De convenientia institutorum Romanae Ecclesiae cum Evangelica libertate

1. The account of absolute liberty having been confirmed and constituted, we must define into what parts liberty is to be divided.

2. Therefore, since liberty includes a certain negation of violence and necessity: while, I say, it has a way toward diverse things tending to one end, and into either part of contradiction as we have exposed; to their number, which are accustomed to infer force and necessity, the parts of liberty are to be bounded. For all these negations have this in common, that they are to be defined by the number of affirmations to which they naturally repugn. For five negations of the senses there are, if we posit the senses at some time, which no one ignores. For just as the one negation of visual virtue is called blindness, so also hearing has its negation, which can be called deafness. The same is to be said of the other senses.

3. But violence is threefold: likewise necessity is threefold.

4. For some violence is absolute and perfect in every part: namely that by which we are driven and urged to some certain thing by so immobile a necessity that we can by no reason diverge from it; for while I am detained somewhere by someone with repugnant will, I suffer violence. While the name of happy is offered to me, and it is asked of me whether I wish to be happy, I cannot renounce the condition of happiness, but am drawn into such a necessity that I cannot will misery. One species of liberty therefore is that which excludes all this violence and all absolute necessity. For thus is he said to be free in acting, on whom no violence, no necessity of acting weighs. But this species of liberty is also divided twofold: One liberty is that which eliminates both violence and absolute necessity; and this claims for itself the account of perfect liberty, which we defined in the preceding chapter. The other truly is that which wards off all violence, yet admits some necessity of natural inclination. For in the appetite for happiness, the account of the first liberty is by no means found, when the will of all is affected by a certain natural desire. But by the other species of liberty we will to be happy: because not by violence, but by appetite of inclination we desire to be happy.

5. Another necessity is that which has the account of imperfect necessity, since it is rather some impulse than necessity: yet it participates in the account of necessity by this reason, that it is a great inconvenience and impediment to living well and fruitfully: such are sacrileges, thefts, adulteries, and other vices of that kind, which by their own weight draw to perdition. This necessity, or if you prefer to call it an impediment to well-doing of life, another species of liberty excludes, which we call liberty from sin.

6. Third necessity is that which also participates imperfectly in the account of necessity: which, I say, by its weight injects difficulty into the expediting of a good work: as happens in sickness, as in misfortunes of fortune, as in domestic troubles. This necessity, or this impediment of free action, the third species of liberty explodes, which is called liberty from misery. For sickness, misfortunes, troubles of mind make a man miserable.

7. Threefold therefore is the genus of liberty: from necessity; from sin; from misery. To these that same liberty could also be added which the Apostle Paul, writing to the Romans, calls liberty from justice¹. But this, if we consider the thing itself, is more rightly called servitude than liberty. For since every will is by nature prone to good, and never insinuates itself into evil unless it is deceived by some species of good; that liberty which removes impediments to living well cannot be worthy of the account of true liberty. But that which shakes off impediment to perdition of morals, that is not true liberty, but bears a certain species of liberty, while justice being rejected, which like a bridle moderated the sicknesses of the human mind, we acquire a certain license of living badly.

8. Others also bring forth modes of liberty from² Bernard³. For with him are: liberty of free choice, liberty of counsel, liberty of good pleasure. But this division of liberty is posterior, and is to be placed among material partitions. For that alone is the formal partition of liberty which is drawn from the exclusion of necessity, which the account of liberty excludes. Bernard indeed did not take species of liberty from the exclusion of necessity, but from diverse comparison to good. For that is liberty of free choice by which we choose that good which has the species of honesty by our own will. Liberty of counsel, by which we use those things which serve for happiness. Liberty of beneplacitum, by which we delight spontaneously in attaining the good⁴ Beautiful truly is this partition of liberty, but since it serves either nothing or little for our purpose, it being omitted, we shall more happily use the prior one, as the opportunity shall have offered itself.

1. It is sufficiently and more than sufficiently clear that the Evangelical liberty is the same liberty that we call Christian, since the law of Christians, by which their conduct and actions are ordered, is nothing other than the Gospel. But the Evangelical law is constituted from two things: namely, the grace of the Holy Spirit¹ and the very written text of the Gospels. Grace claims the first place in this matter. For, writing to the Romans,² the Apostle says: The law of the Spirit of life in Christ Jesus has freed me from the law of sin. Augustine also says in his book On the Spirit and the Letter³: “What are the laws of God written by God himself⁴ in hearts, if not the very presence of the Holy Spirit?” The writing of the Gospel claims the second place, since it supplies us not only with aids for acquiring grace, but also most abundantly hands on those things by which we may use the grace of the Holy Spirit in a manner worthy of it. For this very commandment—the Gospel of Christ set down in writing—most clearly explains both his divinity and his humanity, which are the subject of Christian faith, by which we are prepared for grace. In many ways, too, it exhorts us to contempt of the world, through which we are made capable of grace; moreover, it admonishes us to embrace all works of the virtues, in which the good use of grace consists. It follows that the Evangelical liberty is to be called that which the writing of the Gospel and the grace of the Holy Spirit confer upon Christians.

2. For the rest, the madness of heretics in this matter must be guarded against.⁵ They think a) that no interpreter of the Evangelical law should be accepted, and that nothing belongs to the law of Christians which is not written in those books that we call the Gospels; and they say b) that everything⁶ not contained in the Gospels, or at least in some one of Paul’s letters, must be rejected.

3. How impudently their first claim has been devised can be understood even from this: they accuse of rashness nearly countless most holy Fathers, both Greek and Latin, who have interpreted the sacred Gospels. They also condemn the Catholic Church’s observance over so many centuries, which receives interpretations of the sacred Scriptures⁷ and chants them in divine praises. Finally, they accuse themselves of wrongdoing: while rejecting all such accounts, they set themselves up as the sole investigators of the Gospels. Thus, as they strive to overthrow all expositors of Scripture, they condemn themselves as well, since they claim to act as faithful interpreters of the Gospels. But who is so mad as to wish and desire that only he himself be believed, after rejecting so many Fathers who are at once most holy and most learned?

Many things in the Gospels lie obscure and hidden; there are also some which, unless we interpret them piously and faithfully,⁸ seem to conflict with one another. For who would deny that these words of Christ in Matthew, chapter XI,⁹ need an interpreter: No one knows the Son except the Father; nor does anyone know the Father except the Son, and anyone to whom the Son wills to reveal him? In Matthew, chapter V,¹⁰ it is also said: Let your light shine before men, so that they may see your good works; then, after a few intervening words, it is added:¹¹ Take care not to perform your righteousness before men in order to be seen by them. Does not this latter statement seem to take away and erase the former? I would run out of time if I wished to list every passage in the Gospel that calls for a faithful and devout expositor. If an interpreter is needed somewhere in the sacred Scriptures,¹² should I reject those holy and most learned Doctors whom the Church accepts and venerates, in order to imitate the follies of others who depart from Christian simplicity and are alien to Christian conduct? The heretics are surely mistaken if, in such great ignorance, they expect to find followers of their inventions who will consider themselves wise.

4. Their second claim, which these same men, full of rashness, advance—that nothing not written in the New Law¹³ belongs to Christian doctrine—can easily be refuted from the sacred Scriptures and the Church’s longstanding custom.

That our Lord Jesus Christ taught many things which were not committed to writing may be inferred, indeed seen most clearly, from the words of the Apostle John. For in the final chapter of his Gospel¹⁴ he says: There are also many other things that Jesus did; if each of them were written down, I suppose the world itself could not contain the books that would have to be written. Just as many of Christ’s signs and miracles were not committed to writing, it is likewise probable that he taught many things in synagogues and cities which those who recorded his deeds omitted. How many things, too, do we believe the Apostle Paul taught while preaching the Christian faith that were not written in any of his letters? For, writing to the Thessalonians in the second chapter,¹⁵ he says: Brothers, stand firm and hold fast to the traditions you were taught, whether by word or by our letter. No one but an obstinate and arrogant person will deny that the same was true of the other Apostles. For in John, chapter XIV,¹⁶ our Savior Jesus Christ said to them: He will give you another Paraclete, to remain with you forever, the Spirit of truth. It follows that we see very many things observed in the Catholic Church which have come down to later generations by the Apostles’ tradition, as if by hereditary succession, even though they are not found written in their books.

5. Therefore Christ himself, lending authority to the Apostles’ words and ordinances, says: Whoever hears you, he says,¹⁷ hears me; and whoever rejects you rejects me. But whoever rejects me rejects him who sent me. Blessed Cyprian the martyr declares¹⁸ that these words were spoken also to all those who succeeded the Apostles in governing the Christian commonwealth. It is also said in Acts, chapter XVI,¹⁹ As they passed through the cities, they delivered to them for observance the decrees decided upon by the Apostles and elders who were in Jerusalem. Augustine says in the fifth book of On Baptism, against the Donatists:²⁰ “There are many things which the universal Church holds; these are rightly believed to have been enjoined by the Apostles, although they are not found written down.” Finally, Innocent III, a man of great renown and Supreme Pontiff, is cited in the chapter “Cum Martae,” in Decretals, book III, title 41, chapter 6:²¹ he asserts that many things done and said by the Lord were omitted by the Apostles, and that the Apostles themselves supplied them either by word or deed. As evidence for this, he cites the Apostle Paul, who, as we read in Acts of the Apostles,²² says: Remember the word of the Lord Jesus, for he himself said: It is more blessed to give than to receive. Writing also to the Corinthians,²³ Paul says: He appeared to more than five hundred brothers at once—although none of the Evangelists mentions them.

6. Therefore, by the name of the Evangelical law we understand not only²⁴ those things written in the Gospels and the canonical writings of the Apostles²⁵ but also those things done or said by the Apostles which have come down to us, as it were, through a tradition passed from hand to hand. To return, then, to the point from which we digressed: we say that Evangelical liberty is that which proceeds from this Christian law we have defined.²⁶ This liberty is twofold: one from sin, the other from the burden and subjection of the ancient law. For through the grace of the Holy Spirit, which we said holds the first place in the Evangelical law, we are freed from bondage to sin; through the written Gospel itself, we are freed from observing the ancient law, and are constrained only by those precepts without which grace cannot be possessed. The whole liberty of Christians consists in these two kinds of liberty.

1. After defining the nature of Christian liberty, it remains for us to show that it is no obstacle to this liberty for there to be one¹ supreme Pontiff in the Christian commonwealth, who regulates and governs all things by his laws.

For there are some who think that no one ought to hold supreme authority over all² in the Catholic Church; rather, they say that Christ the Bestower conferred upon the universal Church all the authority he bestowed upon the Church,³ and that it then flowed from the Church to those who hold some rank in our Christian Church.⁴

But if we consider the nature and ordering of commonwealths, it can readily be understood that there ought to be some supreme ruler in the Christian commonwealth to undertake the care and governance of Christ’s sheep. We can begin to establish this point from the fact that Christ himself, the Greatest Founder of the Christian commonwealth, had to found a commonwealth that would be the best and perfect in every respect. For since through him kings reign and lawgivers decree what is just,⁵ it is entirely reasonable that he should make that commonwealth outstanding and the most excellent of all, which he had resolved to establish himself. Who, then, would deny that the best government of a people is one over which a single governor presides? For the end of government—peace, I say, and⁶ the concord of its subjects—is reached more peacefully, agreeably, and happily through one ruler over all than through several, whose judgments can readily differ and conflict.

2. We can infer this both from things that arise by nature and from things that arise by art. In the human body there is one governing principle that gives life and motion to all the members: the heart, I say, or, if you prefer, the head. According to Avicenna, in the eighth book of On Animals,⁷ cranes have one king and leader. So that he may more easily hear approaching commotions, while the others sleep with their heads covered by their wings, he sleeps with his head uncovered. Bees, as Jerome writes to the monk Rusticus,⁸ appoint one king for themselves; unless they see him leading the swarm, they never leave the hive. On a ship there must be one helmsman. Every household has its own ruler and master. Every monastery is governed by one superior.

Finally, to bring my point to a conclusion, in every undertaking, unless there is one person whose care and diligence direct it, the work goes badly and is brought to its end with difficulty. What of this? Did not the cities of Greece, as Justin relates,⁹ lose their empire when each one sought to rule? Therefore Lucan sang well and wisely:¹⁰

«No loyalty binds partners in a kingdom, and all power is impatient of a partner.»

I think Homer spoke no less wisely when he says in Book II of the Iliad:¹¹

Οὐκ ἀγαθὸν πολυκοιρανίην · εἰς κοίρανός ἔστω, εἰς βασιλεὺς

That is: It is not good for many to rule; let there be one lord, one king.¹² The view of Pythagoras also seems to point to this. For when he established two orders of things—one of good things, the other of evil—he placed unity in the order of good things, but multiplicity and plurality in that of evil.¹³

3. If, then, the Christian commonwealth, which we call the Catholic—that is, universal—Church,¹⁴ has been constituted the best and most worthy of all, we must acknowledge that it ought to be governed by one ruler. Moreover, our Church Militant will be more like and more closely conformed to that heavenly Church, which is called Triumphant, if one Prince is appointed over it. For in that Church there is one ruler of all, namely God, the Best and Greatest. Therefore John says in the Apocalypse:¹⁵ I saw the holy city, the new Jerusalem, coming down out of heaven. Moses too had been shown that he should make the tabernacle after the likeness of the one shown to him on the mountain.¹⁶ What of this? Did not the Savior himself, Christ Jesus, declare this unity of ecclesiastical rule when he said in John 10:¹⁷ There shall be one flock and one shepherd?

