need for canon-law knowledge is clear from c. Accedentibus, de excelsi. praelat., where the Pontiff defines that it belongs to a bishop to judge matrimonial cases, impose or remove public penances, and grant indulgences. Unless he knows whether and to what extent the law permits these acts, he cannot perform them rightly. Innocentius, Hostiensis, Antonius de Butrio, Cardinalis, Abbas, and other jurists discuss this at length in c. Cum in cunctis, de electio.; cap. Nisi cum pridem, de renun.; and cap. 1, de consanguini. et affini.; as do Gratianus, 21 dist.; Cosmus, in pragma. sanctione Gallicana, titu. de collatio., Taliter; Ioannes de Anania, in cap. quia nonnullis, de magistris; Augustinus de Ancona, lib. de potestate eccles., quaest. 108, art. 3; and Antonius, 3 part., titu. 5, cap. 2. We add nothing more here, but argue that canon-law knowledge is absolutely necessary for theologians. Since their proper task is to exhort the faithful in sound doctrine, and they are called teachers of souls, it is absurd to remove the canons from their charge: the Church’s teacher must instruct the people in ecclesiastical as well as divine laws. Although most precepts for living are taught in Scripture, as Cardinal Turrecremata says in the preface to the Decretum, particular instruction about conduct according to each rank and Church office requires knowledge of ecclesiastical law. Moral sermons cannot be complete if they are general rather than particular, as Aristoteles warns in his Ethics. To complete ecclesiastical discipline, theologians must learn the Church’s sacred laws. This is strongly confirmed by the Lateran Council under Innocentius III, cap. Quia nonnullis, de Magistris. It commands a cathedral theologian to teach priests sacred Scripture and especially to form them in matters concerning care of souls. The canons contain many such rules, and theologians must know them. All doctrine inspired by God is useful for teaching, refuting, and correcting, so the man of God may be perfect and equipped for good work. Ecclesiastical canons were issued by the Holy Spirit’s prompting, as Damasus says in 25 quaestione prima, cap. Violatores. Supreme Pontiffs and bishops also enlist theologians as assistants in preaching, hearing confessions, imposing penances, and related duties concerning salvation, as cap. Inter caetera, de offi. iudi. ordina., and experience show. Hardly anyone can hear confessions and impose penances without legal expertise. As for Caietanus’s claim that penitents under excommunication, suspension, irregularity, and similar penalties should be referred to jurists so the confessor is not overburdened with another discipline, I do not see how this can be done without great inconvenience.

First, women sometimes incur legal penalties. It would be absurd for them to visit jurists’ homes as a remedy for conscience, and scarcely consistent with feminine modesty. Second, since jurists usually sell their knowledge and words, one could not approach confession without first paying. People are sometimes afraid to disclose sins even to a priest; sending them also to jurists would make this sacrament’s burden too heavy for the weak. Why list the difficulties confessors, and therefore penitents, must encounter if confessors are ignorant of the canons? They are too obvious to need explanation. Legal expertise must be very useful to theologians. No need to seek distant arguments: we see how many canons fill theologians’ volumes, especially those who wrote indexes of questions, which we call summaries. Their readers, even judges of outstanding learning, can judge how much canon law helps theologians. If the materials drawn from canon law were removed, Caietanus’s own Summa would be largely incomplete. Matrimonial cases are referred to theologians more often than any others. If a theologian does not answer, he will be considered unlearned; if he answers without legal expertise, he is imprudent, not to say shameless. As Alexander teaches, such cases are not for just anyone but for discreet men who know the canons. Decrees of the Supreme Pontiffs are also believed to flow from divine law, from both Testaments. Since theology draws from the same sources, a theologian would act foolishly if he refused the Pontiffs’ works: after seeking counsel and with the Holy Spirit’s prompting, they gathered from divine oracles dogmas and laws about faith, Christian conduct, and ecclesiastical rites. Theology does not only contemplate; it also acts. In school terminology, it is partly speculative and partly practical, as Divus Thomas shows. Canon law is a practical theology, as Alvarus Pelagius teaches: its end is to direct souls to eternal salvation by canonical laws, and the Decretals contain many cases useful for counseling souls, the tribunal of penance, and governing churches. That book treats baptism, sacred unction, Mass, marriage, orders and other sacraments; monastic life, clerical conduct, vows and oaths; simony, perjury, usury, theft and other crimes; irregularity, suspension, excommunication, interdict and similar penalties. Ignorant of these, a theologian will not only be an ignoramus, as Innocentius calls him in cap. Ex multa, de voto, but will err in many matters, especially Christian conduct. Would that theologians wholly ignorant of canon law refrained from deciding cases of conscience, instead of being laughed at when they answer as teachers matters they never learned as students; or at least consulted jurists instead of guessing.

