Summa de Ecclesia

Having shown the necessity of a twofold power, namely the secular and the spiritual, for the fitting government of the Christian people, it remains to see the comparison of these powers with one another, which of them excels the other. Since the government of the whole depends on these two powers, according to the saying of Pope Gelasius in ch. Duo sunt, dist. 96, and since the things that are of God are ordained, as the Apostle says to the Rom. 13, it must be that one of these powers excels the other; but not the earthly over the spiritual, since this manifestly repels reason. It follows that the spiritual power excels the earthly or secular, and so the former is superior. It seems to us, moreover, that the spiritual power excels the secular in ten respects. First, indeed, in antiquity of time; this is clear, for in Abel, from whom the Church is said to have begun, as was said above in ch. 22, the priesthood seems to have had its beginning in the people of God, since he is read in holy Scripture to have offered a sacrifice acceptable to God, Heb. 11. Whence Augustine in book 5 to Orosius says that three chief praises of justice are proved to have been in Abel, namely virginity, priesthood, and martyrdom, in which he first bore the figure of Christ. This antiquity of the priesthood is clear also in the time of the law of nature, for from the time of Noah, before the institution of legitimate royal or imperial power, the priesthood was annexed to the birthright down to the priesthood of the law, whence all the firstborn from Noah to Aaron are said to have been priests. Whence Melchisedech, whom the doctors say was Sem, the son of Noah, is called the priest of the most high, Gen. 14. Nor does it stand in the way that he is said to have been king as well as priest, since, as the priesthood in him was annexed to the birthright, the royal dignity does not seem to have preceded the priestly dignity in him. Moreover, this priority of time in the priesthood is clear in the time of the law, for in the Israelite people, who were then the peculiar people of God, as is found in Deut. 7, the priesthood preceded the royal dignity, as is clear in 1 Kings 10, where it is read that Samuel the priest anointed Saul as king by the command of the Lord, who was the first king in Israel.

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Second, the spiritual power excels the secular royal power in nobility of origin, since the spiritual power, and above all that given in the New Testament, is from God immediately, namely from Christ handing it over to a certain person, that is, to Peter for himself and his successors, Matt. 16: I will give thee the keys of the kingdom of heaven. And John, last ch.: Simon son of John, feed my sheep. The secular power, on the other hand, was not thus instituted from the beginning, which is manifest to one considering the course of holy Scripture, for the secular power, as regards the four empires, namely of the Assyrians and Chaldeans, of the Medes and Persians, of the Greeks, and of the Romans, was not legitimately introduced from the beginning but usurped through violence. As to the empire of the Assyrians and Chaldeans this is clear; this is read to have begun from Nemroth, of whom it is said in Gen. 10 that he began to be mighty on earth, and was robust, and a hunter of men, that is, an oppressor, as the master of histories expounds in the same place, whence through violence and oppression of others he acquired for himself kingdom and empire. The beginning of his kingdom was Babylon, and Arach, Archad, and Calamie in the land of Senaar, from which land Assur went forth, who built Ninive, as is said in the same chapter. As to the empire of the Medes and Persians, that it was introduced through violence and oppression is openly gathered from ch. 2 of Daniel, where it is told that, Balthasar king of Babylon being slain, the kingdom and empire was transferred to the Medes and Persians. As to the empire of the Greeks, which succeeded after the empire of the Medes and Persians, that it was introduced through violence is clear in the beginning of the first book of Machabees, where it is said that Alexander king of the Greeks struck Darius king of the Persians and Medes, and joined many battles, and slew the kings of the earth, and so obtained the empire. As to the empire of the Romans, that it rose and was introduced through secular violence and might, the histories most openly teach. It is clear therefore that the secular power, as regards the four empires succeeding one another, was not legitimately introduced from the beginning, but usurped through violence and ambition. As a sign of this, these four empires or kingdoms were shown to Daniel in a vision in the likeness not of men but of beasts, as is clear in Daniel 7, because they did not rise by the way of reason but by the impulse of sensuality as to their first origin. Whence, if in the course of time these kingdoms were reduced to a legitimate state, it must have been that this came about by the authority of God or by the express or interpretive consent of the people.

