De Ecclesia Christi

« Setting aside the distinction, which is evident in itself, between the personal merits of the one sitting and the prerogatives of the See, 1°. the distinction introduced¹ by the Innovators, regarding prerogatives which, divinely instituted, would belong to the Apostolic See but not to the individuals sitting in it, is wholly to be rejected; since all the prerogatives were instituted by Christ as proper to Peter and to his successors one by one, and through them and by them they belong to the See. Nevertheless 2°. if the perpetuity of the Apostolic See and the mortality of the individual occupants are considered, some distinction between the See and the individual occupants must be admitted, from which the different condition of infallible teaching and of supreme governance in the Church is understood in time of a vacant See and in time of a full See. »

By the name See, whether Apostolic or generally of any episcopal see, we understand the complex of rights and pastoral offices which, either by divine institution to endure perpetually or established by ecclesiastical law, have been arranged for some bishopric, so that they inhere in the lawful successors in that bishopric, one after another. When therefore the occupant or presiding person is named, there is understood in the concrete the very person who, for the time being, is endowed with those rights and discharges the offices; but by the name see, in comparison with the presiding person, the rights and offices themselves are signified in themselves, abstracting from the person in whom they actually inhere, inasmuch as by divine or ecclesiastical institution they are perpetual in this determinate bishopric according to the order of succession of persons. Hence it is clear that the designation see, when qualified by adjuncts or predicates expressing the exercise of rights and offices, is determined to the concrete signification of the presiding person who has and actually exercises the rights and offices; conversely, the presiding person can be signified formally and reduplicatively as far as he is endowed with those rights; or merely nuncupatively who is endowed with the rights, but considering him according to his personal good or bad merits.

These things being laid down, and the matters demonstrated in the three immediately preceding theses being assumed, there follows as a corollary in what true sense the comparison and distinction between the See and the presiding person takes place, and which distinction is altogether false, and indeed heretical.

1°. The distinction between the presiding persons, if they are regarded not formally according to their pastoral rights but materially according to their good or bad merits, and between the See regarded as the rights remaining in a given bishopric in the order of succession, is evident in itself; and we mention it only because the Innovators abused the words in which St. Leo the Great expressed it, to lend some quasi-patristic colour to their erroneous distinction between the Roman See and those sitting in it, of which we shall speak presently. Against the ambition of Anatolius, Bishop of Constantinople, whom we have already mentioned above, the holy Pontiff declares that the rights and privileges of the See of Alexandria stand firm, nor ought it to suffer any loss from the crimes of Dioscorus, who had held that See; and so too the See of Antioch is to be preserved in the dignity of the third rank, not reduced to the fourth by the unjust usurpation of the Bishop of Constantinople, who, though in the lesser see he ought rather to strive to excel in the merits of virtue. « Let nothing of the dignity of the See of Alexandria perish, which it earned through St. Mark the Evangelist, disciple of blessed Peter; nor, with Dioscorus collapsing through the obstinacy of his impiety, let the splendour of so great a Church be darkened by alien shadows. Let the Antiochene Church also, in which the Christian name first arose when the Apostle Peter preached, persist in the order of its paternal constitution, and, placed in the third rank, never let itself become inferior. For the sees are one thing, the occupants another. And each one's integrity is great honour, which, since it loses none of its ornaments in any places, how much more could it be glorious in the magnificence of the city of Constantinople, if through your observance, and your defence of the paternal canon, and your example of uprightness, many priests should have it » ep. 106, c. 3, ad Anatol. CP. In defence of the paternal canon, by which in the Council of Nicaea (can. 6, 7) the rights of the Eastern sees were confirmed, Leo also exhorts Maximus of Antioch against the machinations of the same Anatolius. « For it is fitting that you should be a partner of the Apostolic See in this solicitude, and, confidently acting, recognise the privileges of the third see (Antioch), which shall be diminished by no one's ambition; for such is my reverence for the canons of Nicaea that I have neither permitted nor will permit what was established by the holy Fathers to be violated by any novelty. For though the merits of prelates are sometimes diverse, the rights of the sees nevertheless remain, on which, though rivals may perhaps bring some disturbance, they cannot diminish the dignity » ep. 119, c. 3, ad Maxim. Antioch.