4. You may perhaps say: Let the Christian commonwealth have one ruler, one head, one shepherd; it does not therefore follow that there must be one mortal man in it to act as its supreme shepherd and leader. For Christ himself, who raised this Church from its foundations, sufficiently and abundantly safeguards its dignity if he is its Prince, head, and ruler.¹⁸

But whoever invents this notion fails to see that it proceeds from a failure to consider human society—or, I should say, from ignorance of it. Is it not in keeping with our human condition that the ruler who is to govern our commonwealth should be perceptible to us through some external sense, since nearly all our activity is connected with sensible things? For God provided for all the creatures he created in accordance with their nature and condition. I ask you, then: you who cunningly try to withdraw yourself from the laws of a ruler, does Christ, who was once visible to human beings, not live invisibly to us after his Ascension into heaven? He appeared to Peter at Rome, to Paul at Damascus, and perhaps at times to some others after he had withdrawn from our sight; but he remains hidden and unknown to the multitude. It is therefore fitting and suited to our human condition that someone should hold authority over our commonwealth, live among us in some sensible fellowship, and act as the vicarious representative of its invisible head. If this is so—or rather, because reason requires it to be so—we need not fear that the rule of one man over the Christian people diminishes its liberty in any respect. For what is instituted for another’s advantage and benefit does not detract from that person’s liberty, since only that which takes away the reasoned character of his voluntary action, especially when it is right, impedes his liberty. An action that draws a person into evil should rather be said to arise from some abuse of liberty than from free will. What of this? If, as I willingly prepared to throw myself from an immense cliff, someone held me back and stopped me, would he be charged with having deprived me of my liberty? Anyone who said so would surely be mad and raving. By the same reasoning, if there is one ruler in the commonwealth whose vigilance prevents it from being thrown into confusion, torn apart, and plundered by wicked men, and who devotes all his efforts to it so that it may live peacefully and pursue goodness and virtuous conduct, he does not diminish the commonwealth’s liberty; he preserves it, increases it, and establishes it in a better condition. For, as Aristotle teaches in Book I of his Metaphysics,¹⁹ a free person is one who exists for his own sake, while a slave, by contrast, exists and acts for another’s sake. The people governed by one ruler therefore hold their ruler captive more than he holds the people: all that he does, thinks, or dreams, if he truly deserves the name of ruler, he does for the benefit of his commonwealth.

5. Those who strive to exclude the majesty of single rule from the Christian commonwealth on the ground that it seems to impede the liberty of Christians are therefore very far from the truth. As we have shown, it not only does not impede that liberty, but greatly benefits it; indeed, it benefits it so greatly that, once it is removed, the dignity, integrity, and permanence of our commonwealth cannot be preserved. For no one ignorant of human affairs fails to see that, when several heads arise in a commonwealth, the greatest discord and hostility can readily break out. Great enterprises are destroyed by discord,²⁰ and, in the words of our Savior, every kingdom divided against itself will be laid waste, and house will fall upon house.²¹ For this reason Aristotle, easily the foremost of the Peripatetics, concluded the unity of God, the Best and Greatest, by this argument in Book XII of his Metaphysics: the multitude of beings must not be badly ordered; but plurality of rulers is bad within a multitude.²²

1. We have shown by evident reasoning that the Christian Church must have one head and prince; now it must be demonstrated that Peter was appointed prince of the Catholic Church by Christ, the Most Excellent and Greatest.

The truth of this doctrine is to be learned from no other source than Christ’s own words, since he himself both founded and restored the Christian commonwealth. But because this question has been carefully examined by very many scholars, and those among them most learned indeed, it will be quite enough for me if I touch upon it, as they say, with my very fingertips.

2. Accordingly, the first Gospel passage that presents itself to confirm this truth is Matthew, chapter XVI,¹ where, after Christ had asked the disciples whom men say² the Son of Man is, and they had answered, Some say John the Baptist, others Elijah, others Jeremiah, or one of the prophets, he added: But whom do you say that I am? Peter immediately answered him: You are Christ, the Son of the living God. Then Christ said: Blessed are you, Simon Bar-Jona, because flesh and blood has not revealed this to you, but my Father who is in heaven. And I say to you: You are Peter, and upon this rock I will build my Church, and the gates of hell shall not prevail against it. And I will give you the keys of the kingdom of heaven, and whatever you bind on earth shall be bound in heaven, and whatever you loose on earth shall be loosed in heaven. — From these words it can plainly be inferred that the primacy of the Church was entrusted to Peter, since Christ’s Church was to be built upon him, and the power of loosing and binding in heaven was to be granted to him.

3. The Lutherans, the perpetual enemies of the Roman Church, object: — Nothing was given to Peter here; a promise was merely made concerning the future.

Come now: let us grant that nothing was given to Peter in these words. Can it not be shown from those very words that the primacy of the Church was at some point given to Peter? I know it will not be denied that these were the words of a promise; but of what promise? Was it not that Peter was to be established as the foundation of the Church, and that the power of binding and loosing was to be conferred upon him? This plainly belongs to the principate of the Church. If, then, the Lord Jesus promised Peter³ that he would give him the principate of his Church, we must admit that he eventually appointed him its prince. For he says of himself: I am the way, and the truth, and the life;⁴ and elsewhere: Heaven and earth shall pass away, but my words shall not pass away.⁵ In chapter XIX of the Apocalypse,⁶ John also saw heaven opened, and behold, a white horse, and he who sat upon it was called Faithful and True. — If, then, Christ is faithful—indeed, is truth itself—who would dare say that he promised something without bringing it to the best possible⁷ outcome?

Let us hear Jerome⁸ interpreting these words of the Lord: «And I, he says, tell you in a word that is not empty and has no deed left undone; I tell you that what⁹ I have said, I have done.» Therefore, he who promised that he would make Peter the head and prince of the Christian people bestowed that office of principate upon him. Add that very many¹⁰ among the holy Fathers hold that by these words of the Lord the principate of the Church was not merely promised to Peter but also¹¹ given. Sacred Scripture has the practice of sometimes using one tense in place of another. That it uses the past for the future because of the certainty of the event is perfectly clear in Isaiah, where Christ’s Nativity and Passion¹² are spoken of. It is therefore no wonder if what Matthew reports as spoken in the future is to be understood as present, since Peter would exercise this principate only after Christ’s Resurrection. Hence Chrysostom, explaining these words, says: «The Son granted Peter universally the power that belongs to the Father and to the Son himself throughout the whole world; and to a mortal man he gave authority over all that is in heaven, giving him the keys so that he might extend the Church everywhere.»¹³

4. The Lutherans, moreover, bring forward another slander: — a) Even¹⁴ if these words of Christ mention the principate of the Church,¹⁵ why should they be applied to Peter alone? They are to be referred not to him alone, but to all Christ’s disciples, since Peter answered on behalf of them all: You are Christ, the Son of the living God. — For this very reason Chrysostom¹⁶ called him the mouth of the Apostles. — Christ’s reply, then, should likewise be applied to Peter as speaking for all the disciples.¹⁷

b) We can infer this, moreover, from the fact that what appears to have been said there to Peter alone is read as having been said to all the Apostles in the same Gospel of Matthew, chapter XVIII.¹⁸ For Christ himself says to the disciples: Amen, I say to you, whatever you bind on earth shall be bound in heaven, and whatever you loose on earth shall be loosed in heaven. In the penultimate chapter of John,¹⁹ Christ also says to all the disciples: Receive the Holy Spirit: whose sins you forgive, they are forgiven them; and whose sins you retain, they are retained. If, then, the same things you maintain were said only to Peter were said to all the disciples, it is perfectly clear that the keys of heaven were given not to Peter alone, but also to all the Apostles, indeed to the universal Church. For the Lord’s judgment is to seek the Church’s decision if someone who has sinned against us will not accept correction: For if he will not hear them, tell it to the Church.²⁰

c) Do you wish, they say, to see this matter still more clearly? Consider the Lord’s own words more carefully. For when he had said, And upon this rock I will build my Church, he immediately added, And the gates of hell shall not prevail against it. Did the gates of hell not prevail against Peter’s faith and Church? For Peter not only faltered in faith, but also stubbornly and steadfastly denied Christ at the voice of a single servant girl.

d) Moreover, after commending Peter for the revelation sent to him by the heavenly Father, what did the Lord say to him? Go behind me, Satan, you are a stumbling block to me, because you do not understand the things of God, but those of men.²¹ If Peter is reproved for lack of understanding and called Satan by Christ, how can it be understood that he alone was appointed keeper of heaven’s keys because he had been instructed from heaven concerning Christ’s divinity? We must therefore understand that the Lord’s words were spoken not to Peter insofar as he was Peter, but insofar as he bore the type and figure of the Church, in which there is neither stain nor wrinkle.

e) Hence Augustine, writing in this sense on Psalm CVIII,²² says: «There are certain things, he says, which seem to belong properly to the Apostle Peter. Yet they have no clear meaning unless they are referred to the Church, whose figure he is known to have represented,²³ on account of the primacy he held among the disciples, as in the words: I will give you the keys of the kingdom of heaven, and in any similar passage.»

5. But if we carefully examine these arguments, which the Lutherans think solid and conclusive, we shall readily show that they are childish prattle, fables, and absurdities.

Their first claim—that the Lord’s words must be twisted to apply to all the Apostles because Peter answered on behalf of them all—has little substance and rests on a weak foundation. I would ask them how they understand Peter to have answered for them all. Either the Apostles had previously considered and discussed this matter among themselves and charged Peter to answer on behalf of them all, or Peter took upon himself²⁴, of his own accord, the task of answering for them all. We can confirm the first in no way, since neither the words of the Gospel nor the course of the narrative allows us to infer that the Apostles discussed this question among themselves or assigned Peter any part in answering it. Perhaps the second can be granted, with the holy Jerome,²⁵ namely, that Peter, who loved Christ more ardently than the others, when all had been asked whom they thought the Son of Man to be, took it upon himself to answer on behalf of them all, no one assigning him²⁶ this task, because he was persuaded that the other disciples would not depart from the opinion the heavenly Father had inspired in him. Earlier, too, when the Lord asked the disciples:²⁷ Do you also wish to go away? Peter answered for them all: To whom shall we go? You have the words of eternal life, and shall we leave you? Hilary²⁸, however, does not agree that Peter answered for the others; if that is true, the Lutherans’ foundation—that Peter answered in the name of all—is removed. But let us concede to them Jerome’s interpretation as well and grant that Peter then assumed the person of all the Apostles. Must they therefore twist Christ’s words to apply either to all the Apostles or to the universal Church? Why not to Peter alone, who answered for all while the others perhaps hesitated over what to say? Although he had assumed the person of all whom he thought would approve his opinion, Christ nevertheless directed his speech not to them all, but to Peter alone, who was more fervent than the others and had been enlightened by divine light. For this reason he addresses him by his own name and his father’s: Blessed are you, Simon Bar-Jona; he also calls him by the name Peter, adding his surname: You are Peter;²⁹ then, alluding to Peter’s name, he adds: And upon this rock I will build my Church. I say, not upon just any rock, but upon this one—that is, upon you, Peter, who remain steadfast and firm in faith. — We must take care³⁰ not to understand Christ himself by the name of this rock, as if the sense were: Upon myself, who am the rock, I will build my Church. For this interpretation fits neither the text, nor would he have said I will build, but I am building, since Christ was always building his Church while living a mortal life.

If they stubbornly maintain that the authority of the keys was given to the universal Church, I too may perhaps not deny it. But I shall understand that it was given to the Church in such a way that it first belongs to Peter, and is then imparted to the Church through him, since Peter is the foundation upon which the Christian Church is founded after Christ. For a building takes its strength and growth from the foundation, not the foundation from the building.

6. Their further objection—that Christ said to all the Apostles, as he did to Peter, Whatever you loose on earth, etc.—does not move me. For I will not deny that all the Apostles were granted the power of binding and loosing; the very words of the Gospel clearly show this. I would add, however, that this does not conflict with Peter’s having been given the primacy—or at least promised it—in the words we have often cited. For we nowhere find that Christ said to any Apostle but Peter: upon you, or upon this rock I will build my Church. To no one else did he say in the singular: Whatever you loose, etc. To no one else: I will give you the keys of the kingdom of heaven. All these things, however, were said to Peter in the singular in the presence of the college of Apostles, clearly to show that the power of binding and loosing had been granted to him as head of the Catholic Church, while the other disciples of Christ were to be admitted to a share in its care.