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Third, the spiritual power excels the earthly or secular in dignity, since as the spiritual life is worthier than the earthly, and the spirit than the body, so, as the venerable Hugh of St. Victor says in his book on the sacraments, part 3, does the spiritual power surpass the secular or earthly in honor and dignity. And in this way Innocent III says, Extra, on majority and obedience, in ch. Solite, that spiritual things are so much worthier than temporal things as the soul is preferred to the body. Wherefore blessed Ambrose, as is found in ch. Duo, dist. 96, says that gold is not so much more precious than lead as the sacerdotal order is higher than the royal power.

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Fourth, the spiritual power excels the earthly or secular power in greatness of authority. For as Hugh of St. Victor says in the same place above, in the Church the priestly dignity sanctifies the royal power through blessing. Since therefore, as is said to the Heb. 7, without contradiction he who blesses is greater than he who is blessed, it stands without doubt that the earthly power, which receives blessing from the spiritual, is by right esteemed inferior to it.

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Fifth, the spiritual power excels the earthly or secular power in the nobility of the end to which it directs. The end which each power ought to intend is the good of the multitude, which consists principally in this, to live according to virtue, for happiness, which is the perfect and final good, consists in the operation of virtue. Yet the secular power and the spiritual power intend the good of the multitude differently: for the secular intends the good of the multitude to which it can attain by the strength of nature, while the spiritual intends the heavenly, that is, supernatural good, which surpasses all sense, as the Apostle says to the Philip. 3. As a sign of this, when our Savior promised that he would give this spiritual power to Peter, he said to Peter: I will give thee the keys of the kingdom of heaven. But the supernatural end is higher than any other; therefore the spiritual power excels the secular in nobility of end.