It would be easy to show how many errors some theologians have made through ignorance of pontifical law, were it not a long task and our discussion were not moving on. Let us accept the point established: canon-law knowledge is very necessary for a theologian, especially because the authority of the Supreme Pontiff and councils, contained in this discipline’s volumes, supplies arguments proper to theology, as we showed in the two preceding books.

Even after establishing this, it is not yet clear how interpreters and teachers of law can help theologians in their discussions, or what arguments their authority supplies for theological disputation. Since no one has touched on this even briefly, I shall explain it as best I can, perhaps without polish but clearly enough to be understood. Pontifical-law volumes address various subjects. First, they profess and explain Catholic faith, as in titu. de sum. trini. Next, they define conduct and Christian religion insofar as evangelical law or natural reason permits, as in titu. de usura, de iureiurando, de divortiis, de symonia. They also discuss ecclesiastical conduct, religious ceremonies, and Church ministers’ offices insofar as these are arranged by positive laws. We willingly use school terminology and do not fear grammarians’ censures. Otherwise, as Aristoteles says, weighty matters are sometimes disfigured by verbal polish and excessive attention to ornament. This is why I use the school’s familiar speech, lest scholastic theologians rightly laugh at me as they do at those who speak the purest Latin. Yet I know serious judgments in rough words especially offend refined ears, so I generally use a clean style, neither irritating nor over-elaborate, just enough to avoid rustic carelessness. To the point: I have called human laws about ecclesiastical rites and conduct “positive.” Many occur in titu. de celebra. Missa., de cleri. peregrini. coniugatis, etc.; c. de aetate et qualit. ordin.; de obser. ieiun.; lib. I Decre., de officiis iudicum; and lib. 2, de ordine iudiciario. Finally, pontifical laws prescribe penalties for violators of evangelical, natural, or ecclesiastical laws, as in titu. de esco., de rapto, de apost., de haereti. First conclusion. On this basis: in matters of faith, a theologian does not need jurists’ authority. Rather, a jurist must borrow from a theologian the exposition of titles that decide matters of faith. The reason is plain. If Pontiffs or councils in legal volumes define anything concerning faith, they must, as we explained elsewhere, have gathered it not from their own understanding but from Scripture and the traditions of Christ and the Apostles. The principles from which they decide questions of faith properly belong to theology, whose task is to know what God revealed and what follows from those principles or ^{1 2 3}