If they again insist that not only Peter but also the other Apostles were appointed by the Lord as the foundation of the Church—for Revelation XXI³¹ says that the city had twelve foundations in its walls, and that the names of the twelve Apostles were upon them; Ephesians II³² also says, built upon the foundation of the Apostles—the answer is that Christ never called any Apostle a foundation of the Church, Peter always excepted. John and Paul bestowed this title upon them,³³ because, as Peter’s coadjutors, by their teaching, conduct, and miracles they summoned almost the whole world to faith in Christ.

7. As for their next argument against this principate—that Peter’s faith was shaken and shattered while he was acting in his own person, although Christ himself had foretold that the gates of hell would not prevail against the Church to be founded upon Peter—this can be answered in several ways:

α) First, I would say that although Peter did not persevere in his confession of faith, and was indeed so frightened by the voice of one woman that he denied Christ, he never abandoned the inward faith he had conceived in his mind and thought. For since inward faith is one thing and the outward confession of faith another—For with the heart, says the Apostle,³⁴ one believes unto righteousness; but with the mouth confession is made unto salvation—an outward denial of faith can be joined to the integrity of inward faith. The gates of hell, then, could prevail not against Peter’s faith, nor against the Church founded upon him, but against the open confession of faith.

β) I can also answer in another way: namely, that those words do not mean that Peter would never fall away from the faith. For at the time of the Passion the Lord foretold to him that he would deny him three times; rather, they mean that after the Church had been founded upon him, he would never fall away from the Christian faith. This is plainly true. For although he strayed from the faith before the Christian edifice was established upon him, after the Church had been built upon him—that is, after the Lord’s Resurrection—it is acknowledged that he always remained steadfast in faith.

γ) A third answer is possible: Peter denied Christ at the voice of a lowly servant girl, but the gates of hell did not in any way carry off victory through his fall. For if someone fighting an enemy repeatedly throws him to the ground, he is not said to have prevailed if the stronger enemy rises and throws his adversary down; so too, although the gates of hell cast Peter down from his confession of faith three times, they did not prevail against him, because he did not persist as a stranger to the faith, but went outside and wept bitterly³⁵ and thereafter triumphed wonderfully over his enemy. The gates of hell did not prevail against him, even though for a short time they cast him down from the faith. See how slight, how feeble, how insignificant is the objection they bring against our definition.

8. Nor does that saying of the Savior, Go behind me, Satan, cause us any difficulty. Do we not read in Scripture that even the Prophets, to whom divine mysteries were revealed from heaven, sometimes³⁶ failed to know certain things? For when speaking of the misfortune of the woman of Shunem, Elisha says in IV Kings, chapter 4:³⁷ Her soul is in bitterness, and the Lord has hidden it from me and has not told me. Samuel also, as I Kings, chapter 16,³⁸ relates, wished to anoint Eliab as king instead of David. What wonder, then, if Peter, instructed by a heavenly power concerning Christ’s divinity, did not know that he was to be crucified? Since, therefore, he was deceived by the devil’s trickery and wished to obstruct the Passion of Christ the Most High, Christ rightly rebukes him as Satan: Go behind me, then, he says; that is, follow me in my desire for the Passion, and imitate me as a disciple imitates his teacher.

9. Finally, Augustine’s³⁹ authority is no objection. Since Sacred Scripture admits two senses, the literal and the spiritual, Augustine thinks that what is said about Peter lacks a clear meaning—not because he thinks the literal sense of those words should refer to anyone other than Peter, but because that literal sense does not explain the whole meaning of Scripture, and a spiritual sense must also be added if we wish to have a full and complete understanding. Therefore Augustine thinks that these words are first to be understood of Peter’s person, and then explained of the Church in a certain spiritual sense:⁴⁰ because Peter bears the type and figure of the Church, of which he is the head. Nor should this be thought alien to the interpretation of Sacred Scripture: when Joseph is said in Scripture to have been sold by his brothers,⁴¹ he is indeed a figure of Christ, who was sold by his disciples. Yet historical accuracy requires that the sale be understood of Joseph’s own person.

10. The second Gospel passage where the primacy of Peter is discussed is the last chapter of John.⁴² For after Christ had appeared to his disciples for the third time after the Resurrection, intending to confirm Peter in the principate of the Church, he addressed him in these words: Simon, son of John, do you love me more than these? He said to him: Yes, Lord, you know that I love you. He said to him: Feed my lambs. He said to him again: Simon, son of John, do you love me? He said to him: Yes, Lord, you know that I love you. He said to him:⁴³ Feed my lambs. He said to him a third time: Simon, son of John, do you love me? Peter was grieved because he said to him a third time, Do you love me? And he said to him: Lord, you know all things; you know that I love you. He said to him: Feed my sheep. — Who, unless blind in mind and eyes, could fail to see that these words of the Lord were addressed to Peter’s person? Does he not address him by his own name and the name of his father, and ask about the goodwill and love he bears toward him? How could we identify anyone’s person more plainly than by his own name and⁴⁴ his father’s name? Add that when Christ asks whether Peter loves him more than the others do, he distinguishes him from the other Apostles as one who loves him more ardently. Since, then, he entrusted his sheep and lambs to Peter to feed, it is clear that he conferred upon him the care and principate of the Christian Church. For what can be understood by Christ’s sheep and lambs except the multitude of the Christian people, entrusted to Peter to be nourished not with bodily food but with spiritual doctrine?

11. Chrysostom, in his eighty-seventh homily on John, says: «Why, then, does he address Peter alone, passing over the others? He was the mouth and prince of the Apostles; therefore Paul went up to see him before the others, at the same time showing him that he ought now to have confidence. For, as if forgetting his denial, Christ entrusts him with the care of his brothers; he neither recalls the denial nor reproaches him, but says only: If you love me, take care of your brothers; and just as you showed your love in every way, and in the way that pleases me, show it now: give your life for my sheep, as you said you would give it for me.»⁴⁵ He speaks even more explicitly, interpreting these words to mean: «Feed my sheep, he says; that is, take my place, and be the head of your brothers, so that they may take you as my representative and proclaim and affirm you seated on your throne throughout the world.»

12. We must carefully observe, moreover, that the Lord entrusted to Peter not lambs alone or sheep alone, but both lambs and sheep. Peter must strengthen and fortify not only those more mature in faith, signified by the name “sheep,” but also the weak, signified by “lambs,” through teaching and innocent conduct.⁴⁶ Nor is it without significance that, if the Greek text is to be trusted, he entrusts the lambs to Peter’s care only once, but the sheep twice. For those who have already grown together in the Christian flock and can instruct others in the faith need a pastor’s more diligent care than the more recent converts and novices, whose instruction requires less attention from their superiors. Just as children who are to be taught the first rudiments of letters are taught with little effort, whereas those who have grown up require greater and more exacting attention from their teachers in their studies, so those who have enlisted in the new army of Christ require less care, although they must never be abandoned; but those who have already grown strong in this service must be dealt with more diligently lest they perish. The Apostle, too, writes to those who are more tender in faith:⁴⁷ As to little ones in Christ, I gave you milk to drink, not solid food. — But if we accept, as some Latin manuscripts read, that the lambs are mentioned twice and the sheep once, we can interpret this as indicating an order not of more exacting, but of more frequent care. All who have been washed in Christ’s baptism are entrusted to Peter’s care; but those more recent and little ones in the faith, so that they may grow strong, must more frequently be refreshed with spiritual food and Christian teaching.

13. The Lutherans, however, produce certain old wives’ tales and childish fables, claiming that Christ the Most High entrusted to Peter the care not of the whole Christian people, but perhaps of only some of them. For, they say, Christ did not tell Peter: Feed all my sheep, but simply and without any mark of distribution: Feed my sheep. If Jesus Christ had wished to entrust Peter with the care of the whole Church, they say, he would certainly have said: Feed all my sheep, just as when he sent the Apostles to preach throughout the world, he said: Teach all nations.⁴⁸ And elsewhere:⁴⁹ Preach the Gospel to every creature. — Hence the Apostle Paul, writing to the Galatians, chapter II,⁵⁰ calls Peter the Apostle of the circumcision, but himself of the Gentiles.

But by what rule⁵¹ do the Lutherans think one must say Feed all my sheep to express the universal care of all? If someone about to die said to a friend, “I entrust my children to you,” would he wish to entrust only some of his children to his friend, and not⁵² all of them? The person who entrusted his children without distinction has adequately expressed “all.” Thus, when Christ entrusted his sheep to Peter’s care without any distinction, he made it perfectly clear that he was entrusting them all to his keeping. If he had placed only some of his sheep under Peter’s authority, not all of them, he would have had to specify which ones. — As for Paul calling himself the Apostle of the Gentiles and Peter the Apostle of the circumcision, that is, of the Jews, this proves that Peter devoted himself more particularly and diligently to the salvation of the Jews, and Paul to that of the Gentiles; it does not, however, take away Peter’s authority and principate over all Christians. Peter also had some care for the Gentiles, and Paul some for the Jews. For Acts X⁵³ relates that Peter went to Cornelius the centurion at Caesarea. As for Paul, chapter IX⁵⁴ says that he entered the synagogues and preached Jesus, that he is the Son of God. Peter, then, did not care for the salvation of the Jews alone, nor Paul for that of the Gentiles alone, but both were Apostles of the Gentiles and the Jews, though one had greater concern for the Gentiles and the other for the Jews. What can this particular care of the Jews take away from Peter’s very extensive authority? What? Do not kings who rule several kingdoms sometimes choose one kingdom to govern themselves, while entrusting the government of the others to their relatives?

14. The Lutheran hydra now puts forth a new head: If Peter, according to your opinion, was shepherd and prince of all, yet took upon himself special care of the Jewish people and entrusted the administration of the other nations to Paul and the other Apostles, it plainly follows that the other Apostles governed the Catholic Church, by Peter’s authority, in the regions assigned to them by lot. But we can confirm this from no passage of Sacred Scripture; indeed, we are told that the other Apostles and Paul appointed bishops without any mention of Peter’s authority. The words of Anacletus found in Distinction XXI, canon «In novo», seem to support this claim: «For the other Apostles, he says, endowed with equal fellowship with blessed Peter, received both honor and power.»⁵⁵ Cyprian writes in the same sense, and his words are found in canon «Loquitur Dominus», C. XXIV, question 1.⁵⁶ If, then, the other Apostles received power equal to Peter’s, Peter was not appointed their prince and shepherd.

But this must first be considered: by a particular providence of Christ the Most Good, it came about that all the Apostles had no need of Peter’s authority when appointing bishops. For they had been sent by Christ our Savior himself to preach, and received this power from him without an intermediary. Hence he himself says in John, chapter XX:⁵⁷ As the Father has sent me, I also send you. Therefore, unless their authority had come from Christ, they could not have appointed bishops without his authority. Peter and the other Apostles shared many things, such as preaching, teaching, and baptizing, in accord with the saying in the last chapter of Matthew:⁵⁸ Go and teach all nations, baptizing them in the name of the Father, and of the Son, and of the Holy Spirit, teaching them to observe all that I have commanded you. Yet the supreme principate in the Christian commonwealth fell to Peter alone, and power was conferred upon him over all Christ’s sheep, among whom the Apostles themselves were numbered.⁵⁹

15. The Lutherans object again: Though Peter alone was told to feed Christ’s sheep, was he also entrusted with supreme authority over all Christians? For “feeding” does not mean being prince and lord.

The Lutherans either do not know, or pretend not to know, that although “to feed” in the proper sense of the word does not mean “to be prince,” nevertheless the one to whom primary care of feeding the flock is entrusted is also given principate over the sheep. Since the Christian people are metaphorically called sheep, it is no wonder⁶⁰ if the word “to feed” is also understood metaphorically. For just as a shepherd supplies and provides pasture for the sheep in such a way that he is their ruler and governor, so Peter is commanded to feed Christ’s sheep, and their care, direction, and governance are entrusted to him—not as to a hireling, but as to their true and chief shepherd. — This can be readily explained if we consider the force and nature of the Greek word. For the Greek manuscripts use two different words in these very passages, namely, βόσκε and ποίμαινε, both of which the Latin translator renders with the same word, feed, although there is a considerable difference between them: βόσκειν means among Greek authors “to provide food,” whereas ποιμαίνειν means “to rule and govern.” Hence Homer calls Agamemnon, emperor of the Greeks, ποιμένα λαῶν, that is, “shepherd of the peoples,” from the verb ποιμαίνω.⁶¹ In many places in Sacred Scripture where the Latin translator uses the word “rule,” the Greek texts have the word ποιμαίνω. Yet it should not be overlooked that the Greek Gospel uses βόσκε for both lambs and sheep, but ποιμαίνε for sheep alone.⁶² We can understand from this that Peter is to feed and nourish both the little ones and the mature in faith with the pasture of God’s word, but the mature are to be imbued less with evangelical teaching than directed and governed, so that they may work for the salvation of others and by their good and innocent lives draw others to the love of Christ. Why say more? If we carefully consider the Acts of the Apostles written by Luke, we find that in all matters Peter always stood among the Apostles with greater authority and reverence, as the father and shepherd of them all.

