Summa de Ecclesia

Now we must speak to the reasons of those who say that the principate of the Roman pontiff hangs causally upon the ordination of the universal Church or of the sacred councils of priests. It is answered in the first place that this is false, which is proved by reason and by authority. By reason thus: It is impossible for the spiritual power by which one is bound or absolved in soul with respect to heaven to depend immediately upon him or upon those who are themselves absolved or bound by the same power. But the papal power conferred on Peter and his successors extends to binding and loosing each and every one of the Church militant; therefore it is impossible that the power of the keys of the Church conferred on Peter should hang causally upon anyone or any persons of the Church taken collectively or severally, indeed not even upon the whole Church itself; the consequence is clear, and the antecedent is for the greater part clear also concerning the spiritual power of which we speak — whatever may be the case concerning the temporal, which arises from the consent of a people subjecting itself to others. Hence, although the consent of the people can make a judge in temporal matters, yet not in spiritual matters. For no consent of the people can constitute for itself a confessor, or a judge capable of excommunicating, who before had no power of jurisdiction. The minor is clear from what has often been repeated above, above all from that passage in Matt. 16: To thee I will give the keys of the kingdom of heaven. And there follows: Whatsoever thou shalt bind upon earth, etc. The same is proved by authority from Pope Pelagius, who in ch. Quamvis, dist. 21, speaks thus: The holy Roman catholic and apostolic Church was set over the other churches by no synodal statutes, but obtained the primacy by the evangelical voice of the Lord our Saviour. This held, answer must be given to the reason by denying the minor. And to the proof we say that the saying of the blessed Jerome offers no opinion against the conclusion posited, for two reasons. First, because Jerome there speaks of bishops and presbyters, whose distinction both in name and in certain other circumstances of their charge or office was not in the beginning as great as afterwards, as the Gloss there indicates; but he does not speak of the primacy of the Roman pontiff, as the adversaries stupidly interpret, saying that it did not exist from the beginning of the Church after the ascension of Christ, since it had not been instituted by Christ — whereas the blessed Jerome manifestly taught the opposite. For on that passage in Matt. 16, You are Peter, and upon this, etc., he says: As Christ gave light to the apostles, so that they are called the light of the world, and the other names which they obtained by lot from the Lord, so to Simon, who believed in Christ the rock, he granted the name of Peter, and according to the metaphor of the rock it is rightly said to him: I will build my Church upon thee. In this the primacy of Peter over the whole Church is manifestly designated, since the Church is said to be built upon him. And in ch. Quoniam vetus oriens, 24, q. 1, writing to Pope Damasus, he speaks thus: Following no primacy but Christ, I am joined in communion to your blessedness, that is, to the chair of Peter; I know that the Church was founded upon that rock. Likewise in the book on the birth or death of the saints, on the New Testament, he speaks thus of Peter: Peter is the foundation of the Church of Christ, the rock of the body of Christ, the principate and head. It is clear therefore that the blessed Jerome most openly believed that the blessed Peter had the primacy in the Church from Christ, and thus consequently his successor. Secondly, the authority of Jerome adduced by the adversary does not tell against the proposition, because, as we fully explained above in book 1, chapter 79, Jerome does not mean that there was no real distinction between bishop and presbyter — since blessed Dionysius, who was a disciple of Paul, in 5 of the Ecclesiastical Hierarchy, and blessed Augustine say that this was one of the heresies of Arius — but he means to say that the difference of name was not always, because he who was called bishop was called presbyter, and conversely; which difference of names, to avoid the scandal of schism, was taken away by the counsel of the priests, that is, of the fathers, and it was constituted that, just as they differed in reality, so they should differ in terms. And this is the answer of the blessed Thomas. This also is the opinion of the Archdeacon on ch. Legimus, dist. 93, who speaks thus: I believe that from the beginning there was a difference between bishops and simple presbyters, priests, as there now is in administration and prelacy and offices and in the sacraments; but as to appellation there was no difference, because indifferently and commonly these and those were called bishops and presbyters. But because schisms began to be in the Church, from the very parity of appellation a difference was made in appellation, so that simple priests should not be called bishops, 80th dist., in those canons, according to Hugh; this is what the Archdeacon says. To the second reason, founded on ch. Concilia, dist. 17, the Gloss answers. ¹

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To the second: that the Roman Church had the primacy principally from Christ, secondarily from councils. But lest this be badly understood — since it would be badly understood if the universal councils, whose strength, vigor, and firmness hang upon the apostolic see, as through the whole of dist. 17 and Extra, on election, in ch. Significasti, were understood to give effectively or causally any authority to the apostolic see, whereas, as has been proved, not even the universal Church itself confers any authority upon it, which Pope Nicholas manifestly attests, writing to the Emperor Michael and speaking of the privileges of the apostolic see, adding thus: So therefore the privileges of this holy Church were given by Christ; they were not given by synods, but were only celebrated and venerated by them, through which not so much honor as burden lies upon us. Likewise in the same epistle: Hence it must be noted that neither Nicaea nor finally any synod conferred any privilege upon the Roman Church, which knew in Peter that she had more fully merited the rights of the whole power and had received the government of all the sheep of Christ, as the blessed bishop Boniface attests, writing to all the bishops constituted throughout Thessaly; this is what he says. We say therefore that this which is said, that the councils handed over power secondarily to the apostolic see, is to be understood executively and declaratively. Executively indeed, by obeying the divine ordination, honoring that see as head and mother of all the other churches, fulfilling that which in the person of Christ the blessed Chrysogonus says on that passage in the last chapter of John, Feed my sheep: In my place be set over them and be head of the brethren, so that they, receiving thee in my place, might proclaim and confirm thee seated on thy throne. Clearly the sacred universal councils always observed this. Hence Pope Agatho, in the address which he sent to the sixth synod, writes thus: The authority of the apostolic see, as being that of the prince of all the apostles, the whole catholic Church of Christ and the universal synods, faithfully embracing it, have followed in all things. See in what way they are said to have handed over power executively to the apostolic see. Declaratively also the universal councils are said to have handed over power to the apostolic see, since above all through the universal councils it was declared to the Christian people how great is the eminence of the apostolic see. Hence in the Constantinopolitan council it is written thus, as holy Thomas adduces in the fourth, dist. 24: We venerate, according to the Scriptures and the definitions of the canons, the most holy bishop of ancient Rome as first and greatest of bishops; this is said there. And to this understanding the lord Archdeacon, on the aforesaid ch. Concilia, expounds that word handed over, that is, showed it to have been handed over.