Therefore St. Leo compares and distinguishes sees and presiding persons only in this sense: that the rights, since they are either from unchangeable divine institution or at least from a stable ecclesiastical ordinance, in no way depend on the merits of the presiding persons; just as conversely these merits do not depend on the greater or lesser rights of power and dignity, which are instituted finally for the good of the Church, in roughly the way one must think and speak of graces freely given in comparison with sanctifying graces.

2°. The Richerists, Jansenists, Gallicans and Febronians, with an intolerable abuse, appealed to the words of St. Leo in order to cast a veil over their error², by which they claimed that the rights and privileges divinely instituted and conferred on Peter were referred to the See of Peter, and not at all to the individual occupants of Peter's chair; that the See is indefectible in true faith, so that it never obstinately falls away from the universal Church; and that the individual occupants can even in definitions of faith and morals sometimes err and mislead, although the error is afterwards soon to be corrected by their successors. From this doctrine, accordingly, indefectibility in faith belongs to the Church or the Roman See of Peter, if it is regarded as a morally continuous succession, and in the same way to the continuous series of Peter's successors; but infallibility in teaching, and hence the supreme infallible magisterium, belongs solely to the universal Church, or to the ecumenical Council, which represents the universal Church. From this they further inferred that the Roman Pontiff is subject to the power of the universal Church and therefore also to the Council of the universal Church; from which it further followed that a Council, as it is above the Pope, so can be lawful apart from and against the Roman Pontiff. By this reasoning not only the infallible magisterium but also the supreme government over the universal Church, both powers instituted by Christ in Peter, are plainly denied to the successors of Peter, and the constitution given to the Church by Christ is overturned.

The refutation, not indeed the more detailed one, which is to be given in the Treatise on the Roman Pontiff and has been given by distinguished theologians, but nevertheless sufficient, as far as may rightly be required in the Treatise on the Church, is wholly contained in the preceding theses. For three things have been demonstrated. a) Christ the Lord instituted the supreme power of teaching and of sacred rule, or the primacy, with all its rights, in one person, Peter, in a distinction expressly drawn from all the other Apostles and from the whole remaining Church of Christ; indeed in the subordination of the whole Church, and therefore also of the Apostles, under the one Peter; not only the individual parts or members of the Church, but directly, looking at the whole Church together, which is to be built upon the one Peter; the whole kingdom of heaven on earth, the keys of the whole of which are promised to the one Peter; all brethren together, or the brotherhood which is in the world, whose confirmation in faith is committed to the one Peter; the whole fold of Christ, of the whole of which the one Peter is instituted shepherd. b) This unity of person, to which the fullness of power over the whole Church is promised and given, is indicated and instituted by Christ to the exclusion of division among many; but the power, in the very manner in which it was first instituted, and therefore in the unity of the person, is to be propagated by perpetual succession for as long as the Church itself persists on earth, so that the gates of hell do not prevail against it. For in the very words of Christ is included a perpetual succession of individuals in the same power of Peter; the words of promise and institution pertain in the same way and with the same efficacy to the one Peter in the foundation as to the one person of each of Peter's successors in the perpetuity of the foundation³. c) When the perpetual succession in the power of Peter is joined with the particular Roman Church, with the Roman See of Peter; from the very words of Christ instituting the perpetuity of the succession of individuals, the subject of the power, rights and privileges instituted in Peter is nothing other than this single Roman Pontiff, at any time, as successor of Peter. In the see, the chair, the Roman Church are not those divinely instituted rights of power, except insofar as they are in the Roman Pontiff, and insofar as it is an unchangeable right that no one other than the Roman Pontiff succeeds Peter in the power of the primacy instituted by divine law. Nor do the words of Christ the Founder pertain to the series of successors considered collectively only, insofar as they are many, but to each who in act succeeds in the series; and therefore also the subject in act of the power and privileges which are expressed in Christ's words (of infallible magisterium and supreme governance over the whole Church) is not the many Pontiffs who have been or will be, or the whole series, as the Gallicans feigned, but one only, all days until the consummation of the age, when he in act succeeds Peter in the series. See the arguments of the demonstration in thesis X and following, the summary of which is contained in the words of St. Jerome (ep. 15, n. 2): « Following no first one except Christ, I am joined in communion with your Beatitude (Damasus), that is, with the chair of Peter; upon that rock I know the Church is built. »

Evidently, therefore, when the supreme power of the Apostolic See is named, whether in infallible teaching or in universal governance over the whole Church, nothing else is signified than the power of the one holding the Apostolic See, that is, of the occupying Roman Pontiff; but the distinction, drawn in this sense, between the See and the Roman Pontiff actually occupying it leads into all the heresies condemned, which we have recalled. Moreover, from this crafty distinction of see and occupant also, with the errors that follow from it and are connected with it, it appears how necessary was the definition of the Council of the Vatican, by which heresies almost latent concerning the very foundations and the divine constitution of the Church were drawn out from all their wrappings and circumlocutions and explicitly condemned (sess. IV, chs. 1–4).