16. You may perhaps say: a) If Peter acted as prince of all the Apostles, Paul was exceedingly rash to rebuke him. For in chapter II of Galatians⁶³ he says: When Cephas (Peter) had come to Antioch, I withstood him to his face, because he was reprehensible. In discussing this passage, Jerome says: «Paul would not dare rebuke Peter unless he knew himself to be his equal.»⁶⁴ — To this: b) If Peter presided over all the Apostles, why, as Acts VIII⁶⁵ relates, was he sent to Samaria with John by the others? It belongs to a superior to send another on his business, not to an inferior.

But please observe that Paul withstood Peter to his face not because he possessed equal or superior authority, but because if a superior commits something that causes great harm to the Church—as seemed to be happening with Peter—he may be admonished by an inferior and rebuked in measured language. As for Jerome’s opinion that Paul was equal to Peter in authority, which both Anacletus and Cyprian, whom we cited above, also seem to hold, it should be understood not of jurisdiction, but of the apostolate, defense of the faith, and power of sacred order. In apostolate, defense of the faith, and order, all were established as equals by Christ, but Peter was granted greater jurisdiction.

What is finally alleged—that Peter was sent to Samaria with John by the other Apostles—can be refuted by the same answer with which the holy teachers refuted the error of Arius, who preached that the Son was inferior to the Father. It is false, of course, that everyone who sends another is superior and greater than the one sent. King Herod sent the Magi to Bethlehem, though Herod was not their superior in dignity. Sometimes, too⁶⁶, a prince is armed for war by the advice and exhortations of his own counselors. The other Apostles, then, did not send Peter to Samaria because they were superior to him in authority; rather, they advised him and urged him to go there, judging that he would be more suitable and more effective for that task, since he was regarded as superior to the others and shone with a greater grace of miracles.

1. We have shown from the sacred Scriptures that Peter was appointed by Christ, the Best and Greatest, as prince of our Catholic Church. It remains to demonstrate that the Roman Pontiff is Peter’s true successor, a claim that most heretics deny.

I would ask first, then, whether Christ appointed anyone as Peter’s successor to retain his place and dignity in governing the Christian Church. If this is denied, we must admit that the commonwealth founded by Christ and consecrated by his blood was more lowly and unfortunate than many others. Those who founded commonwealths took care that they should be firm, stable, and lasting. Thus Romulus founded the Roman commonwealth, Solon the Athenian, and Lycurgus the Spartan. But how could the Christian commonwealth be stable and enduring if no one were appointed in succession to the one whom Christ, its founder, made its head and prince? If it was founded not to endure, but only to last as long as Peter lived, then it was established in a most unhappy and wretched state, since it would last only a very short time.

2. Perhaps you will say: How, and on what grounds, are we to appoint a successor to Peter, when Christ nowhere mentions such a succession?¹ Although we nowhere read explicitly who should succeed Peter in the primacy of the Church, it can nevertheless be understood from this: Christ intended to provide Peter with a successor because he founded an enduring commonwealth in which he willed there to be one head and one prince. Furthermore, if someone is to receive Peter’s primacy, to whom else should it fall more honorably, fairly², and justly than to the Roman Pontiff? For although at the Church’s very beginning³ Peter administered the universal Church without choosing a particular see for himself, and later sat for several years at Antioch, he was then, driven by divine providence, to choose Rome as a firm and permanent see. There he presided for many years and met his final day for Christ, consecrating with his blood the see in which he would be an adequate shepherd of the Church. Although, then, sacred Scripture laid down nothing about a Roman Pontiff being appointed after Peter, Peter himself chose the Roman Church as the place where he would preside longer and spend the final years of his episcopate, assigning the other churches to the Apostles and disciples of Christ.⁴ The result was that, by the consensus of the Fathers, the man who succeeds Peter in the Roman see also succeeds him in the primacy of the Church. For when allegiance is given to the Roman Pontiff, it is given to the shepherd and prince of the Catholic Church. It was universally accepted, without controversy, that the same man must be chosen both as Roman Pontiff and as universal shepherd of the Church, though in later times some recklessly departed from this agreement of the Fathers. For whom other than the Roman Pontiff have historians recorded as Peter’s successor?⁵ We do not read that the bishop of Jerusalem, Antioch, or Constantinople, nor any other bishop besides the Roman, was accepted as universal shepherd of the Church⁶, although some Eastern churches at times fought stubbornly for the glory of such a primacy.

3. For this reason I would believe that not only the ancient Fathers but Christ’s own disciples provided that the man who held primacy in the Christian commonwealth and was Peter’s true successor should be appointed bishop of the Roman Church. The remarkable authority of that most sacred Council of Nicaea also bears on this: it wisely decreed that no council could be held without the Roman Pontiff’s permission and authority, and that an appeal could be made to him as the highest authority of all. At the Council of Chalcedon, too, where six hundred and thirty Fathers assembled, the most blessed Pope Leo was acclaimed, and the decision of all cases was left to his judgment. A decree of the Council of Constantinople also survives: “In accordance with Scripture and the definitions of the canons, we venerate the most holy bishop of Old Rome as the first and greatest of bishops.” Hence Maximus, in a letter he wrote to the Easterners, says: “All the regions of the world that have sincerely received the Lord, and Catholics everywhere who confess the true faith, look to the Church of the Romans as to the sun, and from it receive the light of the Catholic and Apostolic faith.”^789101112

4. The Lutherans may object: When this Roman Pontiff of yours is elected, from whom does he receive primacy over the Church? Does he bring supreme power with him, or does he receive it from elsewhere? If he brings it with him, then before he was elected he was shepherd of all Christians. If he receives it from elsewhere, from whom can he receive it except from the universal Church itself, which endures perpetually and never dies? The primacy of the Church is therefore not due to the Roman Pontiff because he succeeds Peter in the Roman see; rather, all the power he has—if it is true that he holds some primacy in the Church—comes to him through the authority and consent of the Christian people. Supreme authority, then, belongs to the universal Church, not to the Roman Pontiff.¹³¹⁴

But let the Lutherans answer me this: If an emperor founds a city by his own right and establishes in it a perpetual monarchy by succession, on the condition that its citizens choose as prince whomever they wish, from whom shall we say that this prince receives the power to govern and rule, if not from the emperor? So too, since Christ, the Best and Greatest, constituted the Christian commonwealth in this order—that one man should act as its supreme prince—when the Roman Pontiff is elected Peter’s successor, he does not bring his principate with him; rather, when the electors’ consent places him in Peter’s see, he receives it from Christ, who founded his commonwealth on the condition that Peter’s successor should preside over it with supreme power.¹⁵

Blessed Cyril, bishop of Alexandria, appears to hold our view when he says: “That we may remain members in our head, the apostolic throne of the Roman Pontiffs, from which we must learn what we ought to ask, believe, and hold; venerating it and beseeching it above all, since it alone has the right to rebuke, correct, decree, arrange, loose, and bind in the place of the one who built it. He gave the fullness of what is his to no one else, but to it alone; by divine right all bow their heads to it, and the rulers of the world obey it as they would the Lord Jesus Christ.”¹⁶

Hence the martyr Anacletus, as cited in Distinction XXI, says: “The most holy Roman and Apostolic Church obtained primacy not from the Apostles, but from the Lord and our Savior himself, as he said to blessed Peter the Apostle: You are Peter, and upon this rock I will build my Church.”¹⁷

The Roman Pontiff’s principate, then, is attributable in one respect to Christ’s law, in another to Peter’s will, and in another to human institution: its ample power derives from Christ’s law; the succession of the Roman Pontiff in Peter’s see derives from Peter’s will; and the pontifical dignity of this particular man—that is, Clement VII—derives from human institution. For the institution of the holy Fathers established that the man declared elected by the votes of the Cardinals should act as Roman Pontiff.¹⁸¹⁹²⁰

5. Come now: the Lutherans object again. Let it be granted that someone is appointed as Peter’s successor in the Christian commonwealth, and that he is the Roman Pontiff. Who would dare deny that the man who succeeds Peter in the power of rule ought to surpass the others in charity? For Christ did not wish to entrust his sheep to him unless he first elicited from him a declaration of exceptional love. What else was entrusted to Peter? Was it not to feed Christ’s sheep? Therefore, someone who does not love Christ more ardently than the others, and who does not feed his sheep by teaching and example, cannot be Peter’s legitimate successor. But has it not often happened that, by common agreement of the Fathers, a Pontiff has been placed in the Roman see who neither loves Christ, the Best and Greatest, nor is capable of feeding the Christian people with the teaching of the faith, being a man of corrupt life and wholly devoid of learning and expertise? Thus not every Roman Pontiff, without distinction, succeeds Peter in his rule.²¹²²²³

But if we examine the matter carefully, the Lutherans misunderstand the nature of a principate. A principate has a beginning, a mode of government, and an exercise of power. Its beginning may be good or bad: if someone enters the principate by the proper path, the beginning is good; if he seeks it by crooked means, it is bad. The form and order of a principate, which consists in a certain relation between ruler and subject, is always good by its nature. The use of power is highly praiseworthy if directed to the subjects’ benefit; if it looks only to the prince’s own advantage, it deserves blame. Thus, if a Roman Pontiff has been designated by the legitimate votes of the Fathers, he acts as the legitimate Pontiff and is the true successor of Peter, whom all Catholics are bound to obey unless they have abandoned the Christian faith. If, however, he lives a corrupt and detestable life, and lacks charity toward Christ and his sheep, he should indeed be called a Pontiff of evil conduct and unworthy of so great a rule. Yet his pontifical power is not diminished on this account, since he entered the sheepfold not by another way but through the door. Therefore, even if such a Pontiff brings some harm and loss to the Christian commonwealth and builds himself a road to hell, he is not deprived of his jurisdiction, provided he obtained that holy see by a legitimate election.²⁴²⁵²⁶

We can see the same thing in an earthly principate. Do we not say that a prince’s son, if born in lawful marriage, ought to succeed to his father’s rule just as to his father’s property? Yet it often happens that the father is renowned for every virtue, while the son is corrupt and lives a base life. I would run out of time if I tried to gather examples of this from both pagan and sacred writings. A Roman Pontiff’s evil life, then, takes nothing away from his power, even though it is far from the holiness proper to a true shepherd of the Christian Church. Therefore the Lord Jesus, admonishing his disciples, says: The scribes and Pharisees sit on Moses’ seat. Whatever they tell you, observe and do; but do not act according to their works. The Apostle Peter also warns us in his letters to obey those set over us not only when they are good and considerate but also when they are difficult.²⁷²⁸

6. I think that our Savior Christ’s demand that Peter, to whom he had decided to entrust the care of the Christian people, express his love and charity was intended to teach later generations to appoint over the people’s care men who seek not their own interests but those of their subjects. Moreover, since Christ wished to establish the best commonwealth, it was fitting and proper that the man to whom he gave the name and power of chief shepherd should surpass the others not only in authority but also in virtue and conduct. As for the rule that the sheep must be fed, I think it is enough for the Supreme Pontiff, if he himself is unlearned and unable personally to provide the Christian people with teaching in the faith, to use the diligent assistance of others in instructing them. For earthly princes, too, use many advisers and ministers in administering commonwealths. Therefore, if someone is to be marked by Christian baptism, be Peter’s successor and equal to him in authority, he must be placed in the Roman see by lawful appointment and lawful votes. If he wishes to exercise this supreme power in a manner worthy of its dignity, he must surpass all Catholics in learning, prudence, and charity. Above all, however, he must beware of becoming a hireling, a tyrant, or a scatterer of Christ’s sheep. To such shepherds the Lord speaks through Jeremiah’s prophecy: Woe to the shepherds who destroy and scatter the flock of my pasture, says the Lord. Therefore, thus says the Lord God of Israel to the shepherds who feed my people: You have scattered my flock and driven them away, and have not visited them. Behold, I will visit upon you the evil of your deeds, says the Lord. And I will gather the remnant of my flock from all the lands to which I drove them, and bring them back to their folds; and they shall increase and multiply. And I will raise up shepherds over them, and they shall feed them.²⁹

7. If someone³⁰ objects to our position that we wrong the Church of Jerusalem by setting the Roman Church above it, on the grounds that Jerusalem is older and higher in dignity, since it was in some measure the nurse of all the Apostles, and since, as the First Letter to the Corinthians, chapter XVI, shows, aid was sent to it from other churches.³¹

