Summa summae S. Thomae, Tomus III

: The Roman Pontiff has the primacy of authority over the whole Church¹ . It is of faith.

Proof. 1° from the preceding article. The whole authority of Peter, that of shepherd and ruler of the whole Church, which was supreme, as has been said, was transmitted to his successor. Yet the Roman Pontiff is the successor of Peter. Therefore. — The major is evident; because, since Christ founded the Church to endure forever, he ought to have instituted in it a permanent form of regime, which would not cease with the death of Peter but would pass to his successors. — The minor also is evident. For all those of the Fathers who compiled the catalogue of the Roman Pontific [continuat in p. 251] runt, as Optatus Milevit., lib. II contr. Parmen.; Aug., Epist. ad Generosam, 53² , etc., derive the origin of the succession from St. Peter. This will be still more evident from the councils and Fathers to be cited shortly. Hence whatever proves the primacy of St. Peter proves at the same time the primacy of the Roman Pontiff.

Proof. 2° from the councils. The council of Sardica, in the year 347, in its synodical letter to Pope Julius : « This, it says, will seem best and most exceedingly fitting, if the priests of the Lord refer each matter from every province to the head, that is, the see of the Apostle Peter. »

In the council of Ephesus, in the year 431, the Fathers say they were « constrained » by the letter of Pope Celestine to pass sentence on Nestorius.

In the council of Chalcedon, in the year 451, act. 2, after the letter of St. Leo had been read, the most reverend Bishops cried out : « This is the faith of the Fathers, this is the faith of the Apostles. Thus we all believe, thus believe the orthodox. Anathema to him who does not so believe. PETER HAS THUS SPOKEN THROUGH LEO, so taught the Apostles. »

In action 16 the most glorious judges said : « From what has been done and deposited by each one, we perceive that all primacy and pre-eminent honor is preserved, according to the canons, for the archbishop of ancient Rome, most beloved of God. »

Finally the Fathers of Chalcedon beg St. Leo to deign to confirm by his consent what they had decreed.

In the sixth general council, Constantinople III, in the year 680, the Fathers, in their synodical letters to Pope Agatho, which exist after act. 18, address him among other things as follows : « Having gladly read through the letters of your confession sent by your paternal Beatitude, which we acknowledge to have been divinely written from the supreme summit of the Apostles, by which we repelled the sect of manifold error lately sprung up. » And below : « We have clearly preached with you the resplendent light of orthodox faith; we beseech your paternal Holiness to confirm it again through your honored writings. »

[The fourth council of the Lateran, in the year 1215, decrees that « the Roman Church, by the disposition of the Lord, holds the principate of ordinary power over all others, as the mother and mistress of all the faithful in Christ. »

The second council of Lyons, in the year 1274, defined « that the Roman Pontiff is the successor of the prince of the Apostles, the true vicar of Christ, and the head of the whole Church. »]

The council of Constance, in the year 1414, condemns this sentence of Wycliffe : « That the Pope is supreme Pontiff is ridiculous. And Christ approved such dignity neither in Peter nor in anyone else. » Likewise this tenth article of John Hus : « Nor is the Roman Pontiff the head of the Church. » And this twenty-seventh : « There is not a spark of appearance that there ought to be one head ruling the Church in spirituals. »

The council of Florence, in the year 1439, where in several colloquies the question concerning the primacy of the Roman Pontiff was debated between the Orientals and the Occidentals — which primacy the Orientals denied since the schism of Photius — at length defined, by the common consent of both parties, in the decree of Union : « We define that the holy Apostolic See and the Roman Pontiff are the successor of blessed Peter, prince of the Apostles, and the true vicar of Christ, and the head of the whole Church, and the father and teacher of all Christians; and that to him, in blessed Peter, full power was handed over by our Lord Jesus Christ to feed, rule, and govern the universal Church, as is contained also in the acts of the ecumenical councils and in the sacred canons. »

The council of Trent, sess. XIV, cap. 7 : « Worthily, it says, have the supreme Pontiffs, on account of the supreme power handed over to them in the whole Church, been able by their particular judgment to reserve certain more grievous causes of crimes. »