From this disagreement it is plainly established that in such matters the interpretation of the sacred canons must be sought from theologians, not jurists. The fathers, to whom knowledge of the faith has been entrusted, readily acknowledge this. For no one is condemned on a charge of heresy before theologians have defined that the matter under judgment is heresy. Since this is so, I do not see why our own people now allow theologians the last part, if not no part at all, in examining questions of faith, while jurists receive the first part or even all of it. The chief task in this examination is to determine what heresy is, what makes someone a heretic, what the faith holds, what conflicts with the faith, and how far the defendant’s claim opposes sound and Catholic teaching. The commonwealth has appointed judges to determine the defendants’ penalties, which is the later task; but for the earlier and more serious task in a matter of faith, the commonwealth has no theologians appointed as senators, whose judgment of guilt jurists might follow when they judge penalties. May Christ, whose cause this is, grant that Christian princes, who are usually eager to support this work by which faith and religion are upheld, complete what they have begun and add the most esteemed theologians—indeed, the most esteemed—to the highest tribunal, so that this divine matter may be governed to perfection. If this is done for the Church, nothing will be lacking in the most holy and especially necessary office of the Inquisition. But enough about the first conclusion. Let us now proceed to the rest. Second conclusion. Even in matters of morals, insofar as either evangelical law or philosophical reason prescribes on such matters, the authority of jurists can contribute little or certainly nothing to the theologian. On the contrary, jurists must borrow from theologians a sound and correct understanding of these matters. Just as a musician takes the rationale of his conclusions from the arithmetician, because those conclusions derive from the principles of arithmetic, so too the theologian will recognize as received from proper principles, and will understand and interpret more correctly, any moral teachings that canon law derives either from the Gospel or from philosophy. From this it is easy to infer that certain jurists are in great error and ignorance of the truth when they assert that, in matters of usury, simony, and others of this kind involving mortal sin, one should consult jurists rather than theologians. Ancharranus held this error in the disputation beginning Antiquis et modernis temporibus; Ioannes de Anania in cap. In civitate, De usuris; Alexander in consilio primo; Alvarus Pelagius, li. 2 art. 20; and Hostiensis in cap. penul., De aeta. et quali. ordi. Yet they are not difficult to refute. Since knowledge of Sacred Scripture properly belongs to the theologian, whatever about morals is contained in Sacred Scripture or can be derived from it by a certain connection, wherever a theologian finds it, he will claim as his own, while the jurist will borrow it as another’s. Again, since theologians also possess the principles of philosophy—for they discuss at length virtues and vices, the end of human life, and the actions by which that end is reached, and build the structure of morals on foundations laid in these matters—whatever law prescribes about morals on principles established by natural reason, the theologian will surely claim by his own right and will hand it on, explained and clarified, to jurists. Third conclusion. In the third class of matters, where the customs of the Church and the institutions of religion are determined only by pontifical laws, and also in the final class, where legal penalties are prescribed, the common agreement and harmonious ^{4 5}

judgment of all jurists should inspire great confidence in the theologian whenever a question about such matters arises. For example, if it is in doubt whether a particular person is irregular, excommunicated, under interdict, or suspended; likewise, whether a delegate can subdelegate, whether a bishop can dispense in this or that matter, to use the language of the schools, whether a shepherd of the Church was duly elected, or whether an ecclesiastical judge lawfully decided a case in court. In these and hundreds of other matters of this kind, a theologian would be most arrogant if he judged what he does not know, and even more arrogant if, after consulting jurists, he opposed the authority of them all. For, as we have often said elsewhere, no one has more certain and better expertise in any matter than those skilled in that very matter. Therefore, one must trust the most learned in their own art. It would surely be rash not to trust those learned in pontifical law about matters proper to that discipline. Further, in interpreting canons of this sort, the Church’s judges and officials embrace the unanimous judgment of all jurists. For if anyone were guided by his own opinion, rather than the common judgment of all jurists, in ecclesiastical proceedings or courts, the Church would surely discipline him by its own judgment. Thus, by approving the practice of judges, the Church seems also to approve the understanding of those whom the judges follow in administering the Church. Nor is it an unreasonable inference that Christ the Lord is in some way present to experts in this law as they interpret ecclesiastical laws. Since the sacred canons were issued for the Church’s benefit at the prompting of the Holy Spirit, as Pope Damasus defines, it is fitting that the Church, which needs those canons in order to be governed in religion and ecclesiastical morals, has received from God sound interpreters of the laws and institutions by which it is administered. For it would have been of little use to have dead laws written on parchment if the Christian commonwealth had no living interpreters to grasp their correct meaning. Since God does not fail in what is necessary, he has poured out the spirit of truth not only on theologians but also on experts in pontifical law. Therefore, from the unanimous judgment of all, a theologian may draw a most probable argument for deciding questions that arise in the two classes of matters placed second. Many questions will arise in both classes, and theologians must know their resolution, especially those who hear the confessions of laypeople and clergy, or teach theology in universities. Since they bear the great responsibility of answering questions about many matters that depend on law, they will sometimes err dangerously and shamefully if they neglect the answers and rulings of jurists. Questions brought to experts in their respective arts are answered with little or certainly no danger. I think I have said enough about the seventh source. Now let us refute the arguments of our opponents.

ON THE EIGHTH SOURCE, WHICH CONTAINS ARGUMENTS FROM NATURAL REASON