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Sixth, the spiritual power seems to excel the secular power in a certain causality, and this in a threefold kind (as it seems) of causality: efficient, formal, and final. As efficient, indeed, in a certain way, and this in two ways. First, because through the priesthood, with God ordaining and commanding, the royal power was first ordained in the people of God, as is clear in 1 Kings, ch. 8, where it is read that when the children of Israel asked Samuel the priest to appoint a king for them, and he consulted the Lord, the Lord said to him: Hearken to their voice, and appoint a king over them. That Samuel was a priest cannot be denied, since of him it is read that he offered sacrifice and anointed kings, namely Saul and David. And blessed Aug. in book 17 of the City of God, ch. 4, says that, Heli being rejected, Samuel was substituted in the ministry of God, and the same is found in the Gloss on Heb. 7. Second, in the manner of an efficient cause the secular power seems in a certain way to depend on the spiritual. For the secular power obtains the true and perfect notion of power from the formation or derivation of the spiritual power. For this it is to be noted that just as moral virtues without the faith of Christ do not have the complete notion of virtue, because, as holy Thomas says in the first part of the second, they do not order man to the ultimate end simply, which is supernal beatitude, but to the ultimate end in a certain respect in some genus, namely to that which does not exceed the capacity of man, and therefore, as is found in ch. Omnes, 28, q. 1, Aug. says: Where there is no acknowledgment of the unchangeable truth, virtue is false even in the best morals. Likewise the same Aug., as is found in ch. Ubi sana, 24, q. 1, says: Where sound faith is not, there cannot be justice. So it seems must be said of the governing power of the people, whose intent is to lead its subjects to the virtues, as is said in the 2nd Ethics, that it does not have the perfect notion of power to rule its subjects in any way, even in order to the end of supernal beatitude. Whence blessed Aug. in book 3 against Cresconius the grammarian says: For in this do kings serve God, as is divinely commanded them, inasmuch as they are kings, if in their kingdom they command good things and forbid evil, not only those pertaining to human society, but also those pertaining to divine religion. Likewise in the book on the correction of the Donatists, to Count Boniface, he says thus: And now, ye kings, understand, etc. How then do kings serve the Lord in fear, except by forbidding with religious severity and punishing those things which are against the commands of the Lord? For otherwise does he serve because he is a man, otherwise does he serve because he is a king. Because he is a man, he serves faithfully; but because he is a king, he serves by establishing with fitting rigor laws commanding justly and forbidding the contrary, as Ezechias served God, destroying the groves and temples of the idols and those high places which had been built against the precept of God; thus far Aug. Since the secular power, taken as such, knows nothing of supernal happiness nor of those things which dispose men to it, it necessarily depends in this perfection of power on the spiritual power, to which it belongs per se and directly to lead men to the end of supernal happiness, and to no other except by the direction of this kind. It is clear therefore that the secular power in the Christian commonwealth depends in its perfection, in the way now stated, on the spiritual power, even in the genus of efficient cause, as being formed by it. For we shall see that natural heat, informed by the power of the vegetative soul, acts toward the generation of flesh and blood in the animal, to which it cannot attain by its own power alone, and so in its own way the same seems to be said in the case proposed. Whence, as is said in ch. Si imperator, dist. 96, the emperor is a son of the Church, not its prelate, and therefore what pertains to religion it belongs to him to learn, not to teach, on account of which Hugh of St. Victor, in the same place above, says: The spiritual power has to institute the earthly as such and to judge it if it has not been good. Second, the secular power is said to depend on the spiritual power in the genus of formal cause, for as charity, as blessed Ambrose says, is called the form of the other virtues, not indeed by way of inherence, but by way of a certain direction, for it orders the acts of the other virtues to the ultimate end. In like manner the spiritual power gives to the secular power the rule and form of government and direction. This is common in ordered arts, that the art to which belongs the consideration of the ultimate end gives laws and rules to the other arts whose ends are ordered to its end, as the medicinal to the pigmentary, and the military to the equestrian. Hence it is said that the imperial laws not only do not disdain to imitate the sacred canons, as is said in ch. Clerici, Extra, on judgments; indeed, as Felix the Pope says in ch. Constitutiones, dist. 10: The constitutions of princes against the canons and decrees of the Roman prelates, or good morals, are of no moment. Third, the secular power depends on the spiritual in the manner of a final cause, since as the end of the secular power, which is political happiness attained through natural things, is ordered (as has been said) to the end of the spiritual power, which is supernal beatitude wholly transcending the capacity of human nature, so power seems likewise to be ordered to power; hence the secular power is said to be given in service to the spiritual. Whence in ch. Principes, 23, q. 5, Ambrose says: The princes of the world sometimes hold within the Church the heights of power attained, that through that same power they may fence ecclesiastical discipline. For within the Church powers would not be necessary unless that what priests cannot effect through the sermon of doctrine, power may obtain through the terror of discipline. Often through the earthly kingdom the heavenly kingdom profits, so that those who, placed within the Church, act against faith and discipline are crushed by the rigor of princes. And below: Let secular princes know that they must render an account to God for the Church which they undertake from Christ to defend.