[This truth the Vatican synod defined more explicitly, constit. Pastor aeternus, cap. 2, On the perpetuity of the primacy of blessed Peter in the Roman Pontiffs : « But that which in the blessed Apostle Peter the prince of shepherds and the great shep[continuat in p. 253] herd of sheep the Lord Jesus Christ instituted for the perpetual salvation and everlasting good of the Church, must of necessity endure without interruption in the same author in the Church, which, founded upon rock, will stand firm until the end of the ages. To no one indeed is it doubtful, nay it is known to all ages, that the holy and most blessed Peter, prince and head of the Apostles, column of faith, and foundation of the catholic Church, received the keys of the kingdom from our Lord Jesus Christ, the Savior and Redeemer of mankind; and that he lives and presides and exercises judgment to this very time and always in his successors the Bishops of the holy Roman See, which he founded and consecrated with his blood³ . Whence whoever succeeds to this chair obtains by Christ's own institution the primacy of Peter over the whole Church. Therefore the disposition of truth abides, and blessed Peter, persevering in the strength of the rock he received, has not abandoned the governance of the Church he took up⁴ . For this reason it has always been necessary for every Church to come to the Roman Church, on account of her mightier principality, that is, those who are everywhere the faithful, so that, joined together in that See from which the venerable rights of communion flow forth to all, like members in a head, they might coalesce into one compact of body⁵ .

« If anyone therefore shall say that it is not by the institution of Christ the Lord himself, or by divine right, that blessed Peter should have perpetual successors in the primacy over the whole Church; or that the Roman Pontiff is not the successor of blessed Peter in the same primacy : let him be anathema. » ]

Proof. 3° from the Fathers. One may read St. Irenaeus, lib. III adversus Haereses, c. 3; Tertullian, adversus Praxeam; St. Cyprian, epist. 45 and epist. 67.

St. Dionysius of Alexandria, accused of heresy, cleared himself before the Roman Pontiff, as Athanasius relates, lib. de synodis Arimini et Seleuciae. [continuat in p. 254]

Eastern councils were held invalid unless confirmed by the authority of the Roman Pontiff, as Socrates testifies, lib. I Hist., c. 5, and Sozomen, lib. III, c. 9.

Pope Julius restored Athanasius, thrust down from his see, and summoned his enemies to the apostolic tribunal. In Athanas., Apolog. II.

St. Chrysostom, Epist. 1 ad Innoc. I, asks him to rescind the sentence of excommunication passed upon him by Theophilus of Alexandria.

St. Jerome, epist. 57, ad Damasum Papam : « With your Beatitude, he says, that is, with the chair of Peter, I am associated in communion. I know the Church built upon that rock. Whoever eats the Lamb outside this house is profane; if anyone be not in the ark of Noe, he shall perish while the flood reigns... I know no Vitalis, I reject Meletius, I am ignorant of Paulinus. Whoever gathers not with thee scatters; that is, whoever is not of Christ is of Antichrist. »

St. Aug., epist. 190⁶ , n. 23, and epist. 43⁷ , n. 7, and lib. I ad Bonifac., c. 1, n. 1.

[In epist. 43, n. 7, Aug. says : « The Roman Church, in which the primacy of the Apostolic Chair has ever flourished. » ]

St. Prosper, carmine de Ingratis.

« Sedes Roma Petri, qua pastoralis honoris Facta caput mundo, quidquid non possidet armis, Relligione tenet. »

St. Bernard, lib. II de Considerat., cap. 8, n. 15, to Pope Eugene : « Thou, he says, art Peter by power, Christ by anointing. Indeed there are also others who are gatekeepers of heaven and shepherds of flocks; but thou hast inherited the name so much the more gloriously as more distinctly above the rest. They have their flocks assigned, single ones to each; to thee all were entrusted, to one alone the one flock. Nor now only of sheep, but of all shepherds art thou the one Pas[continuat in p. 255] tor. » And after proving this, just as we did, from Matth., XVI, 17-19, and Ioann., XXI, 15-17, he concludes thus, n. 16 : « Thy privilege therefore stands unshaken, both in the keys given and in the sheep commended. »

The Gallican Clergy, in the assembly held at Paris in the year 1681, speaks thus of the Roman Pontiff : « He is the head of the Church, the center of unity. He holds over us the Primacy of authority and jurisdiction conferred on him by Christ Jesus in the person of Peter. Whoever dissented from this truth would be schismatical, nay even heretical. » The same is taught by Gerson, de Statibus ecclesiasticis, considerat. 1ª.