3°. Nevertheless there is some true sense in which, even with the rights and prerogatives of power regarded, the see or chair may and ought to be considered as distinct from the individual occupants κατ' ἐπίνοιαν (in conception). We speak of the see and occupants of the Roman Church, because in these both the supreme power and the perpetuity of succession are of divine right and therefore of far greater moment; moreover, from these very things an apt application spontaneously presents itself to other patriarchal or episcopal sees, in which privileges and the right of succession are indeed firm in their own way, but by ecclesiastical law alone.

Supreme power, therefore, by the act of Peter, prince of the Apostles, of which it was said above, having become unchangeably joined with the Roman bishopric, if it is considered in itself and formally according to its divinely instituted perpetuity, is properly and is called the Apostolic See; but the individual heirs of this power, instituted in Peter and joined with the Roman bishopric, are and are called occupants of the Apostolic See.

a) Hence arises the distinction between the see and the occupant by reason of perpetuity. The see, that is the perpetual right of the primacy, on God's part in his unchangeable law and supernatural providence, and on the Church's part in the right and duty always to keep as a deposit the power divinely instituted for each successor of Peter and to provide succession by a fixed law, never ceases; but the individual heirs or occupants of the Apostolic See are mortal men; and so the see can never fail, but can be vacant, and often is. Then indeed the divine law and institution of perpetuity remains; there remains by this very fact the right and duty in the Church of providing succession according to the established law; there also remain the participations of powers, insofar as they are communicable to others and have been communicated, or legitimately established, by the surviving successor of Peter and not abrogated. But the supreme power itself, with its rights and prerogatives, which can exist nowhere except in the one single heir of Peter, now belongs, with the see vacant, to no one in act.

b) From these things, moreover, there is understood the distinction in the condition of the Church itself in time of vacant see and in time of full see. In the former time, when the Apostolic See is vacant, there is owed by divine law, but is not yet, a successor of Peter, the visible rock and visible head of the Church; in time of the full see he is by divine law now in act seated. Chiefly to be considered is the very root of the whole life of the Church: namely, the indefectibility of faith and the infallible custody of the deposit. Certainly not only indefectibility in believing (they call it passive infallibility) but also infallibility in preaching the revealed truth, already sufficiently proposed for the catholic faith, remains in the Church, even while for the time being she is deprived of her visible head; so that neither the whole body of the Church in believing nor the whole Episcopate in teaching can fail from the faith handed down and fall into heresy; because such a permanence of the Spirit of truth in the Church, the kingdom and bride and body of Christ, is comprised in the very promise and institution of the indefectibility of the Church all days until the consummation of the age. What is to be said about the truth of faith against heresy must also be said, by the same reasoning, about unity of communion against universal schism. For the divine law and promise of perpetual succession in the See of Peter remains, as the root and centre of catholic unity; and to this law and promise there corresponds, on the Church's side, not only the right and duty but also the indefectibility in legitimately procuring and receiving succession, and in keeping unity of communion with the Petrine See even when it is vacant, in view of the successor to be expected in it and indefectibly future: « and the glory (τὴν δόξαν) which you gave me I have given to them, that they may be one, as we are one: I in them and you in me, that they may be perfected into one » (τετελειωμένοι εἰς ἕν) Jn XVII. 22.