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Seventh, the spiritual power stands above the secular power in jurisdiction, since the spiritual power judges the earthly if it happens to deviate, but not the other way round. The venerable Hugh touches on this preeminence of superiority in the same place above, speaking thus: The spiritual power has to judge the earthly if it has not been good, while the spiritual itself, first instituted by God, when it deviates has to be and can be judged by God alone, as it is written, 1 Cor. 12: The spiritual man judgeth all things, and he himself is judged by no man. To this effect is the canon of Pope Gelasius in ch. Cuncta, 9, q. 3, where he says thus: The Church knows throughout the world that the most holy Roman Church has the right to judge of all things, nor is it lawful for anyone to judge of her judgment. To the same effect is ch. Nemo, etc., Aliorum, in the same cause and question. That the secular power, when it happens to err, comes to be judged by the spiritual power is openly gathered from many things. First, indeed, from this, that as is found in ch. Alius, 15, q. 6, Pope Gelasius, writing to the Emperor Anastasius, says: The Roman pontiff Zachary deposed the king of the Franks from the kingdom not so much for his iniquities as because he was useless for so great a power, and substituted in his place Pepin, the father of the Emperor Charles. The same is testified by Pope Gelasius in ch. Duo, dist. 96. Pope Innocent excommunicated the Emperor Arcadius. Likewise the second Pope Stephen transferred the empire from the Greeks to the Germans in the person of Charles the Great, as Innocent III adduces in ch. Per venerabilem, Extra, on judgments. Likewise Honorius III, as is read in the Chronicles, anathematized the Emperor Frederick and absolved the barons from fealty to him, whom Innocent IV afterwards deposed from the empire and every kingdom in the council of Lyons. Blessed Ambrose also, as is read in ch. Duo, dist. 96, though he was not the universal pontiff, excommunicated Theodosius the great emperor and excluded him from the Church.

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Eighth, the spiritual power excels the secular in superiority of prelation; this is clear, because the spiritual power, as has often been recalled, directs to the higher end to which the end of the earthly power is ordered. The sentence of Aristotle is, in the 1st Ethics, that the power or art is commanding over all others to whose end the ends of the others are ordered and referred. Hence blessed Greg. in ch. Quis dubitet, dist. 96, says: Who doubts that the priests of Christ are deemed the fathers and masters of kings and princes and of all the faithful? Wherefore Gregory of Nazianzus writes thus to the emperors of Constantinople, as in ch. Suscipitis, dist. 10: The law of Christ subjects you to the sacerdotal power and submits you to those tribunals. For he has given us power, and has given a principate far more perfect than your princes. Or does it seem just to you if the spirit yields to the flesh, if heavenly things are overcome by earthly, if human things are preferred to divine? as though to say, no.

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Ninth, the spiritual power is preferred to the earthly or secular in amplitude of principate. For the amplitude of the spiritual principate extends from sea to sea, and from the river unto the ends of the earth, Ps. 71, according as we expounded above in ch. 34. Whence of the apostles it is said in Ps. 43: Thou shalt appoint them princes over all the earth. And to Peter it was said by the Lord: I have appointed thee prince over my people. Likewise to him it is said in Matt. 16: Whatsoever thou shalt bind upon earth shall be bound in heaven. And John, last ch.: Simon son of John, feed my sheep, distinguishing not between these and those, but whatsoever sheep he commends to him, as Bernard says. This prerogative of the spiritual power seems plainly enough designated, as Innocent III says in ch. Novit, Extra, on majority and obedience, in Jer. 1, where it is read as said by the Lord to Jeremy, who was a priest: Behold, I have appointed thee over nations and kingdoms, to root up and destroy, and to build and to plant. Which preeminence of the spiritual power, most of all in the Roman pontiff, blessed Aug., admiring it in a certain sermon on the apostles Peter and Paul which begins: Strong and humble, speaks thus: O wondrous power and inestimable grace of the Savior! Who would readily have believed that the lowly fisherman, the prince of the apostles, would withstand kings, sanctify kings, command all kings, curb the world with laws, etc. Tenth, the spiritual power excels the secular in strength of firmness and fortitude; this is clear, since secular powers are of small duration and slight firmness, as has been said of the four empires named above, Dan. 7. Whence it is well said in Eccles. 10: All power is of short life, while the spiritual power ever abides stable. Whence, when it had been said by Christ to Peter in Matt. 16: Thou art Peter, and upon this rock I will build my Church, there immediately follows concerning her firmness: And the gates of hell shall not prevail against her. Whence significantly the stability of the spiritual power, above all in the apostolic see, seems figured by the stability of the Davidic throne, of which in 2 Kings 7 it is said: I shall establish the throne of his kingdom forever. And below: His throne shall be firm forever.