From these councils, holy Fathers, and ecclesiastical writers therefore we have it, that the Roman See is the Chair of Peter, that the Roman Pontiff is the successor of Peter, that the Roman Pontiffs decided causes of faith as supreme judges, received appeals of deposed bishops, restored to their sees those unjustly deprived of them, punished with censures the prelates of other churches, even of the East, or endowed them with communion, approved or rejected councils, and finally declared the law over the other patriarchs and bishops. But that these are invincible arguments of the primacy of jurisdiction no one fails to see.

And hence I form the argument thus. Such has been and always was, constant from the beginning, the faith of the Church, that the Roman Pontiff is the successor of Peter, is the supreme shepherd and head of the whole Church. Yet the Church cannot err in acknowledging her supreme shepherd and head; otherwise the gates of hell shall prevail against her. Therefore.

The objections are solved.

You object 1° : Canon 6 of the first council of Nicaea runs thus : « Let the ancient custom be observed throughout Egypt, Libya and Pentapolis, that the bishop of Alexandria have power over all these; because a like custom belongs to the bishop of the city of Rome. Likewise also at Antioch, etc. » By which words the power of the Roman Pontiff seems to be restricted to certain provinces, just like the power of the bishop of Alexandria.

I answer. I distinguish the antecedent. By these words the power of the Roman [continuat in p. 256]

Pontiff is restricted, as he is the Roman Pontiff and successor of Peter, I deny; as he is Patriarch of the West, I concede. For the understanding of this it must be observed that there are several prerogatives in the Roman Pontiff : 1° He is the ordinary bishop of the city of Rome and its territory. 2° He is metropolitan of the Roman province. 3° He is primate, or, as it was once called, exarch or greater metropolitan of the provinces of Italy, to which the inferior metropolitans are subordinate. 4° He is Patriarch of the West. 5° He is head of the whole Church and supreme shepherd. The comparison therefore which the council of Nicaea institutes between the Roman bishop and the Alexandrian is not with respect to all the rights of the Roman Pontiff, but only with respect to patriarchal rights, whose chief was the right of ordinations, especially of metropolitans, throughout the whole patriarchy. Melitius gave occasion for this canon. For when Melitius had disturbed the ancient custom, according to which the bishop of Alexandria celebrated sacred ordinations in the dioceses of Egypt, Libya and Pentapolis, or granted license to celebrate them, by making a schism; the council of Nicaea, issuing the sixth canon, willed to assert the privileges claimed by the bishop of Alexandria and others.

I insist : The patriarchal dignity is posterior to the council of Nicaea, nor does that canon mention patriarchs, but metropolitans only. Therefore the comparison between the Roman bishop and the Alexandrian is not with respect to patriarchal rights.

I answer. I distinguish the antecedent. The patriarchal dignity is posterior to Nicaea as to the name, I concede; as to the thing, I deny. For before the council the bishop of Alexandria enjoyed patriarchal rights, in which Meletius Lycopolitanus had disturbed him, who attempted to make ordinations in those provinces. Moreover the name metropolitan was used in the canon because at that time it was common, not only to ordinary metropolitans, but also to primates and patriarchs.

You object 2° from the right of appeals denied to the Roman Pontiff. If the Roman Pontiff had the primacy of jurisdiction over the whole Church, appeal could be made to him from the whole christian world. Yet the consequent is false. Therefore they err [continuat in p. 257]. — Proof of min. 1° The Concilium Milevitanum, in Africa, can. 22, forbids overseas appeals, that is, to the Roman See, in these words : « If any should think to appeal, let them appeal only to the African councils, or to the primates of their provinces. But those who should think appeal ought to be made overseas, let them be received into communion by no one within Africa. » Therefore. — 2° The African bishops, among whom Augustine lived, in the sixth council of Carthage, in the year 418, refused to admit appeals to Pope Zosimus, which his legates themselves strove to vindicate, alleging the canons of the council of Nicaea.