We must then say this: We have not granted primacy to the Roman Church in such a way that we hold it to have preceded all the others by some span of time. It is self-evident that the Church of Jerusalem was established earlier, and that James sat at Jerusalem before Peter sat at Rome. Nor do we place the Roman Church above all the others in dignity merely because it is Roman, considered apart, so to speak, from its head. Perhaps, if one weighed the matter on that basis, the Church of Jerusalem would surpass all the others, since all the other churches derived their origin from it. But if the shepherds are considered, the Roman Church is more worthy, higher, and more excellent than all the others, because, as we have shown, the Roman Pontiff succeeds Peter, who held supreme primacy in the Catholic Church. Hence Jerome, writing to Pope Damasus, says, as cited in C. 24, question 1, canon “Since the ancient East”: “Seeking no reward but Christ, I am joined in communion with Your Beatitude—that is, with Peter’s chair. I know that the Church is built upon that rock.” The aid sent to the Church of Jerusalem should be attributed not to its dignity but to its great need, which Luke mentions in the Acts of the Apostles.^32333435

8. Finally, suppose someone adduces the objection made by Ockham in his Dialogue: that nowhere in sacred Scripture is it found that Peter came to Rome, and that it is therefore false that the Roman Pontiff succeeds Peter.³⁶

I consider that this has been confirmed by so many testimonies of the holy Fathers that it needs no new proof. Jerome’s commentary on the first chapter of Romans, Eusebius in his Ecclesiastical History, Bernard in his letter to Pope Eugenius, and Ambrose in his letter to Auxentius, On the Surrender of the Basilicas, all attest it plainly. It is also false that the matter is nowhere found in sacred Scripture. Peter himself says in chapter five of his first letter: The church in Babylon, chosen along with you³⁷ greets you, and so does my son Mark. According to the gloss of the Venerable Bede, by Babylon he means Rome, on account of its idolatrous worship. Jerome holds the same view in his book On Illustrious Men. “Peter,” he says, “in his first letter, figuratively signifying Rome under the name Babylon, says: The Church that is in Babylon, chosen together with you, greets you.” Since Peter is nowhere said to have been with Mark in Babylon, it is not unreasonable to understand that by Babylon Peter intended the city of Rome, both because of its greatness and because of its idolatrous worship. The Apostle John, too, mentions the city of Rome under the name Babylon in the Apocalypse.^{3839404142434445}

I could have adduced many other arguments in confirmation of the Roman primacy; but since, as I said at the outset, many have treated this subject no less carefully than learnedly, let it suffice to have offered these few points.⁴⁶⁴⁷

1. From what we have defined above, it is not difficult to demonstrate that the Christian Church is one—provided, however, that we first explain what is meant by the name “Christian Church.”

The word church is Greek and, although it has several meanings among Greek authors, in Christian usage it signifies only an assembly, gathering, or convocation. For the customary Jewish name synagogue, which also commonly means a gathering, having been rejected, Christians adopted the name church in order that, just as they differ from the Jews in rite and religion, so too they might be distinguished by the name for their multitude.

It follows that by “Christian Church” we understand nothing other than a multitude of people called together to Christ. Hence opinions about matters pertaining to Christ’s Church are so varied and diverse, just as the name “Christian” has been used in different ways by different people.

Some, indeed, hold that only those elected to eternal salvation belong to the Christian commonwealth, on the ground that they alone have been redeemed by Christ’s blood and obtain the benefit of the Lord’s cross. Others think the name “Christian” should be taken more broadly, and that all may rightly be called Christians who have received from Christ the gift of charity. They therefore draw into the Christian Church all those bound to Christ by a certain common bond of charity. But the common usage of the holy Fathers is that people are called Christians because of Christ’s faith: that is, all who hold Christ’s faith and revere his worship and sacraments are to be called Christians. Since, however, not only those who share in charity, but also many others who depart from Christ in life and conduct, observe the faith and worship of Christ, they say that all such people, both good and evil, belong to the Christian Church—that is, the Church they call militant—provided that they hold and profess Christ’s faith. By “Christian Church,” then, we mean a multitude of both good and evil people called together to Christ’s faith; though usage has also come to call the very place where Christians gather for sacred rites a church.

2. This understanding of the Christian Church is entirely consonant with Christ’s teaching. For in Matthew 13,¹ he says that the Church is like a net cast into the sea, gathering fish of every kind. Gregory, expounding this likeness in a homily,² says: “The Holy Church is compared to a net cast into the sea and gathering fish of every kind, because now the net of faith holds good and evil together, as though they were mixed fish; but the shore—the Church’s end—shows what the net has caught.” In the same chapter he also compared it to the field in which, after good seed had been sown, an enemy sowed weeds over it;³ and earlier, in chapter 3, to the threshing floor, where chaff is mixed with grain.⁴ Augustine interprets this in On Faith to Peter, chapter 4,⁵ as follows: “Hold most firmly and doubt in no way that God’s threshing floor is the Catholic Church, and that within it, until the end of the age, chaff remains mixed with the wheat—that is, the evil are mingled with the good through communion in the sacraments.”⁶ Moreover, in Matthew, chapter 25,⁷ the kingdom of heaven is said to be like ten virgins, five wise and five foolish. On this passage Gregory says:⁸ “The present Church is called the kingdom of heaven; and because the Holy Church is gathered from both sexes in great numbers, it is declared to be like ten virgins. Since evil people are mingled with the good, and the reprobate with the elect, it is rightly said to resemble wise and foolish virgins.” Add that Jerome, both in Against the Luciferians⁹ and in book one of Against Jovinian, says that Noah’s ark, in the Apostle Peter’s account, figures the Holy Church: just as every kind of animal dwelt in the ark, so the Church contains the righteous and sinners mingled together.

3. If you object that Christ’s Church is, according to the Apostle, a bride having neither wrinkle nor blemish,¹⁰ then, according to Augustine’s view in book one of On Marriage and Concupiscence, chapter 34,¹¹ this must be referred not to the condition of the present age but to the splendor of future perfection. In Gregory’s thirteenth book of the Moralia, however,¹² it may be understood of the present Church, but only with respect to the good and the elect. From what has been defined above, therefore, we can demonstrate that the Christian Church in question—the Church in which good and evil are mingled without distinction—is one.

4. We must not pass over this point: since every multitude is constituted under some aspect of plurality, it cannot possess a mode and form of unity unless it is referred to something one. We call a certain gathered multitude of people a single city because all are governed either by the same ruler or by the same laws. But if different rulers govern several peoples, or if they have different laws, they are more properly considered several cities than one. Yet if several peoples are referred to one common king over them all, each may still have its own particular ruler; those multitudes may then be called both several and one. For¹³ if we consider their particular rulers and municipal laws,¹⁴ they must plainly be called several, without dispute. But if we consider that one king common to them and a certain law common to all, the multitude then claims for itself the character of one. The dominions of Milan and Mantua, since they have two rulers and are governed by different municipal laws, may be called two principalities; but if¹⁵ one looks to the Emperor, common to them under the name of Christendom, they are not wholly two principalities but parts of one empire. For just as their rulers are placed beneath the Emperor as certain subordinate dukes, so those dominions are parts of one empire, which the Emperor himself governs by his laws.

Since, then, several prelates have been appointed among the Christian people, each charged with the care and concern of different peoples, while there is one Father common to all Christians, if we look only at the individual bishops of those peoples, we will not deny that there are several Christian churches. But¹⁶ if we turn our eyes to the Father and shepherd common to all, we will acknowledge that there is one Catholic—that is, universal—Church, constituted from several particular churches, since there is one common governor of the Christian people, by whose laws and institutions our Christian commonwealth¹⁷ is governed. For the supreme shepherd of the Church is Christ Jesus himself, who says:¹⁸ I am the good shepherd. The good shepherd lays down his life for his sheep. The Apostle Paul also says of him that God made him head over the whole Church.¹⁹ After Christ, Peter is the first shepherd and ruler of the Catholic Church; to him it is said:²⁰ I have prayed for you, Peter, that your faith may not fail; and when you have turned again, strengthen your brothers.

5. Blessed Cyprian sets out this account of the Church’s unity while expounding the words of Matthew 16,²¹ You are Peter, etc.²² His passage is found in C. 24, q. 1, in the canon “Loquitur”: “He builds the Church upon one, he says. Although after his resurrection he grants equal authority to all the Apostles (the source omits an intervening passage), nevertheless, to make unity manifest, by his authority he established the origin of that same unity as beginning from one.”²³ Further below he adds: “Unity takes its beginning from one,²⁴ so that Christ’s Church may be shown to be one.”

Jerome gives a second account of the Church’s unity in his letter to Bishop Evangelus,²⁵ cited in Distinction 93, canon “Legimus.”²⁶ It is the unity of faith, in which all particular churches share—something no one doubts—since all Christians believe in Christ and, enlightened by divine light, hold the same things about him. “For,” Jerome says,²⁷ “the Church of the city of Rome is not to be considered one church and that of the whole world another; the churches of Gaul, Britain, Africa, Persia, the East, India, and all the barbarian nations (understand: those that have enlisted in Christ’s army) worship one Christ and observe one rule of truth.”²⁸ The Apostle likewise says in his first²⁹ letter to the Corinthians, chapter 1:³⁰ All of you should say the same thing, and there should be no schisms among you.

There is also a third basis for this unity: the unity of the sacraments by which the whole Christian people is marked. For through one baptism, the first of the sacraments, we are all reborn in Christ, and we all use the same sacraments.³¹

There is a fourth basis of unity: the unity of the end for which we hope, namely God, the Supreme and Greatest, whose eternal enjoyment Christians strive for. The Lord wished to signify this unity in the parable³² in which he relates that all who had been sent to work in the vineyard each received a denarius. Augustine also touches on this in his exposition of Psalm 85, saying: “Many nations, yet one nation. Why one nation? Because there is one hope. Finally, why not one nation if Jerusalem is one homeland?”³³

Why say more? The Apostle Paul gathers all these grounds for the Church’s unity in Ephesians, chapter 4,³⁴ saying: One Lord, one faith, one baptism; one God and Father of all, who is above all, through all, and in us all.³⁵ Hence in the Song of Songs, chapter 6,³⁶ it is said of the Church: My dove, my perfect one, is one.

6. This also deserves consideration: our present Church, established within the bounds of the Christian people, is not only one in itself; it is also united with the Church of the ancient Fathers and Prophets. Their faith was the same as ours. For just as we are saved by faith in Christ incarnate,³⁷ so those ancient Fathers were saved by faith in Christ yet to come, although they professed their faith through other sacraments, while we declare ours through different ones.³⁸ Hence Acts 4³⁹ says of Christ Jesus: For there is no other name under heaven given among men by which we must be saved.

If you object that those ancient Fathers, although most holy and professing faith in the Christ who was to come, could in no way belong to our Church because they had not been washed in Christ’s baptism, this sacrament alone, as Augustine holds in his letter to Boniface and in his book On the Baptism of Infants—a passage found in On Consecration, Distinction 4, canon “Ad hoc”—incorporates a person into Christ and makes that person his member.⁴⁰

Know that there are two modes and forms of union with Christ. Some are joined to Christ by merit and intention alone, as happens to those who, while being instructed in the faith, die with only a desire for this sacrament, before being reborn in Christ through baptism. For of Valentinian,⁴¹ who died a catechumen, Ambrose says:⁴² “I was about to regenerate him, but I lost him; yet he did not lose the grace he had sought.” There are also those who bear themselves as members of Christ by the public status and expression of the Christian name—those, namely, who are adorned with the Christian sacraments⁴³ and called by the Christian name. Thus the ancient Fathers—Abraham, Isaac, Jacob, and David—when they believed that Christ would assume human flesh for our salvation, were indeed, by merit and in intention, hidden and concealed members of Christ. But because they did not bear Christ’s outward sign, namely baptism, they are not counted among Christ’s manifest and public members, of whom Augustine speaks; nevertheless, they belong to Christ’s Church because they were equipped with the inward sign of Christians, namely our faith.

1. Those who boast and glory in wanting to lead the Christian people into liberty abolish all ecclesiastical laws, all human rights, and all decrees, declaring that those marked by Christ's baptism ought to be bound by no laws except the Gospel. For they say that in this very respect¹ the Christian people surpass other nations: they enjoy the fullest liberty and can be restrained by no human laws.²

But they are, as the saying goes, utterly mistaken, and by this blind glory and ambition of theirs they drag countless others headlong with them into the infernal regions. For if there is one shepherd and governor of the whole Christian commonwealth, to whom the care of all Christ's sheep has been entrusted,³ what reason is there⁴ why he cannot enact laws and statutes for the common utility and benefit of all? Is it not a prince's office to enact and promulgate, as times and the dispositions of people require, laws by which the commonwealth's condition may be preserved in everyone's peace? Remove the laws from a commonwealth, and it must collapse in the shortest time. For even those who form an association for murder, robbery, and the devastation of cities cannot carry out what they have wickedly and ruinously devised, or do so only at the greatest peril and loss to themselves, unless some semblance of law restrains their recklessness.⁵ To establish what serves the commonwealth belongs either to the whole people or to the one who exercises public authority.⁶ Among the Romans, laws serving the common good were generally passed by the consuls and tribunes of the plebs, on the Senate's advice and with the common assent of the tribes. From many histories we can infer that the same practice was followed among the Greek peoples. But when everything came into one man's power, he himself made laws at his own discretion, although, to preserve a certain appearance of liberty, he used the Senate as his counselor in enacting them. What wonder, then, if the supreme Pontiff at any given time, whose divine institution entails the governance of the Christian people's life and conduct, enacts laws, statutes, and ordinances by which peace is maintained in the Christian commonwealth?