But if we speak of infallibility in defining, that cannot take place while the See of Peter is vacant, as long as there is no Roman Pontiff. As is evident in itself, there cannot take place the infallibility of definition with which, through the divine assistance promised to him in blessed Peter, we believe « the Roman Pontiff, when he speaks ex cathedra, that is, when, discharging the office of pastor and teacher of all Christians, by his supreme Apostolic authority he defines a doctrine of faith or morals to be held by the universal Church » to be endowed. Nor can infallibility of definition take place in an ecumenical Council, since such a Council, without its visible form, which is the head of the Church itself, to which the Bishops are united and subordinated as « members to a head », cannot exist at all (cf. Tract. de Tradit. post thes. XII, Schol. I, Princip. I). Therefore those things which, for example, seemed to be proposed as definitions in the Council of Constance have the character of conciliar definitions only so far, and only in those matters in which and insofar as the definition or confirmation of Pope Martin V, rightly elected after the forty-first session, was added. « With the Pontiff dead, says Canus, one Church without doubt remains, and in it remains the Spirit of truth; but it is left maimed and diminished without the Vicar of Christ and the one shepherd of the catholic Church. Wherefore, although the truth is then also in the Church; yet if controversies of faith and religion arise, the judgements of the Church without a head on earth will not be so certain » (Can. de Loc., bk. IV, ch. 6, ad obiect. 12). Bellarmine, however, treating of the Council of Constance: « A Council, he says, without the Pope cannot define new dogmas of faith⁴; yet it can, in a time of schism, judge who is the true Pope, and provide the Church with the true Pastor, when there is none or he is doubtful; and this is what the Council of Constance rightly did » (de Concil., bk. II, ch. 19, ad obi. 3, Gerson). Suarez speaks to the same effect; for what he argues about the dependence of the jurisdiction of a Council on the Roman Pontiff is a fortiori certain of its dependence in the infallibility of its magisterium. « We believe it entirely true that in a general Council (apart from the Pontiff) there is no jurisdiction conferred immediately by Christ; and therefore, while a lawful and indubitable Pontiff lives, the jurisdiction of a general Council depends on him, and therefore it is subject to him... In the time of the Council of Constance there were three so-called Pontiffs... Whence it could also happen that none of them was a certain Pontiff, and so not a Pontiff, because none of them yet was received by sufficient consent of the Church... But in such a case a general Council, though without a head, has the right to inquire into the true and lawful Pontiff, and if it finds that none of the claimants is a lawful and certain Pontiff, it can depose them all, or rather declare that none of them is the true Pontiff, and thereafter provide the Church with the true Pontiff » (Suarez, contra Reg. Angl., bk. III, ch. 18, ad obi. 2).

c) Since the Apostolic See, by divine law and ordinance, can never cease in its perpetuity, while individual mortal occupants cease at intervals, the Apostolic See itself, as the necessary foundation and centre of the Church's unity, can never be called into doubt without heresy. It can, however, happen in great disturbances, and history shows that it has happened, that many truly catholic people, devoutly holding faith and reverence toward the Apostolic See, through no fault of their own are unable to recognise the one occupying the Apostolic See, and so fall not into heresy in any way, but only into material, not formal, schism. Thus in the lamentable disturbance for forty years, from Urban VI to Gregory XII, Catholics, divided into two and then three « obediences », as they were then called, all acknowledged and cherished the divine rights of the Apostolic See; yet, not recognising the right of the occupant of the Apostolic See through blameless ignorance of the legitimate succession, and so adhering either to no one or to a pseudo-pontiff, they were involved in material schism, among them even holy men, such as St. Vincent Ferrer for a time, and his brother Bonifacius, Prior of the Carthusians.

Scholion. It seems fitting in this place to set out very briefly our opinion on the manner in which, as it seems to us, the ending of this most baneful schism and the restoration of the full unity of the Church, or rather of the actual communion of all Catholics with the lawful heir of the Apostolic See, is to be explained. For although all theologians, indeed the whole Church, most fully agree as to the fact itself that the schism was ended by the lawful and indubitable election of Martin V as the one true successor of Peter, the same agreement is not found as to the manner by which that happy outcome was lawfully reached; on the contrary, no slight diversity of opinion occurs between theologians and interpreters of law. Now especially, after the clear and explicit definitions of the Council of the Vatican concerning the divine rights of the primacy and the relations between it and the whole remaining Church, to settle the question proposed more surely and firmly, the dogmatic principles must be kept before our eyes, which are contained in those very definitions of the Council or follow from them necessarily.

1°. Since the primacy is instituted by divine law in Peter, to be propagated in a perpetual series to each of his lawful successors, as long as the Church built upon this rock endures, a lawful election to the Roman Pontificate is only the condition, by the positing of which the one so elected enters the series of Peter's successors; and by this very fact he receives the whole divinely instituted power of the primacy, not from the electors, who do not have it, but by virtue of Christ's institution and from Christ the Founder, as a rock by a participated power, from Christ who is the rock by his own native power.