I answer. I deny the minor, as appears from the proofs of the conclusion, to which add canons 3, 4, 5 and 7 of the council of Sardica, in the year 347, among which the fourth runs thus : « If any bishop should have been deposed by the judgment of the bishops who are in the neighborhood, and say again that the business of defense belongs to him, let another not first be substituted in his chair until the Roman Pontiff, the cause having been examined, shall have passed sentence. »

Moreover it must be observed that, although the right of appeals is annexed to the primacy of the Apostolic See, nevertheless the Roman Pontiffs have exercised it neither always nor toward all; but, according to the usage introduced in several provinces, they consented that the causes of simple priests and inferior clerics be defined ultimately either by bishops, or by provincial councils, or by primates; lest occasion be given to clerics for wandering about, or lest from the excessive frequency of appeals the authority of bishops be broken down, and those who judged in the first instance be vexed undeservedly, and causes otherwise easy be drawn out to great length. These things premised,

I answer. to the first proof. The council of Milevis does not forbid the appeals of all, but only of priests, deacons and inferior clerics. And this according to the received usage, with the consent of the supreme Pontiff, for the reasons given in the foregoing observation.

To the second proof, I answer that the African Church attacked not the right, but the usage of appeals to the Roman See, deceived indeed for some time by an error of fact; but a usage which, the error being not long after removed, she acknowledged and venerated. It is explained. When Apiarius, an African priest, appealed to the Roman See, and the African bishops took this ill, Pope Zosimus, in the commonitory which he had given to his legates to the council of Carthage, grounded the usage of appeals to the Roman See on the Nicaene canons, which however were not Nicaene but Sardican. But it was customary at the Apostolic See to cite the Sardican canons under the name of the Nicaene, because the council of Sardica was always held as an appendix of the council of Nicaea, since in the Sardican no canon of faith was issued, but only the Nicaene faith confirmed and its defenders vindicated. But the Africans not attending to this searched everywhere the canons of the council of Nicaea, both in the codex which they had among themselves and in the codices preserved at Constantinople and Alexandria, etc.; and when they did not find in them the canons cited by Zosimus, they concluded that the usage of appeals to the Roman See was founded on spurious canons, and therefore they attacked it, yet not defining anything to the contrary, but asking Boniface and Celestine, successors of Zosimus (for he had died after the departure of the legates), various reasons being adduced, that henceforth they not receive the appeals of Africans. But these things availed nothing, since Celestine himself received the repeated appeal of the same Apiarius, and the African bishops themselves, freed from error, carried the appeal of Anthony, bishop of Fussala, to the Holy See, as appears from Augustine himself, then foremost among the Africans, Epist. 209, to the same Celestine.

You object 3°: The authority of bishops is immediately from God, just like the authority of the Pope, according to that saying, Act., xx, 28: The Holy Spirit hath placed bishops to rule the Church of God. And St. Hieron., Epist. ad Evagrium, says : « If authority is sought, the world is greater than the city. Why do you bring me the custom of one city? Wherever there be a bishop, whether at Rome or

⁸

at Constantinople, or at Regium, or at Alexandria, or at Tanis, he is of the same merit and of the same priesthood. » Therefore.

To the first I answer, with Sylvius, lib. IV Controvers., art. 5, Soto, Bannez, Bellarmine, etc. — I distinguish the antecedent. That the authority of bishops is immediately from God, if by authority is understood the power of order, I concede. For just as Christ baptizes principally, so he consecrates principally and confers character. That it is so, if by authority is understood the power of jurisdiction, I deny. For bishops hold this from God through the mediation of the supreme Pontiff; because, since the regime of the Church is monarchical, all jurisdiction resides in one, as in a head, from whom it is derived to others, as St. Leo says, Epist. 89 : « Of this office the sacrament, he says, the Lord willed to belong to all the Apostles' charge in such a way that he placed it principally in most blessed Peter, the summit of all the Apostles, that from him himself, as from a kind of head, he might pour forth his gifts as upon the whole body. »

Hence bishops nominated or elected have no jurisdiction unless they are confirmed by the Roman Pontiff. So holds the Author in IV Sentent., dist. 20, art. 4; IV Contra gent., c. 76, where he says that Christ promised to Peter alone : « To thee will I give the keys of the kingdom of heaven, that the power of the keys might be shown to be derived through him to the others, for preserving the unity of the Church. »

Certain others, as Natalis Alexander, saec. I, dissert. 4; Gerson, de Statibus ecclesiasticis, consid. 3, seem to acknowledge that the jurisdiction of bishops is also immediately from God, yet depend as to its exercise upon the supreme Pontiff, which differs little.

