Summa de Ecclesia

Now that the points set out well above have been noted, we must answer the objections of the adversaries.

¹ To the first, where it is said that a head is not the head of a head, etc., it is answered that this is true of the natural head of a natural body, but not of the mystical head, or the head said by likeness. For as St Thomas, answering this objection in the Third Part, says: "In metaphorical locutions one must not attend to the likeness in all respects, for then it would not be a likeness but the truth of the thing." Of a natural head, therefore, there is no other head, because the human body is not a part of another body; but a body said by likeness, namely some ordered multitude, is a part of another multitude, just as a household multitude is a part of the civil multitude; and therefore the father of the family, who is head of the household multitude, has over himself a head, the ruler of the city. In this way the Apostle speaks, 1 Cor. 11: "The head of every man is Christ, but the head of the woman is the man, and the head of Christ is God." And likewise Eph. 5. And so it must be said in the present case that these stand well together: that the pope is the head of the Church, and that Christ is the head of the pope himself.

² To the second argument, where it is said "of one body," etc., it is answered to the first that the assumed premise is true of a natural body, but not of a mystical body or a body said by likeness: because of one and the same mystical body, that is, of some one civil multitude, the head is the ruler of the city, and also the king, who is the supreme head of the whole kingdom. Likewise, although the head of a woman is the man, as the Apostle says, nevertheless Christ is also the head of the faithful woman, who is the head of the whole Church. So in the present case, of one and the same body Christ is the principal head, and the pope is also a head, subordinate, yet acting in place of Christ under him. Yet Christ is called the head of the Church in a very different way from prelates, who are called his heads. As St Thomas says in the Third Part where cited above: first, as regards this, that Christ is head of all those who belong to the Church in every place and time and state; but other men are called heads according to certain special places, as bishops of their own churches, or also according to a determinate time, as the pope is head of the whole Church during his pontificate, and according to a determinate state, namely insofar as they are in the state of wayfarers. In another way, Christ is head of the Church by his own power and authority. But others are called heads insofar as they act in the place of Christ, according to 2 Cor. 2: "For what I have forgiven, if I have forgiven anything, I did for your sake in the person of Christ." And 2 Cor. 5: "We are ambassadors for Christ, as though God were exhorting through us." According to Lord Alvarus in his book On the Power of the Church, one may answer the argument made in another way: that Christ and his vicar are not two heads but one, because the pope is not called head except insofar as he acts in the place of Christ and represents his person. Likewise Pope Boniface VIII says so in his Extravagant, Unam sanctam.

³ To the third, where it is said that Christ is the most sufficient head of the Church, etc., it is answered by denying the consequence; for we say that although Christ is the head of the Church, nevertheless, because he is invisible. It was fitting that there be posited one visible head, in species and in mortality conformed and like to the state and condition of the body, and to the members of the Church itself, who should visibly rule and preside over the whole Church; and such a head was blessed Peter, and now his successor is. Although its fittingness has been shown sufficiently above, nevertheless for fuller knowledge it can be shown thus. The unity of the mystical or ecclesiastical body, or principate, is not said to have less unity than secular polities or principates devised by human industry or by natural reason, since the bond binding the members of the Church together is greater and more unifying than any other bond, and that divine law itself according to which the Church is principally ruled and governed is more excellent than every other human law. But human polities, for their unity, without being united in the one God, from whom as universal principle, efficient, formal, exemplary and final, all power and dignity is derived, according to that of Wisdom 8: "By me kings reign," etc., require one head, homogeneous or conformed in nature and state: one kingdom one king, one province one prince, one city one power, one house one father of the family. Therefore the unity of the Church of all the faithful, which is far greater and more perfect than the unity of a human polity, ought to have one head conformed and like to it in mortal nature and state. It is fitting, and the very unity of the body of the Church requires, that the Church have one mortal man visibly living with it, conformed to the body of the Church and to its members, who should be head and ruler and be a wayfarer, just as the whole Church and its members are wayfarers.

⁴ To the fourth, where it is said that in the head of an animal body there is the fullness of the senses, and that in Peter or in the pope there is no fullness, etc., it must be said with St Thomas in the Third Part above, that the head flows into the other members in two ways. In one way by an intrinsic influx, insofar as motive and sensitive power is derived from the head to the other members. In another way by an external governance, insofar as man is directed in his external acts by sight and the other senses, which are rooted in the head. But the interior influx belongs to no one except Christ alone, whose humanity, because it is joined to the divinity, has the power of justifying; but influx into the members of the Church, as to external governance, can belong to others, and according to this others can be called heads of the Church, according to that of Amos 6: "The chief men, the heads of the peoples." Having noted this, the answer to the aforesaid arguments is plain. For we say that the first mode of influx, namely by intrinsic influx, which is the influx of sense and spiritual motion, requires in the influencing head the fullness of spiritual senses; and hence it is that Christ, who flows in this way, is said to be full of grace and truth, John 1. But the second mode of influx, namely extrinsic as to governance, does not require the fullness of spiritual senses, but that he have the fullness of power sufficient for the rule of the people committed to him. And since blessed Peter or his successor is not appointed to flow into the body of the Church in the first mode, as Christ does intrinsically, but extrinsically, therefore nothing is required for the notion of head in him except that he have fullness of power sufficient for the rule of the universal Church; and he had this when he was made shepherd and ruler of the Christian people, the Lord saying to him, John, last ch.: "Feed my sheep." ⁵ It is plain also from this what the answer is to the fifth, where it was said that it is the office of the head, etc., because it is not only the office of the head to flow in in one way, but in two ways, as has been said. To blessed Peter and his successor, although it does not belong to them to flow in in the first way, they do flow in in the second way, and this suffices for the notion of head by the said likeness, or mystical. Or it must be said that although blessed Peter did not flow in, nor does his successor flow in, spiritual sense and motion into the members of the Church, neither by way of efficient cause as Christ inasmuch as God, nor by way of merit or overflow as Christ inasmuch as man, nevertheless by way of minister, having the power of the keys in fullness and dispensing the treasure of the Church, he flows in ministerially sense and motion to all who are duly prepared and who receive the sacraments of the Church worthily. Hence Master Albert the Great, in his treatise on the Mass, says that by the office of the priests of the Church grace is flowed into the whole mystical body for spiritual sense, meritorious motion and spiritual increase, which office is in the word of doctrine, in the Eucharist and in the other sacraments of this kind. And that this suffices for the notion of ministerial head is plain, since, as St Thomas says in the Disputed Question De veritate, q. 29, arg. 5: "The minister of the Church does not act in the sacraments as from his own power but from another's, namely Christ's; and therefore in him personal grace is not required, but only the authority of orders, by which he is constituted as the vicar of Christ." Christ, however, wrought our salvation as from his own power, and therefore it was fitting that in him there be the fullness of grace. Thus St Thomas.