2. The Lutherans will say: Let other nations have their own lawmakers to burden, oppress, and stifle them with laws; for us, established under Christian liberty, it is enough to observe with all zeal and diligence the law of our lawgiver and Savior Christ, prescribed in the books of the Gospels. For the Apostle writes thus to the Galatians, chapter V:⁷ If you are led by the Spirit, you are not under the law. He also says in the first epistle to Timothy, chapter I,⁸ that the law is not laid down for the just.⁹ And in his second epistle to the Corinthians, chapter III,¹⁰¹¹ he warns us that liberty exists where the Spirit of the Lord is.¹² If, then, the Christian law is written in the hearts of the faithful and liberty is its inseparable companion, what more than the human laws of Pontiffs and Councils can overthrow the liberty of Christians, laws by which people are consigned to perpetual servitude? b) Add also the judgment of Pope Urban, written in C. XIX, question 2:¹³ “For one who is governed by a private law, he says, no reason requires that he be bound by a public one.”¹⁴ It is admitted that the Christian is governed by the grace of the Holy Spirit, which is a kind of private law; therefore he ought not to be bound by the public laws of the Pontiffs.

3. But if the Apostle's words are rashly interpreted, as they are by these people, not only the laws of Pontiffs but also the laws of Almighty God must be abrogated and removed from Christian homes. For if no law is laid down for the just; if where the Spirit of the Lord is, there is liberty; if those who are led by the Spirit are not under the law—as they display the Apostle's words on their surface—then, since Paul makes no more mention of human than of divine law, we must exclude every law from the just person and even from the Christian people. The result¹⁵ is surely that the just person need obey neither the Gospel nor any other divine law. The words of the Apostle and of the other sacred writings must therefore not be examined only on their surface; they must be scrutinized with the keenest intellect, inwardly, right down to the core.

The chief difference between the old law and the new is this: the old law defined nearly everything that had to be done, leaving only a few matters to human discretion. The new law, however, prescribes and determines only those things that have an everlasting bond with grace and charity. The rest—which, I say, have no connection with grace and are not usually at odds with it—it leaves to the authority¹⁶ of those entrusted with the care of the Christian people. Thus, in a certain sense, the new law can also be called the law of liberty, because it grants this power to establish laws.

Moreover, let the Lutherans say: Are not all the things established by a person acting as a prince's deputy, while exercising his authority, to be referred to the prince's will? If, then, the Roman Pontiff acts on earth as the deputy of our Savior Christ and has been appointed prince of the Lord's flock, on what grounds should the laws he promulgates not be received as Christ's laws? For, as the Lord says, whoever hears you hears me, and whoever rejects you rejects me.¹⁷ The Apostle too, writing to the Romans, chapter XIII,¹⁸ says: Whoever resists authority resists God's ordinance.

4. They will perhaps reply that it belongs to the supreme Prince, that is, Christ, to establish laws in the Christian commonwealth; but that it does not belong to the one acting as Christ's vicar to make laws, only to apply wisely and justly the laws issued by Christ. Therefore, if he introduces any ordinances,¹⁹ they should not be called laws but tyrannies, robberies, and oppressions of peoples.

Ceterum, let the Lutherans remember that although it is not within any person's power to make a perpetual law in another's place, it is wholly unreasonable to claim that the person who acts as deputy for a prince who has vanished from our sight cannot make laws according to the conditions of times and places. For how can the needs of times and affairs be met if no one is appointed in the commonwealth who can restrain wicked people by his laws? Just as the care of the Catholic Church is entrusted to the Roman Pontiff, so too he is granted the power to enact laws for the benefit of the Christian commonwealth. Otherwise this kind of office would be pointless, especially since evangelical law has defined few matters concerning human actions and civil life. We must therefore admit outright that the Roman Pontiff, by his authority, may add certain laws to the Gospel as the needs of the time require, provided they do not conflict with the Gospel's own law. Hence Jerome, writing to Lucinius, holds that the precepts of the ancients are to be considered Apostolic laws.²⁰ Paul also admonishes us, Romans chapter XIII,²¹ that every soul should be subject to the higher authorities, because all authority has its origin in God. He writes to the Thessalonians²² as well: Whoever rejects these things rejects not a human being but God, who has also given us his Holy Spirit. He likewise instructs the Hebrews²³ to obey and submit to their superiors. But how can we be subject to the higher authorities and obey our superiors if we may reject their commands at our own discretion?

Further, at the first Council of the Apostles,²⁴ as we read in Acts XV,²⁵ it was decreed that those in Antioch, Syria, and Cilicia should abstain from pollution by idols, from blood, and from what was strangled. Paul and the other Apostles also issued many other laws, none of which are set down in the Gospels.²⁶ I would add that the laws of Councils, no less than those of Pontiffs, must be held as sacred, so to speak, and received and observed with the greatest reverence. For the Lord says to his disciples: Behold, I am with you always, to the end of the age.²⁷ Elsewhere too he says: Where two or three are gathered in my name, there am I among them.²⁸ If Christ continually dwells with us and is present among those gathered in his name, we must surely believe that nothing can be decreed by that assembly of Fathers which Christ himself does not prompt in his name.

5. I return to Paul, who seems to exclude every law from the just. We should not think that laws, decrees, and ordinances prejudice liberty, except perhaps for someone who turns his mind away from what is right and from what is commanded. For when such a person anticipates the punishment awaiting him if he does not obey, he loathes the precepts of his superiors and pursues them with hatred. As a result, because his mind is pulled in the opposite direction and deterred from fulfilling his desire, he thinks he has gained license and liberty. But a person who does not recoil from the command of the law and is favorably disposed toward what is ordered does not think that the law takes away any of his liberty, because he freely does what the law has established. Therefore when Paul²⁹ says that those who are led by the Spirit are not under the law,³⁰ this is not to be understood as though there were no law to govern the works and actions of the just. Rather, because they observe the law of their own will, they are not compelled against their will to observe the law.³¹ For the inward law—which we have said is the grace of the Holy Spirit—is akin and kindred to the written law; one who is moved by this inward law to do good proceeds to observe the law wholeheartedly, not by force, fear, or any hope of temporal reward,³² but from a desire for what is honorable.

When Paul says that the law is not laid down for the just, this should not be understood to mean that spiritual people are bound by no laws. Rather, the law is enacted and promulgated against those who depart from an upright and virtuous life. Although the just need the divine law—which even the angelic nature cannot exist without—in order to live rightly, they are not compelled to observe it by any force.³³

We interpret the further saying of the same Apostle, that where the Spirit of the Lord is, there is liberty, as follows: those who have the Holy Spirit as the guide and governor of their works are free from any forced observance of the law, since their minds are wholly inclined toward virtue.

6. Finally, Urban's³⁴ words do not conflict with this position at all. Since the Christian law written in the hearts of the faithful is superior to every human law, spiritual people, when they conform their deeds to the law of the Holy Spirit, cannot be bound or constrained by any public law that is contrary to the divine law. Yet we do not declare them absolved from every divine or human law: if they withdrew from the divine law, they certainly would not be just. And if they turned their minds away from a human law enacted on a just basis, they would certainly not obey Peter, who commands that we be subject, for God's sake, to every human creature.³⁵

7. Perhaps the Lord's words could be added to overturn our position, words that moved certain believers at the Church's beginnings to think that they were subject to no human authority. For it is said in John VIII:³⁶ The truth will set you free. And again: If the truth sets you free,³⁷ you will be truly free.

But, as Augustine interprets them,³⁸ these words are to be understood as referring to freedom from sin. What prevents this liberty from requiring us to be subject to the just laws of Pontiffs and Councils? For, as Paul writes to the Romans, chapter VI:³⁹ Freed from sin, you became slaves of righteousness. They could also appropriately be understood as referring to freedom from observing the old law, in accordance with the Apostle's words to the Romans, chapter VII:⁴⁰ But now we have been released from the law of death, in which we were held, so that we may serve in newness of spirit and not in the oldness of the letter.

1. There is another objection by which heretics seem to undermine Christian liberty: the censure of excommunication, by which someone is barred from the sacraments and from all human company, and¹ consigned into Satan’s hands.

For what graver, harsher, or more servile thing can befall a person than to be cast out of the company of Christians² and handed over to the most savage enemy? Yet we are also admonished by the blessed Paul³ not to curse anyone.⁴ Moreover, what greater, graver, or more detestable curse can befall a Christian than to be barred from all human fellowship, all the sacraments, and all suffrages? And what is most miserable of all: to be delivered captive to a most bitter⁵ enemy?

2. In this matter, however, it must be considered with the greatest care that the judgment of the Pontiffs is just to the extent that it is like and conforms to the judgment of God, whose ministers they are. The Most High God is accustomed to recall a person from vice to virtue in two ways. At times he afflicts him with some loss or hardship, such as illness, loss of wealth, loss of power, or the death of relatives and friends.⁶ At other times, by his own power he allows the person to rely on himself and withdraws his aid, so that, having perceived the weakness of his own strength, he may return more humbly to God, from whom he had turned away through pride. Therefore the supreme Pontiff of our Church brings about both in excommunicating a person: to make him eventually return to a better way of life through shame⁷, he casts him shamefully out of the company of the faithful; and to make him, recognizing himself unworthy of spiritual things,⁸ seek divine aid as a suppliant, he bars him from spiritual helps—that is, from the sacraments—which could greatly help him to live well. There is therefore no loss to evangelical liberty if someone who refuses to obey the commands of his superiors⁹ is marked with the censure of excommunication so that he may return to a better way of life.

3. For our Savior Christ, prescribing the manner and form of fraternal correction, decrees that one who will not hear the Church—that is, its prelate—is to be treated as a gentile and a publican. Paul too, in his First Epistle to the Corinthians, chapter V,¹⁰ pronouncing a sentence of excommunication against an incestuous man, says: Though absent in body, I am present in spirit; I have already judged, as though present, the one who has acted in this way: in the name of our Lord Jesus Christ, when you are assembled and my spirit is with you, with the power of our Lord Jesus, to hand such a man over to Satan for the destruction of the flesh, so that his spirit may be saved on the day of our Lord Jesus Christ. He also writes to the Thessalonians, in the last chapter, in these words: If anyone does not obey our word in this letter, mark that person, and do not associate with him, so that he may be put to shame.¹¹ He also tells Timothy¹² that he handed Hymenaeus and Alexander over to Satan, so that they might learn not to blaspheme. If, then, the divine Apostle, the greatest champion of evangelical liberty, thinks that lost and wicked people must at times be kept from the common company of men, what reason is there that a contumacious and rebellious person should not be condemned by the Christian censure of excommunication by the Roman Pontiff or other Pontiffs,¹³ without any such loss of liberty? For one who scorns to obey the commands of his superiors is not led by the Holy Spirit, so as to enjoy that liberty of which the Apostle says: Where the Spirit of the Lord is, there is liberty.¹⁴ And therefore, if he must be compelled by this penalty of excommunication to a better and holier life, it is indeed very harsh and grievous to be excluded from human society; yet it is not unjust, nor foreign to evangelical teaching, that one who by his obstinacy has cast off Christian liberty and does not seek to obey his shepherd and ruler,¹⁵ should be pressed by such a burden and bound by such a chain, so that, brought to his senses through shame and loss, he may be led back to the path of true liberty.

4. The statement that he is handed over to Satan is not to be understood as though, condemned as in a court of judgment, he were delivered into the demons’ hands to suffer the final punishment. Rather, because through his stubbornness and recklessness he is deprived of the Church’s sacraments and suffrages, by which he could indeed protect himself against Satan’s assaults,¹⁶ he is cast away, as it were unarmed, to be tested by the demon,¹⁷ and so falls into sins more easily and more disastrously. For just as he raises his horn against Christ’s vicar, so¹⁸ he too is brought low without any loss of evangelical liberty, cast down from every ecclesiastical advantage and benefit.

The Apostle warns us to beware of that curse by which we wish and pray for evil to befall a person for this sole purpose: that he be afflicted, grieve, and suffer torment.¹⁹ But he does not in any way deter us from the other kind, by which²⁰ we wish some harm to befall a person who recklessly departs from the commands of his superiors—or rather, from the law of God Most Good,²¹ so that he himself, having come to his senses, may return to virtue’s embrace, and the rest, taught by his misfortune, may walk the right path.²² For doctors too, very often, when they find a putrid limb,²³ cut it off for the health of the whole body.

