Summa Theologiae Moralis, vol. I: De Principiis

S. Th. I-II, q. 90, a. 4.

226. Promulgatio (afkondiging) is the public and authentic attestation of the existence of a law and its denouncement (bekendmaking) made to the community. It is called

1. authentic, i.e. solemnly or with a certain solemnity made by legitimate authority, namely by the legislator himself or by his authentic mandate, so that from the solemnity it may appear and cannot be doubted that the law comes forth from him in whom the power of the society resides ;

2. public, i.e. so carried out that the law is seen to be directed to the notice of the community and the community can easily come to its notice.

227. Promulgation is necessary in order that law oblige. — For a rule, in order to direct and bind someone, must be applied and imposed upon him, which is not done unless it becomes known to him (n. 203). But a law is not a rule made for one or another, but is enacted for a community. Therefore, in order that it oblige, it must become known to the community. Now it cannot become known to the community except by promulgation, whereby it is proposed in a manner that is public and proportionate to the community. Therefore a law does not oblige unless it be promulgated. — Otherwise the law would exist only in the superior as regulating, but not in the subjects as regulated.

Hence a) as long as it has not been promulgated, he who would otherwise know it to have been enacted is not bound by the law ;

b) a law doubtfully promulgated does not oblige : for liberty is not bound except by a certainly proved promulgation ; in case of doubt, namely, of sufficient promulgation the doubt : whether it is a law, but it does not suffice that the law itself be promulgated : that it is a law ;

c) promulgation differs from the divulgation of a law, which is sometimes so called and is, as it were, promulgation in the second act, whereby the law in fact comes to the notice of the subjects. Promulgation is necessary so that the law can be by divulgation : from the first there arises the objective obligation and in the external forum ; but knowledge of the law is also necessary so that the subjective obligation and in the forum of conscience may be present : for no one can sin by violating an obligation of which he is ignorant.

Promulgation nevertheless does not pertain to the essence of law ; for 1) it is the application of a rule and measure to what is regulated and measured, and so it supposes that the regulating or law is already constituted ; 2) without promulgation, the law, because it is the command of a superior, has force from his authority and is apt to direct and bind ; hence the obligation is not from promulgation as from a cause but as from a condition without which not¹. In the same way the application of fire to the combustible is a condition required for burning.

228. The manner of promulgation is not determined by natural law : any manner suffices, whether it be done by public reading in an assembly, or by the voice of a herald in the marketplace, or by insertion in a gazette, or by posting in a public place, even one, frequented, principal and central, provided that morally, in a human way, the law can easily come to the notice of the community, if not all at once, at least successively. More than sufficient is it if notification be made to individuals in particular, as in the natural law which God has inscribed in the minds of men to be known naturally.

229. Once promulgation is done, the law is perfect and complete, and of itself begins to oblige, unless its force be suspended for a time ; hence

a) if the legislator has determined some time at which the obligation shall begin, the law does not oblige before : for just as it depends on him whether the obligation exists or not, so whether it begins sooner or later ;

b) if he has not determined a time, in a community not much extended, e.g. a diocese, it obliges morally at once, since the promulgation can be known at once ;

c) in a society sufficiently extended, e.g. the universal Church, the law obliges in various regions successively, according to the time which is morally necessary in order that the notice of promulgation may commonly come to all by ordinary means ; whence it begins to oblige at once in the place where the promulgation was made and in nearby places, but it does not oblige at once everywhere, because it cannot be known at once by all in the whole territory.

sui amorem, requires necessarily and indispensably that it be proposed by the intellect to the will, since nothing is willed unless it be foreknown ; the reason or force moving the will is nevertheless not the proposal of the object but the goodness found in the object ; — so for this, that the law in the second act oblige to its observance, it is indeed indispensably required that the promulgation be proposed to the subjects : the reason or force of obliging is nevertheless not the promulgation itself or the proposal, but the authority which the law has in itself, inasmuch as it proceeds from the legislator as one carrying the person of the commonwealth ». — Nor does the principle of law stand in the way : Laws are instituted when they are promulgated, as the codex puts it, can. 8 § 1, from Justinian. For the sense is : by promulgation laws are definitively instituted and made complete as obliging in the second act, although they already are in the first. Moreover the intention of the codex is not to settle a scholastic question.

From which it follows that, if anyone before that time should learn the law by extraordinary means, he would not be bound to observe it.