2°. Once the Pontiff has been so constituted, the Church, just as with individual pastors and flocks and sheep, so the whole Church considered together with all pastors and flocks and sheep at once, is subject to the Pontiff so constituted as one flock to one supreme shepherd. The Church, even if considered as a whole together, has no power of jurisdiction over its own supreme shepherd; but he has over it the fullness of power, as over his own flock, according to the norms divinely laid down.

Therefore there exists in the Church no power which, once the Pontiff is constituted, can diminish or take away the supreme power divinely conferred on him with all its rights. The power instituted by Christ and conferred on the successor of Peter can cease in him only by spontaneous renunciation, whose validity is established, especially since the definition of St. Celestine V, by doctrines and facts notorious in the whole Church⁵; or by spontaneous defection from the Church through manifest and obstinate heresy. Whether such a scandal could occur in one who, formally as pastor and teacher of the Church, by Christ's promise and institution through divine assistance cannot err in definitions, even as a private person, though it has never happened, theologians doubt, not without reason, looking to the gentle providence of Christ toward his Church and to the divine promises themselves (cf. Bellarmine, de Rom. Pont., bk. IV, chs. 6, 7).⁶

4°. Neither into formal heresy nor into material heresy, by positively denying what has been revealed, or by affirming as revealed what is not revealed, can the Church as a whole, the kingdom of truth, fall, by the promise of the Spirit of truth abiding in her forever; by the same reasoning, by the promise of perpetual unity, whose centre and visible bond is the Roman Pontiff, the Church as a whole, the body of Christ, can never be separated from the true and lawful Roman Pontiff, her visible head, by either formal or material schism. If at any time such a secession of the whole Church seems to have occurred, as in the last years of Peter de Luna, who had been called Benedict XIII, that is not a defection from the true and lawful Pontiff depriving him of his power, which cannot happen (n. 3); but it is a certain sign that he never was the true and lawful Pontiff⁷. Therefore the saying that many put forward to explain the acts of the assemblies of Pisa and Constance, as if it were an axiom: « a doubtful Pontiff is no Pontiff », is true only if the doubt, and the secession on account of the doubt, is that of the whole Church; but it cannot be admitted if, after a Pontiff has been lawfully constituted, doubts and secessions arise in a part, indeed in the greater part, of the Church on account of the disturbances introduced.

5°. When a part of the Church, without its own fault, because of the obscurity of affairs introduced, adheres in material schism to someone as the lawful Roman Pontiff, some of his jurisdictional acts, especially those touching the internal forum, may acquire validity from a colourable title⁸; but neither by him nor by any even legitimate lower power can the laws established by the true Roman Pontiff be validly abrogated or changed, especially those that determine the validity of an act concerning the visible foundation of the Church itself, such as the election of the head of the Church (n. 2).