1. Come now, the Lutherans say, let that power by which the Christian people are to be guided in spiritual life not obstruct evangelical liberty. But to possess earthly rule and to rage against Christ’s sheep—does that not conflict with Christian liberty? He would be blinder than a mole who failed to see that tyranny exists wherever a ruler can command his subjects as slaves. Therefore, wishing to drive from the hearts of his disciples any desire for such a kingdom and such rule, our Savior Jesus Christ said: The princes of the Gentiles lord it over them, and those who are greater exercise authority over them. It shall not be so among you; but whoever wishes to become greater among you shall be your minister, and whoever wishes to be first among you shall be your servant.¹

Tell us also, they say, you defenders of the Roman principate: do you think it just² that the man who acts as the prince’s deputy should possess greater power than the prince? The servant is not greater than his lord, says the Lord.³ If therefore Christ, the Supreme One, scorned,⁴ disregarded, and rejected every earthly rule, and chose for himself a humble and poor life, how is it fitting that the Roman Pontiff, who presents himself as Christ’s Vicar on earth, should act as an earthly prince, king, and emperor?

For Peter himself, that outstanding imitator of his teacher, is nowhere recorded as having held any earthly principate; rather, he cared for the salvation of Christ’s sheep and wished the Christian people to be free from every yoke of servitude.⁵

2. But we shall refute with little difficulty all those things from which the Lutherans take occasion to slander the Roman Pontiff, if first we explain that there are various modes of ruling. There are indeed some rulers who, as Aristotle approves in Book VIII of Nicomachean Ethics,⁶⁷ direct all their rule not to the subjects’ advantage but solely to their own benefit. There are others who, in their governorship, look above all to providing for the people’s safety, peace, and tranquility.⁸ Those who direct everything to their own advantage are not true princes but tyrants, robbers, and executioners; their rule is in every respect opposed to liberty. But those who use their power for the people’s advantage and peace are Christian princes, true shepherds and guardians of Christ’s sheep; their principate does no harm to evangelical liberty.⁹ Nothing could happen more freely to anyone than that his safety and tranquility be provided for in every matter.

Since, then, the earthly rule of the Roman Pontiff looks wholly to the benefit of Christians, it should be called a rule of LIBERTY¹⁰ rather than of servitude.¹¹ And the Roman Pontiff, to whom this earthly power has been granted by Christ, the Supreme One,¹² should rightly be called the guide, shepherd, and protector of the Christian people.

3. If the Lutherans object that it has sometimes happened that the Roman Pontiff directed this earthly principate solely to his own advantage and that of his followers, and not only weakened the Christian commonwealth but nearly overthrew it, let them consider that nothing must be subtracted from the nature of true and free rule because one person, and then another, abuses his authority. In this matter we must consider not how a ruler uses his office but the nature of the principate. No one will deny that almsgiving is good by nature, although some give alms badly and turn them to empty glory. Should almsgiving therefore be abolished or condemned because some corrupt it by abuse? In the same way, the Church’s earthly principate is good in its proper character and altogether praiseworthy, since it was established for the benefit and advantage of the Christian people. Very many Roman Pontiffs have used such rule not only justly and with civility but also most holily; and in our own age His Beatitude Clement VII, formerly called Julius de’ Medici,¹³ conducts this principate with the greatest moderation and wisdom.

Therefore, I consider that nothing should be detracted from the nature and proper character of this earthly rule because some Pontiffs have turned it entirely to the slaughter of peoples and the increase of their followers’ wealth and dignities.

4. What is so surprising, moreover, if our Supreme Pontiff holds an earthly rule joined to spiritual power? Was not Melchizedek both king of Salem and priest?¹⁴ Moses too exercised, to some extent, authority in both the earthly and spiritual principates. Are we not told in Joshua, chapter 21, that forty-eight cities were allotted to the Levites and priests?¹⁵

The Lutherans are certainly asleep on both ears¹⁶ when they suppose every earthly rule to be a master’s power over slaves. This view is condemned not only by the authority of philosophers but also by long experience of human affairs.¹⁷ Who does not know that a person bound to slavery is kept to his duty by fear rather than love, whereas a son is drawn to obedience to his parents by a certain gentle affection, and is guided and governed with a certain tact? The rule of the Roman Pontiff over Christians, then, does not have the character of that principate¹⁸ by which masters compel slaves to their service, but of that by which a father, with a certain gentle affection, keeps his son in a free life and in honorable conduct. Therefore this earthly rule of the Roman Church should be called not a master’s principate over a slave but a father’s over a son. Hence the ancient custom of the Church, by which the Roman Pontiff styles himself “Servant of the Servants of God” in his official documents, fits our position perfectly. For just as they call a man free when he acts and works for his own advantage,¹⁹ so they call him a servant when he labors solely for another’s benefit and advantage. Since the Roman Bishop labors for the common good of Christians, he should be called their servant rather than their master.

5. Christ certainly did not wish to keep this principate from his disciples: I mean the one that joins the prince’s servitude to supreme ruling power. He prohibited only that rule which is customarily exercised over subjects as though they were slaves, with ambition, arrogance, and greed. For our Savior Jesus Christ himself declared that he was both Lord and servant when, as we read in the Gospel of John,²⁰ after washing his disciples’ feet—a task certainly belonging to servants—he said: You call me Teacher and Lord, and you speak rightly, for so I am. He did not, then, wish his disciples to aspire to a principate of the tyrannical sort; but he did not forbid that dominion which is joined to a prince’s service. We need not fear that, if the Roman Pontiff possesses earthly rule, he will surpass our Savior himself either in dignity or in power. For Christ himself was governor of both the heavenly and earthly kingdoms,²¹²² King of kings and Lord of lords.²³ Yet, as the Apostle writes to the Philippians,²⁴ he emptied himself, taking the form of a servant, and was found in human likeness. He showed himself to be a king when, riding into the city on a donkey, he wished to be acclaimed king in accordance with Zechariah’s prophecy.²⁵ But although by his very nature he was Prince, King, and Emperor, he did not wish to use earthly principate while he lived this mortal life;²⁶ instead, he chose a poor life full of hardship so that he could devote all his effort more freely to humanity’s spiritual salvation, for which he had taken on human flesh.

6. The Apostles observed the same course. Through their effort, care, industry, and grace the Christian commonwealth took shape and grew, so that they would not be distracted from their mission by the cares and burdens of temporal affairs.²⁷ But after the fame and splendor of the Catholic faith had shone throughout the whole world, and the Christian commonwealth had grown almost immeasurably through divine providence and the labor, sweat, and blood of the holy Fathers, the Church departed from that original practice of poverty. The Roman Church began to possess wealth and to exercise earthly principate, so that by its majesty and authority—which could not honorably be maintained and preserved without wealth and rule—it might sustain the great mass of the Christian people. We must not, then, detract from the earthly rule of the Roman Pontiff because Christ, the Apostles, and the Pontiffs of the primitive Church lived poor lives and were adorned with no glory of earthly principate. The circumstances of different times, events, and affairs call for different customs, a different way of life, and a different use of things.

1. “But let us grant,” say the Lutherans, “some temporal principality to the Roman Pontiff. Who is there that would not condemn so burdensome an exaction of taxes, tithes, and levies as we so often see? Add that nearly all the offices of the city of Rome, which are almost countless, are bought for a great price; no one can obtain ecclesiastical rights and dignities unless he purchases the documents with money¹—so that one might cry out Jugurtha’s saying: ‘O city for sale, and soon² to perish if it finds a buyer.’”³

Is this not an oppressive collection of money,⁴ to the detriment, loss, and ruin of evangelical liberty? For when Christ asked Simon in Matthew, chapter XVII,⁵ “From whom do the kings of the earth receive tribute or poll tax? From their own sons, or from strangers?” and Peter answered, “From strangers,” he added, “Then the sons are free.” Elsewhere too it is said:⁶ “You received without payment; give without payment.” If, then, the sons are free from every tax, according to our Savior’s pronouncement, and if what was received freely is to be given freely, how is it consistent with the liberty of Christians, who are sons of God, that taxes, tithes, priestly offices, and magistracies should be paid by them? This is no liberty, but a shameful, infamous, disgraceful servitude.

The Lutherans think these and similar charges carry great weight against the Roman Church; but we shall show by clear reasoning that they are of little importance, mere fables and trifles, inventions of malicious men that bring harm.

2. To begin with taxes: who does not know that taxes and tribute are owed to kings and princes so that provision may be made for the common peace, tranquillity, and safety of peoples? How could a commonwealth be made safe from enemies, robbers, and wicked citizens⁷ unless some expense were supplied to the ruler, by which the ranks of soldiers, judges, and other magistrates who govern it might be maintained and supported? Experience, the teacher of all things, itself⁸ shows that money is the sinew not only of war but also of peace and of all the things by which cities and kingdoms are preserved. If such taxes are collected for the common⁹ good of cities,¹⁰ what reason is there that they should not justly and lawfully be exacted from the people? Moreover, tribute is paid to the rulers themselves, as¹¹ as their stipend for preserving the peace of cities. “The farmer who labours,” says Paul,¹² “ought to be the first to receive some of the fruits.”¹³ And in the first epistle to the Corinthians, chapter IX,¹⁴ he says: “Who ever serves as a soldier at his own expense? Who plants a vineyard and does not eat of its fruit? Who tends a flock and does not drink the flock’s milk?” Elsewhere he also says: “Those who serve at the altar should live from the altar.”¹⁵ Our Lord, too, considers the worker worthy of his wages.¹⁶ But we must understand this prudently: namely, that they devote their labour to the safety of peoples and cities, that the taxes be moderate, and that they be distributed according to the rule of justice.¹⁷ For if they are excessive, if they are not directed to the people’s benefit, and if they lack a just distribution, they are not owed to the ruler; rather, he must be accused of tyranny if he extorts them by force, and he becomes a debtor to the citizens for this unjust plunder. Hence the Lord rebukes rulers of this sort in Ezekiel, chapter XXXIV,¹⁸ in these words: “You ate the milk, clothed yourselves with the wool, and slaughtered what was fat, but you did not feed my flock.” Since, then, we have granted the Supreme Pontiff temporal rule, we must also concede to him the rights of taxation.

3. But in their argument that Christians are free from paying all taxes because they are sons of God, the Lutherans are greatly mistaken. For our Savior’s saying is not to be understood of all Christians, but of Christ Jesus himself and his disciples, whose household was poor. Therefore, we shall consider only those Christians exempt from paying taxes who imitate the poor life of Christ and the Apostles and have made themselves owners of nothing. For it is most just that those who have devoted themselves solely to divine matters for the common safety of peoples be burdened with no taxes or tribute.

4. I come to tithes, which many also use as an occasion to rail against the Roman Church. What? If the person who governs the Christian commonwealth and has the primary care of the salvation¹⁹ of souls faces a need to defend it from enemies,²⁰ may he not demand for military purposes not merely a tenth, but even a fifth, a fourth, or a third part of ecclesiastical goods, by which he can repel the enemy and preserve peace and tranquillity in the commonwealth? He who does not see this is foolish. Who is so witless and heedless as not to know that a part must be put in danger for the preservation of the whole?²¹ Nature herself prompts us to put an arm in the way of a blow falling upon the head, lest we die from such a strike.²² If, then, the Roman Pontiffs sometimes exact tithes to preserve the Christian commonwealth, this must not be counted as a crime against them; they should instead be praised, exalted, and honoured with glory,²³ because they do not neglect the safety of the Christian people but work diligently for it.²⁴ The same may be believed possible for the Church’s other needs, since the safety of Christians surely depends on the safety of the Roman Church, just as the soundness of the body depends on the soundness of the head. Just as the Levites are commanded in Numbers, chapter XVIII,²⁵ to give tithes to the High Priest, so it accords with natural law that clerics should provide them to our Supreme Pontiff, who cares for us all in common, whenever some need arises.

5. We think little of the next charge, made to insult the Roman Church: that all the offices of its court must be obtained for a great sum of money. I would indeed concede²⁶ that it might perhaps be better or more advantageous if they were freely bestowed. Yet even in this sale of offices there is a means by which we may best protect the Roman commonwealth. Since these offices are highly profitable, it is no wonder that the Roman Pontiff takes something from those who seek them, as support for the Church that provides such rich and ample gains.

The Lutherans may perhaps object that this sale of offices brings great loss to the Christian people, because whoever has bought an office for himself tries to sell his services,²⁷ in order to recover the large sum he spent to obtain it. The result, they say, is that he bleeds those who need his services. But those who chatter in this way do not know that the Roman See has established a fixed rule for its offices,²⁸ and a moderate one at that, which no one may safely exceed. We may also hope that Pope Clement VII,²⁹ who is most restrained in all things, will so regulate all the affairs of the City that henceforth no one, unless wholly wicked,³⁰ will be able to accuse the Roman curia of avarice or excessive gain. For, already in the first year of his pontificate, he has given such proof of probity, moderation, and integrity that we may promise ourselves the greatest benefits through his favour.

6. The Roman Church is further branded with this charge: that priestly offices and documents can be obtained only by purchase.