Nor does it stand in the way that it is said, Act., xx, 28: Take heed to yourselves and to the whole flock in which the Holy Spirit hath placed you bishops, etc. For we do not deny that the Holy Spirit institutes bishops, but through the mediation of the supreme head of the Church, just as those whom the Apostle addressed he instituted through the ministry of the Apostles.

To the second, St. Jerome does not speak there of the authority of the supreme Pontiff, but of the authority of the custom of the city of Rome, which he says is less than the authority of the custom of the whole Church. For he writes against a custom introduced by the deacons of Rome, who, since they were few and had charge of the ecclesiastical treasury, set themselves above the priests against the law and the ancient custom of the whole world. What he adds, that bishops everywhere are « of the same merit », must be understood of the character of order, not of the power of jurisdiction. Compare the text of Jerome in the proofs.

[As to the primacy of the Roman Pontiff, it helps to cite what Benedict XIV has in lib. II de Synodo dioec., cap. 1 : « The Roman episcopate and the prefecture of the whole catholic Church, in the present order of things, are not two distinct sees, nor two dignities which perchance are joined in the one person of the Roman Pontiff, although considered in themselves they could have been such. For Peter, named pastor of the universal Church by Christ the Lord, could indeed, retaining that supreme prefecture of the Church, have undertaken the regime of no particular church, just as in fact he assumed the special administration of none during the first few years after the ascension of the Lord Christ into heaven. He could have retained perpetually the church of Antioch, which he afterwards chose and governed as bishop for many years. He could finally have left the Roman Church, to which he afterwards transferred his see, and gone elsewhere, and assumed the peculiar care or episcopate of another city. But since these things, though possible, were not done, but Peter fixed his see at Rome, firmly retained it for twenty-five years, and crowned with martyrdom gloriously died therein — whether this came to pass by divine command or by express revelation made specially by God to Peter, or by the sole will of Peter, though divinely inspired — thence it resulted that the prerogative of supreme pontificate remained so implanted in the Roman see, that whoever succeeds to Peter in this necessarily succeeds to Peter in the primacy of the whole Church, conferred on him and his legitimate successors by Christ, as card. Bellarmine well explains, Controvers. tom. I, de Romano Pontifice, lib. II, cap. 12; Suarez, in Defensione fidei adv. Anglic. sectae error., lib. I, cap. 5, num. 4, and lib. III, cap. 13, num. 12; Petrus de Marca, in dissert. I de singulari Primatu Petri, num. 20; Marcus Antonius Capellus, in disp. 2 de Successione episcopi Romani in pontificatu, cap. 1. Although therefore it may be said in some sense that the supreme monarchy of the Church is annexed by merely human law to the Roman See, because manifestly the union, bond and fastening of both had its origin from the fact of Peter, nevertheless the opinion of those who assert that the aforementioned annexation is so of human law that it can be dissolved by the Church, and the one separated from the other, does not seem able to be sustained. For, supposing that Peter stably established his see at Rome and died ruling the Roman Church, no one who is not the Roman bishop can be called the true successor of Peter, and therefore the words of Christ the Lord can never be referred to him : Feed my sheep, Ioann., XXI, 17, by which he committed the care of the universal Church to Peter and his successors. Wherefore by right and merit Melchior Canus refutes and censures the opinion of such few men, de Locis theol., lib. VI, cap. 4; Gregory of Valencia, in Analysi fidei catholicae, lib. VI, cap. 12, and not a few other theologians. »

It must be noted, nevertheless, that the primacy is not annexed precisely to Rome as to a determinate place physically considered, or to the city of Rome as such, but to the bishop of that city, wherever he may reside; because, wherever he may be, he remains the Roman Pontiff, and there the Roman See and the chair of Peter are held to be. Wherefore during all those seventy years in which the Popes dwelt at Avignon, they remained Roman bishops, and there was Rome or the Roman see, and its primacy endured there likewise.]