Having laid down these principles, we cannot understand how the opinion can be admitted of those who, to explain the acts of Constance, say with Bellarmine and Suarez that the right of all three who then claimed the pontificate was doubtful, because the individual obediences (as the parties adhering to different Pontiffs were called) each had two of them as illegitimate; and that thus a doubtful Pontiff is not a true Pontiff; or, as we heard Suarez speaking: « it could happen that none of them was a certain Pontiff, and so not a Pontiff, because none of them yet was received by sufficient consent of the Church. » But he who is lawfully elected is, by that very fact, constituted the true Pontiff not by the Church but by Christ himself (n. 1), and no « sufficient consent » of the Church is required or awaited as a condition for his being the true Pontiff; but « sufficient consent » follows with certainty from the prayer and promise of Christ for the unity of his Church, in accordance with the due obedience, because he is the true Pontiff (n. 4). Moreover, it is evident that at Constance, as regards the manner of election and as regards the lawful electors themselves, many things were established and carried out which were contrary to, and outside, the laws for valid election laid down by the supreme power of the Roman Pontiffs Alexander III, Gregory X and Clement V. But such a change and suspension of the laws of the supreme power could not have been made except by the supreme power of the Roman Pontiff itself, as follows from the divinely established relation of subjection of the whole Church under the power of the supreme Pastor; and we saw Suarez also admit it: « because a lower power cannot change what has been established by a higher, and because the primacy was given to Peter alone, for himself and his successors, it belongs to him alone, or to the Supreme Pontiff, to prescribe the manner of his election and succession » (see above, th. XII, n. III). Now indeed, if at that time there was no true Pontiff, because (as those theologians say) there was none indubitable and certain, it would have been manifestly done by an inferior power of the Constance assembly contrary to the manner of election prescribed by the supreme power of the Supreme Pontiffs. Nor was the prescribed manner of election changed only by adding to the electors, besides the Cardinals, also other Bishops and simple priests, who did not even belong to the clergy of the Roman Church; but there were difficulties concerning even the Cardinals taken from the three obediences, which I see those theologians have neither solved nor even mentioned, nor do I see how they can be solved on their hypothesis. For if for nearly forty years (from 27 March 1378, when Gregory XI died, until the election of Martin V on 11 November 1417) no one is said to have been the true Pontiff, how could all those Cardinals created by those pseudo-pontiffs be regarded as lawful, who, although taken from different obediences and created by opposing pontiffs, recognised one another as lawful in the assemblies of Pisa and Constance, and, against the pontiffs who had created them, claimed for themselves all the rights of Cardinals? Further, if the election of Urban VI (8 April 1378) was invalid, how was the other, that of Clement VII (20 September 1378), not valid? But if, as can no longer rightly be called in doubt, Urban was truly created and, by public acts and written letters of the same Cardinals who afterwards defected, was recognised as the lawful successor of St. Peter at least until June, how could he himself fall from the pontificate, which he held conferred not by the Cardinals nor by the Church but immediately by Christ God, on account of the subsequent secession and the doubt gradually spread by evil arts to many people? If therefore he could not be stripped of the pontificate divinely conferred by the acts of any men, but remained the true successor of Peter until his death (15 October 1389, in his Roman See), then without doubt his successors, elected in accordance with all the established laws, Boniface IX, Innocent VII, Gregory XII, were the true and lawful successors in the See of Peter. Those doubts, however, raised and spread after Urban's election and recognition was already established, by the offended Cardinals, which were then in fact extended to his successors, could only bring about what we have said above: that those who adhered to the parties of Robert of Geneva (Clement VII) and of his successor Peter de Luna (Benedict XIII), or afterwards of Alexander V, elected by the Pisans (26 June 1409), and of his successor John XXIII, were not formally but only materially schismatic, so that among them men even holy could be found. But neither those doubts, nor what followed from them in the assembly of Pisa by the election of yet a third who took the name of Roman Pontiff, could take away from Urban VI and his validly elected successors the dignity and power over the whole Church. The accusation of schism and of « notorious heresy », brought by the Pisans against Gregory XII, namely that as a supporter and defender of an inveterate schism he denied the revealed truth of the unity of the Church, and therefore had fallen from the pontificate, involves a contradiction; for if he was the true Pontiff, having from Christ supreme power over the whole Church, by defending this power against adversaries who were at least materially schismatic he did not in fact oppose the unity of the Church, and much less did he deny in his judgement the unity of the Church instituted by Christ, especially in its head and under its visible head. Nor afterwards was that « notorious heresy » of Gregory, or the truth of the Pisan judgement, in any way acknowledged by the Constance fathers, as will soon appear. Yet it is not therefore necessary to deny that Gregory, in that disturbance of the Church, was bound to resign spontaneously and could have sinned by resisting this obligation; but that the Pontiff, for sins other than heresy, could be deprived of his power, is a proposition that was condemned in article 8 of Wycliffe and in articles 12, 13, 20, 22, 24 of John Hus, by Martin V, defining in the Council of Constance itself.

It seems therefore that the lawful process of the Council of Constance for ending the schism must be explained in another way, especially now, after the Catholic understanding of the faith concerning the force and nature of the primacy has been notably illustrated and confirmed by the definitions of the ecumenical Council (Vatican Council, sess. 4, ch. 3). The explanation, moreover, shines out clearly from the acts themselves, so that there is truly reason for us to admire, with humble praise, the providence of Christ the King, Bridegroom and Head of the Church, by which he composed those huge disturbances, introduced and sustained by human greed and ignorance, with all laws preserved, showing most clearly that the indefectibility of the rock on which he built his Church, that the gates of hell may not prevail against it, rests not on human help but on the divine faithfulness in his promises and the omnipotence in his governance.