But let the Lutherans tell me: is not the Roman Pontiff the distributor of all the Church’s wealth and riches?³¹ By right of his pontificate, can he not dispense all the ecclesiastical goods of the Catholic Church according to the circumstances of places and persons? What wonder, then, if for the common good of the Church and the support of his household he asks for some part of the annual revenues from those to whom he grants the care and income³² of churches? How could the authority of the Roman See be maintained with dignity unless it acquired from such resources the means to uphold its pontifical order? If you take financial support away from the Roman Pontiff,³³ you will see all ecclesiastical dignity trampled underfoot and no regard paid by earthly rulers to Christ’s vicar. For many histories—which I pass over lest I stray too long from my purpose—show clearly that when the Roman principality was confined to a narrow territory, the Roman Church suffered many calamities and hardships, and suffered them so severely that it must be counted a miracle that it rose to the majesty we see today.

7. The saying of our Savior,³⁴ “You received without payment; give without payment,” is no obstacle to our position. Its meaning is that neither the grace of the Holy Spirit nor any spiritual gift is to be sold for any price; rather, just as we received that grace freely, so we ought to give it generously.

Finally, what the Lutherans seem to shout—that everything in Rome is for sale³⁵—is plainly a lie, contrived by them³⁶ to stain the dignity and majesty of the Roman See. For they know with absolute certainty that if its dignity and majesty endure (and they will endure, perhaps to their great loss and harm), they will be unable to gain dominion over Christians, which they desire above all. The Roman Church lacks neither justice, nor clemency, nor generosity.³⁷ If some Pontiffs have been branded with the stain of avarice,³⁸ all that stain has been driven from the palace of Clement VII.³⁹ For he does not devote himself to bringing money into the City,⁴⁰ but to reforming morals, to peace, and to tranquillity.

1. There is another institution of the Church which many, devoted to gluttony and the belly, consider to depart from evangelical liberty: namely, the prescription of fasting and abstinence.

What sort of freedom, they ask, can we say a person has if he is not even free to eat whenever he pleases? Indeed, he is bound by the laws of his forebears to certain fasts and to a fixed rule of abstinence on appointed days.

2. But if they kept in mind that Christian liberty¹, as we explained above, is that which tears us away from slavery to sin² in accordance with the Apostle's words to the Galatians:³ You were called to liberty, brothers; only do not turn liberty into an occasion for the flesh, they would plainly see that whatever helps remove and eradicate slavery to sin⁴ does not hinder Christian liberty, but rather wins it greater favor and adornment.⁵ Who does not know that a temporary interruption of those things that foster lust is especially⁶ suited and useful for virtue and freedom of the soul? And who, unless mad, would deny that the appetites of the flesh are nourished by food and drink? “Without Ceres and Bacchus,” says the comic poet,⁷ “Venus grows cold.” Fasting, then, by which we sometimes abstain from food, does not oppose evangelical liberty.

3. Moreover, fasting also helps us toward another end by which we are greatly raised up to virtue: the apprehension of divine things. Daniel writes in chapter 10 of his prophecy⁸ that he received a revelation from God after fasting for three weeks. The Magi among the Persians, most assiduous of all men in their studies, lived on no kind of food except flour and vegetables when they sought to raise their minds to investigate heavenly matters. The Gymnosophists, most experienced in every branch of knowledge,⁹ abstained from meat. Add another reason to confirm fasting's usefulness. After we violated the divine law, to our misfortune, fasting became a most powerful remedy for obtaining pardon. In chapter 2 of Joel,¹⁰ the Lord says: Turn to me with all your heart, in fasting, weeping, and mourning. The Ninevites too, as the book of the prophet Jonah recounts,¹¹¹² turned God's anger away from themselves by fasting. Hear also Augustine, who gathers the whole fruit of fasting in a certain sermon:¹³ “Fasting,” he says, “purifies the soul, lifts the mind, subjects one's own flesh to the spirit, makes the heart contrite and humbled, dispels the mists of desire, extinguishes the fires of lust, and kindles the light of chastity.” The Church also sings in the Preface:¹⁴ “By bodily fasting you restrain vices, raise the mind, and bestow virtue and rewards.” If, then, we fast under the laws of the Roman Pontiff and the ancient observance of the Church, and likewise abstain from meat on certain days, we do nothing against Christian liberty. Rather, we use remedies to preserve it.

4. What will you say obstructs evangelical liberty: something Christ, the Apostles, and the holiest Fathers observed with the greatest zeal? The Gospel records that Christ fasted forty days and forty nights.¹⁵¹⁶ In his second letter to the Corinthians, chapter 11,¹⁷ the Apostle boasts that he endured many hardships in frequent fastings. In his first letter to the same people, chapter 9,¹⁸ he says: I discipline my body and bring it into subjection, lest after preaching to others I myself should be disqualified. We are also urged to fast in these words in the same second letter to the Corinthians, chapter 6:¹⁹²⁰ Let us commend ourselves as God's ministers in great endurance, in labors, in vigils, in fastings. Of the other Apostles, Acts chapter 13 says:²¹ As they ministered to the Lord and fasted, the Holy Spirit said to them, etc. And chapter 14 reads:²² When they had appointed presbyters for them in each church and prayed with fasting, they commended them to the Lord. As for the ancient Fathers, hermits, and monks, it is so well known that they often fasted that there is no need for me to recount it.²³

5. The Lutherans may perhaps say: “We do not condemn abstaining from meat for a time, nor voluntary fasts; we condemn the law that imposes the obligation to fast.”²⁴ For they insist that unless we fast in accordance with the enactments of the Roman Pontiffs, they would have us guilty of eternal damnation. But this is not in keeping with Christ's Gospel, apostolic teaching, or Christian liberty. For in Luke chapter 5,²⁵ Christ Jesus, our lawgiver, says: The children of the bridegroom cannot fast while the bridegroom is with them.²⁶ Who besides Christians are to be called the children of the bridegroom?²⁷ And how long is the bridegroom with them? Is he not with them continually, indeed until the end of the age? In Matthew chapter 15 it is also said:²⁸ It is not what enters the mouth that defiles a person. Therefore, when the Lord sends his disciples out to preach, he says: Eat whatever is set before you.²⁹ Paul too³⁰ speaks to the same effect in his letter to the Romans, chapter 14:³¹ The kingdom of God is not food and drink—which the Gloss rightly interprets to mean that justice consists neither in abstaining nor in eating. In his first letter to Timothy, chapter 4,³² he also says: Every creature of God is good, and nothing is to be rejected if it is received with thanksgiving.

6. Although such statements seem to overturn every law of abstinence and fasting, they do not do so when rightly explained³³ and examined in depth. In the first place, they lay a sandy and unstable foundation; it is therefore no wonder that their buildings are full of cracks³⁴ and threaten ruin on every side. For they argue that no obligation of abstinence is imposed on us except by human law—a claim that is plainly false and wholly unreasonable.

I would ask them: does not the multitude of people need some remedy to restrain the disorders of the soul?³⁵ If this is denied, Paul's statement³⁶ in Galatians chapter 5³⁷ is immediately at hand: The flesh, he says, lusts against the spirit, and the spirit against the flesh; these are opposed to one another, so that you do not do whatever you wish. If, then, we need some medicine against the desires of the flesh, lest they overwhelm the integrity of the spirit, natural reason's law surely requires us to value abstinence in proportion to how necessary we find it for quenching the desires of the flesh.³⁸ We are thus urged to some measure of abstinence not only by human ordinances but also by natural law. For if we consider the nature of fasting and abstinence by a common principle—that is, as a temporary interruption of food by which the flesh is restrained and held back, as if by a bridle, from rebelling rashly against the spirit—we are not wholly free to choose: the law of nature binds us to fast. But if we consider the seasons of fasting and a definite, prescribed measure of abstinence, these were established not by natural law but by the enactments of our forebears and the Church's long-standing custom.³⁹ Just as the laws of secular rulers set a measure for observing the precepts of natural law in temporal matters, according to the circumstances of times and people, so it belongs to the spiritual ruler to regulate those precepts of natural law that serve the faithful's welfare in spiritual matters. Thus, just as he does with other Christian practices, he establishes a measure of fasting and abstinence for the faithful's salvation.

7. What they go on to babble—that the children of the bridegroom cannot fast while the bridegroom is with them—does not prejudice our account. Chrysostom thinks that this refers only to Christ's disciples, not to all Christians.⁴⁰ Since their minds were still weak and their spiritual digestion delicate, they were not to be deterred by the austerity of fasting while the bridegroom himself was present; rather, they were to be strengthened by a certain sweet and gentle kindness. Jerome, however,⁴¹ interprets it as referring to the fast of the old observances. Those who were to be enlightened by the new grace of the Holy Spirit were not to be bound to the old observances of fasting. Augustine, for his part, holds that there are two kinds of fasting:⁴² one of mourning, the other of rejoicing. The first is borne with a bitter reckoning of one's sins and the bitterness of this present life. The other is joined to a kind of spiritual joy of the soul, when, having tasted the spirit, all flesh becomes tasteless. Augustine assigns the fast of rejoicing to perfect men—that is, those who enjoy nearly continuous contemplation of divine things—but does not assign to them the fast of mourning and bitterness, because they delight in the nearly continual spiritual presence of the bridegroom. Hence, where Luke's Gospel says:⁴³ The children of the bridegroom cannot fast, Matthew's Gospel reads:⁴⁴ The children of the bridegroom cannot mourn. But for other Christians, who have not advanced to so high a summit of perfection, the fast of mourning is entirely fitting and appropriate,⁴⁵ since they are earnestly concerned both to wipe away past sins and to avoid future ones. Augustine therefore understands the Savior's saying to concern perfect men and the fast of mourning.⁴⁶ It does not, then, dishonor evangelical liberty for our forebears to enact some laws governing the observance of fasts.⁴⁷ Yet, within this very liberty, the conditions of perfect and imperfect men differ in the measure of abstinence:⁴⁸ the former observe the laws of fasting with great joy of soul,⁴⁹ the latter with a bitter awareness of their sins.

8. What is next alleged—that food entering a person's mouth cannot defile the soul—is certainly true and consistent with the nature of food. How could food taken into the mouth act upon a person's soul, which is spiritual in nature? But this does not abolish the laws of fasting. Although food by its own nature does not defile a person's mind, if someone exceeds the proper measure in its use and transgresses the law, it then acquires the power and force to dishonor and defile him.⁵⁰ The reply to blessed Paul's statement is similar: abstinence from food and drink, considered in their nature,⁵¹ does nothing toward attaining the kingdom of heaven; but when considered as a means to avoid sins and to observe an established law, it is of the greatest help and benefit to us.

9. Add that although Christ's disciples, who were sent to enlarge and strengthen the Christian commonwealth, were not forbidden any kind of food and were bound by no laws of fasting—since their journeys among various nations and their constant labor evidently required this—it is nevertheless likely that they often fasted and that the observance of fasting was handed down through them to later generations.

10. Finally, the claim that every creature is good and that nothing received with thanksgiving ought to be rejected seems to require the same interpretation.⁵² If we consider the nature of foods, none should indeed be rejected on the ground that they could stain us with guilt. But if we prohibit certain kinds of food for a reasonable cause, or if our forebears have prescribed a period of abstinence, then those foods must be rejected and the laws obeyed.

11. Yet what may seem to undermine this defense of evangelical liberty in our observance of fasts is that above we defined liberty as consisting in a certain ability to act or not to act.⁵³ For if we are bound by the laws of fasting so that we cannot go without fasting without penalty, how does the ability to act or not act lie within us? This institution of fasting, then, is incompatible with liberty.

But we must observe that the account of liberty we gave above is not an equally valid definition of every kind of liberty, but only of the kind that cannot be joined to the necessity of a natural impulse—that is, complete and perfect liberty in every respect. Thus, whatever we do without being driven by necessity is rightly said to be done freely by us, because we carry it out in such a way that we can refrain from doing it without any danger to ourselves. But this kind of liberty does not apply to everything for a Christian.⁵⁴ For many things are laid down in the evangelical law that cannot be omitted without penalty: loving one's neighbor; expecting nothing from one to whom one lends; not desiring a woman; and many other things of this sort. There are also many ordinances of the Pontiffs that press us to observe certain practices,⁵⁵⁵⁶ such as attending divine worship on feast days, confessing sins each year, and receiving the holy⁵⁷ Eucharist at the appointed time. Besides the liberty just described, however, there is another kind of liberty. It does not exclude every sort of necessity, but only that which is effected by violence and coercion.⁵⁸ In this sense we are said to act freely when we do something of our own will.⁵⁹ For every movement of the will, whether natural or acquired, excludes violence and coercion. What is violent comes from an external source, with the recipient contributing nothing to the force;⁶⁰ that is, the recipient has no inclination toward it, but rather an inclination toward the opposite.⁶¹ This is the liberty that true Christians claim for themselves in their actions. For although many things are prescribed for Christians under a certain obligation to act,⁶² true Christians do not observe them against their will or unwillingly;⁶³ rather, as though they had come down from heaven, they cherish and honor them with a certain ardor of the will.⁶⁴ The grace of the Holy Spirit, which we have called our primary law, does not depart from the laws of Christians.