Summa de Ecclesia

It is easy to answer these things if attention is paid to what we have said above following the glorious doctrine of the doctor Saint Thomas, from whose fount we have drawn the aforesaid conclusions.

¹

To the first reason brought against the sixth conclusion, therefore, I answer by denying the minor, for we say that the sacerdotal power is one in essence but has diverse subordinate acts, of which the first and principal is to consecrate the body of Christ, and that with respect to this it was given before the passion in the supper. The second act is to absolve from sins, and with respect to this it was given after the resurrection, as we have said above. Hence this variety of the times in which the power of confecting and the power of absolving are said to be given is taken in respect and order to diverse acts ordered among themselves, and not to a diversity of the power in essence, which is one and the same. Of which we can give a quite clear example in the sun, which, although as to substance it is said to have been made on the first day, when light was made, is nevertheless said to have been made on the fourth day in Gen. 1, since there was given to it a special virtue as to some particular effects, as Saint Thomas touches upon in the first part q. lxvii, last argument.

²

To the second reason the answer is the same, since the minor assumed is false. For it is not true that the sacerdotal power and the power of the keys are infused at diverse times, if it is understood as to their substance, since, as we have already said, the variety of those times in which they are said to be infused is not referred to the substance of the power, which was infused at one time in the supper of the Lord, but is referred to its diverse subordinate acts of power, according to which it is said to be given at various times, as we have said above.

³

To the third the answer is clear from the distinctions drawn. For these powers are not separated as to essence but as to the acts of which one presupposes the other.

⁴

To the fourth reason I answer that it is not to the point, since at present we speak of the sacramental key, of which kind the key which Christ is said to have is not, but rather it is the principle of the sacramental key, as the power of authority inasmuch as he is God, and the power of excellence inasmuch as he is man.

⁵

To the fifth reason I answer that the keys of orders, absolutely speaking, are equal in all rightly ordained priests, as is the sacerdotal character; yet the use of them is not equal in all, but is more or less extended or restricted according as the power of jurisdiction, without which the power of the keys cannot go forth into act, is more or less extended or restricted in each one. Blessed Peter, however, is said to have been gifted with the power of the keys before the rest, since he before the rest was called into the fullness of power, as he was appointed master and ruler not of one province but of the whole world. Of which more fully in the following book.

⁶

To the sixth reason I answer by denying the consequence, and when it is said that schismatics and heretics and the excommunicated cannot absolve or bind, we say that this is not because in such men there is not the power of the keys of orders of which we speak, but because they are without jurisdiction, or without the matter in which the use of that power is exercised. For since the use of the keys requires prelation in the user with respect to him toward whom he uses it, the proper matter in which the use of the keys is exercised is the subject man. And since through the ordination of the Church one man is subjected to another, therefore also through the prelates of the Church there can be taken away from a man him who was subject to him. Hence when the Church deprives heretics and schismatics and others of this kind by withdrawing subjects either simply or in some respect, as to that of which they have been deprived they cannot have the use of the keys.

⁷

To the first reason brought against the tenth conclusion I answer by denying the minor, namely that the keys of orders are separated in subject, and to the proof I answer that in the judgment or forum of conscience, which the keys of orders of which the present discussion treats principally regard, one key will never be committed by the Pope to one man and the other to another, as for instance to one the key of discretion concerning the sins about which one who is to be absolved comes, and to another the power of absolving, but one and the same man, namely the confessor, exercises each.

⁸

To the second I answer that the keys committed to Peter in Matt. 16 name not only the keys of orders but the keys of orders and of jurisdiction together, as Saint Thomas says in 4, dist. 18. But we readily concede that those keys, namely of jurisdiction and of orders, are distinguished really, as will be shown in the following ch. Secondly it can be said that if by the keys of Matt. 16 only the keys of orders are designated, then that plurality of keys is not to be taken according to a plurality of essences but according to the diversity of acts of which one presupposes the other, as was recalled above, nor must all things which are named absolutely in the plural in holy scripture also be plural as to essence.

⁹

To the third reason I answer that that reason would proceed if the knowledge which is called a habit, whether infused or acquired, were here called the key; this is not true, but the knowledge which is here called the key is the authority of exercising the act of knowledge, which authority is sometimes without knowledge and sometimes knowledge without it, as is clear also in secular judges. For one man is a judge having the authority of judging who does not have the knowledge of law, and another conversely has the knowledge of law who does not have the authority, and thus the reason does not proceed. Consequently answer must be made to the reasons brought against the twelfth conclusion.

¹⁰

To the first I answer that when it is said that the keys were given to the Church, it is not to be understood that they were given to each one of the Church, since thus all the faithful, as much laity as clergy, would have to be said to have the keys of orders, which is absurd; nor again is it to be understood thus, that the aforesaid keys were given to the community of the Church as a university, so that the university itself as such has in itself subjectively and formally these keys, since this, as we have shown, cannot be. It must therefore be said that all the authorities saying that the keys were given to the Church come to be understood in the way in which the holy doctors say, namely that they were given to her in her more principal members, namely in priests and bishops. For the Church is one body having diverse members, in which she receives diverse graces, according to the Apostle in 1 Cor. 12. Hence blessed Jerome upon that passage in Matt. 16, To thee I will give the keys of the kingdom of heaven, says thus: All peoples have judicial power; every Church has it in bishops and priests. Every Church, moreover, is said to have this power in bishops and priests, both because throughout the whole earth and through the whole course of time even to the end of the age she has it and will have it. And thus there is one understanding of all like authorities, whence it is clear that like authorities do not fight against our conclusion and its corollary. Yet it is here to be noted that although in the Church priests alone, as they who alone have the keys of binding and loosing, absolve from sins, nevertheless the Church is said to do this, according to that saying of Aug. in his book on the struggle of the Christian, who says: Nor let us listen to those who deny that the Church of God can remit all sins, and this for three reasons. First, since the more powerful in the Church, namely priests and bishops, do this. But since, as Aristotle says in 9 Ethics, the city is said to be that which is most principal in it, it is customary to attribute to the city or community that which the principals in it do, whence the whole city is said to do what the rulers of it do in it. And the same is the reason concerning every other thing constituted of many, as Saint Thomas says in his exposition of the book of the Ethics. Secondly, since no one placed outside the unity of the Church has the use of the keys, as in ch. novatianus 7 q. 1. On account of which blessed Aug. says that the keys were given to the Church not to one man but to unity. For this reason, therefore, the holy doctors seem to have used this manner of speaking, saying: The Church remits sins, the Church excommunicates, the Church absolves, and things of this kind, as in ch. quodcumque 24 q. 1, since no one placed outside the unity of the Church can so act, as Aug. says in ch. multi and in ch. remissionem 7 q. 1. Thirdly, since just as in the other sacraments the faith of Christ and the charity of the Church operate, so also in the keys of the Church. Hence Aug. says, as in ch. ecclesiae charitas de con. dist. 4, that the charity of the Church remits sins. Hence it is that sometimes the very act of the keys is attributed to the Church, since the faith and charity of the Church intervene meritoriously, although by ministerial authority it is to be attributed to priests alone.

To the second I answer that not every knowledge of discerning and of judging sins is called the keys of the kingdom of heaven, but only those which extend to this, that through them the one judged be admitted to heavenly things. Of this kind, however, the power of the legal priests was not, since their priesthood did not extend to heavenly things but to figures of heavenly things. But since the priesthood of Christ was of this prerogative, that by it man is introduced into heavenly things, indeed the power which follows the priesthood of Christ or the evangelical is fittingly called the key of the kingdom of heaven, but not the power of the Levitical priesthood, which did not open with effect.