Gregory XII, the lawful successor of Urban VI, to his legates Cardinal John de Dominicis and Charles de Malatestis:

1°. He gave « of the fullness of power, full and free faculty » of constituting the Constance assembly, « insofar as it was convoked by the royal serenity (Sigismund) and not by Balthasar, who has himself called John XXIII, » into a true and lawful Council « for the extirpation of the horrible schisms and the complete union, rightly desired and to be brought about; » or, in Gregory's words, « to convoke and authorize a general Council for the said purpose. »

2°. With the same « fullness of power » he gave his legates the faculty of approving in advance, in the Pontiff's name, what the Council, once lawfully convoked, should arrange for that end: « in our place (he says) likewise to authorize, approve and confirm whatever shall be arranged for the true restoration and union of the Church and the extirpation of the said schisms by the same assembly » (namely, after it has already been convoked and authorized as a general Council).

3°. The Constance fathers admitted both the convocation of the Council and the grant of power to arrange everything opportune for the true union of the Church, made by Gregory, « in all things and through all, so far as it seems to pertain to him (Gregory). » And so Cardinal de Dominicis, his legate, solemnly promulgated both of Gregory's dispositions in the fourteenth session (4 July 1415). « In the name of the Father and of the Son and of the Holy Spirit, Amen. By the authority of Our Lord the Pope, so far as it pertains to him... that Christians divided under the profession of different Pastors may be joined in the unity of the holy Mother Church and the bond of charity, I convoke this holy general Council, and I authorize and confirm all things to be done through it, according to the manner and form more fully contained in the letters of Our Lord the Pope. »

4°. Having done this, the Council, among the things « authorized by Gregory », at once performed the one step most necessary for ending the schism: it decreed that the two obediences, those of Gregory and of John, are now joined⁹ and united « in one body of Our Lord Jesus Christ and of this holy universal general Council ». For this very purpose it dissolved and absolved all censures and penalties imposed on either side on account of the schism, and it « enabled all the persons of the said obediences in their states, dignities and offices, and dispensed with them, as far as it was expedient or they needed ». Moreover, by the same authority granted to it, it decreed that the manner and form of the future election of the Roman Pontiff, after the vacancy of the Holy See, was reserved to be settled by the Council itself on this occasion: « so that, under the pretext of any cession or vacancy of the Apostolic See or of the papacy made or to be made while the present Council is in session, no procedure for the election of a Pontiff shall take place, except « in the manner, form, place, time and matter to be ordained by the holy Council (those having the right to elect being understood) ».

Who can now doubt that these acts and decrees, concerning the highest matters, could not have had validity except through the power of the Roman Pontiff alone, the supreme power in the Church instituted by Christ? And yet Gregory XII, who had not yet resigned and was the true Roman Pontiff, « authorized, approved and confirmed whatever shall be arranged by the Council », without other limitation, except that they be arranged for the union of the Church and the extirpation of the schisms, as we saw a little before. Therefore, since these acts and decrees are evidently for that very end, they had certain and full validity through the Pontiff's own confirmation.

5°. The last act, in this fourteenth¹⁰ session, was the free abdication of the pontificate. « I, Charles de Malatestis..., purely, freely and sincerely, in the procuratorial name of the Most Holy Lord our Lord Gregory Pope XII, in the name of the Father and of the Son and of the Holy Spirit, renounce and expressly cede in these writings, really and with effect, the right, title and possession which he has in the papacy, and in the name of our aforesaid Lord I resign the papacy and every right of the papacy, title and possession, which he has, before our Lord Jesus Christ, who is the Bridegroom and Head of his Church » (Harduin VIII, pp. 384–400).

By this renunciation the Apostolic See was truly left vacant, and therefore the Council, from the faculties attributed to it by the supreme power of the Pontiff, could lawfully proceed in the manner, form, place, time and matter ordained by the Council itself, « for the canonical and certain election of the one future supreme Pontiff », as Gregory himself had declared in his mandate to Charles de Malatestis as the purpose of his renunciation (Hard. VIII, 387). And two years later (11 November 1417) it happily brought this to completion in Martin V.

These things, which may perhaps seem πάρεργα (incidental digressions), I judged not inopportune to insert here, for a further clarification of the ecclesiastical monarchy, of which we treated in the preceding theses. Now we proceed to consider the fact of the constitution of the Church in the very Apostolic age.