⁶

To the sixth argument, where it is said that power was not derived from Peter, it is answered that, speaking of the power of jurisdiction, this is false, as is plain from ch. Ita dominus, dist. 19, cited above. This is also confirmed by the sentence of the same blessed Leo, who says thus in his third sermon on his ordination: "From the whole world one is chosen who is set over the calling of all nations and over all the apostles and all the fathers of the Church, so that although in the people of God there are many priests and many pastors, nevertheless Peter rules them all, whom Christ also rules principally. The divine condescension has granted to this man, dearly beloved, a great and wonderful partnership in his power, and whatever it willed to be common to him and the other princes it never gave except through him; what it did not deny to others, thus says Pope Leo, most holy." And when it is said that Peter did not receive the keys alone, it is answered that although Peter did not receive them alone, but the whole Church in him, in its bishops and priests, nevertheless he alone received them principally and in fullness, as the Gloss on Matt. 16, cited above, has it. And when it is said that the other apostles were equally principal, etc., it must be said that this is false; hence although at Matt. 18 Christ gave the power of binding and loosing to all in common, nevertheless, as St Thomas says in the Fourth Book, so that some order might be signified in this power, it was first given to Peter alone, in order to show that this power ought to descend from him to the others; for which reason he said to him singly: "Confirm your brethren," and "Feed my sheep," that is, in my place, as Chrysostom says: "be set over your brethren as head."

⁷

To the seventh, where it is said that if Peter the apostle had been the head, etc., we say that this does not follow, since it is not posited that the head was principal to the Church, from whom the spiritual sense of grace and the motion of charity flow into the body of the Church; but Christ is the head in this way, and therefore we are rightly named Christians from him as from the principal one, from whom the anointing of divine grace flows into the members of the Church, and not Petrines from Peter.

⁸

To the eighth, where it is said that a necessary connection of the body to the head is required, and that such is not the connection of the Church to Peter: it is answered that although the relation or connection of the body of the Church is not necessary to the pope as he is an individual man, nevertheless it is necessary to him insofar as he is pope, or ruler and shepherd of it, appointed by Christ, this divine ordinance standing. Hence it is of necessity for salvation to be subject to the Roman pontiff, as is declared in the Extravagant of Boniface, and as St Thomas says in his exposition on John, where on those words "Simon son of John, do you love me? Feed my sheep," he says: "He cannot call himself a Christian who says that he is not subject to the care of such a shepherd." And St Gregory in ch. Si qui, dist. 8, says: "Whoever, while asserting himself a Christian, despises obedience to the apostolic see, incurs the sin of paganism." Moreover, this connection is so necessary, the divine ordinance standing, that whoever is not with his bishop is outside the body of the Church, as Cyprian says, and it is found in ch. Qui cathedram, dist. 93: "Whoever has deserted the chair of Peter, upon which the Church is founded, let him not trust that he is in the Church." On this matter see above, Book 1 of this work, ch. 8, and ch. 2 of this second book.

⁹

To the other argument, where it is said of a separated head, etc., it is answered that this is true of the head from which sense and motion flow into the members of the body; but in this way Peter was not the head, but Christ. It is not, however, true of a head from which there is only an external influx, by external governance, such as Peter was and his successor is. For when such a head is removed from the body for a time, the body of the governed multitude does not perish on that account, although by reason of the length of the vacancy it may suffer some inconvenience and losses; according to ch. Ubi periculum maius, de elect., lib. 6. These things are enough for now, although it could be said that although the person of the pope may fail, nevertheless the apostolic see, which never dies, does not fail: Extra, de rescript., ch. Si gratiosae, in 6, where the Gloss speaks and the Archdeacon agrees; for although one holding the papacy or a dignity is corruptible, nevertheless the pope, and the empire, and the dignity always are, as in the Authentic Quomodo oportet episcopos, § Licentiam; and therefore, when the subject is corrupted, these are not said not to exist but to be vacant, that is, to lack an administrator of right or of fact, as in De concess. praeben., Cum nostris, about which more must be said below.