Summa de Ecclesia

Once it has been demonstrated that the papal power or pontificate is instituted by God alone, it is easy to understand that by no mere man, nor by the whole world, can it be restricted or amplified, but by God alone. First, for to him it belongs to restrict or amplify any power to whom it belongs to institute it, since to those instituting any power it belongs to determine how great and of what sort the power is. But the papal power, as we have fully shown above, is instituted by God alone, and it is held in ch. Quamvis, dist. 21. Therefore by no other power than the divine can it be restricted or amplified. Secondly, the papal power is superior to every other ecclesiastical power; therefore by no other ecclesiastical power can it be restricted or amplified; the consequence is good, for as is held in ch. Inferior, dist. twenty-first: An inferior see cannot abolish or bind a superior one. The antecedent is known from what was said above; indeed it is now an article of faith defined in the Council of Constance, that the power of the Pope is the supreme power in the Church. Thirdly thus: No one can make a change, by restricting or diminishing or destroying, in the power upon which the universal Church is founded, except Christ alone, who founded it; otherwise that promise of Christ would not be true, that the gates of hell shall not prevail against it. But the papal power is of that kind; therefore no man, nor even the whole world, can take away, restrict, or diminish the papal power; the consequence is good, and the major is clear. The minor is proved through that passage in Matt. 16, Upon this rock I will build my Church, which, as we showed above in the seventeenth chapter, is referred by the holy fathers as said not only by reason of Peter's confession of faith, but by reason of the power given to him. Hence holy Thomas at the end of the second book of the Sentences says that the power of the Pope is a certain foundation of the Church. Hence Origen also says on that passage in Matt. 16, Whatsoever, etc.: See how great a power the rock has upon which the Church is founded, so that even her judgments remain firm as though God were judging through her. Likewise the blessed Anacletus in a certain decree of his says: The apostles decreed by the command of the Savior that the greater and more difficult questions always be referred to the apostolic see, upon which Christ built the whole Church, the Lord saying to the prince of the apostles: You are Peter, etc. And Pope Vigilius, writing to his most beloved brother Eleutherius, says: To no one either slightly learned or fully wise is it doubtful that the Roman Church is the foundation and form of the churches, from which no rightly believing man is ignorant that every Church has taken its beginning. Fourthly thus: It is not permitted without danger of heresy to detract from the privilege of the apostolic see given to it by Christ. But to diminish or restrict the power of the apostolic see is to detract from the privileges of right, honor, and dignity given to the apostolic see by Christ; therefore this is permitted to no one. The consequence is good, and the major is clear from ch. Omnes, dist. 22, where it is said thus: But he who strives to take away the privilege of the Roman Church from the supreme head of all the churches himself, without doubt lapses into heresy. The minor is clear, since the chief privilege given by Christ to the apostolic see is the fullness of power itself and its principal dignity. For Pope Leo says in the epistle to the Emperor Marcian: Great honor is to each his own dignity. Wherefore Pope Nicholas in a certain epistle to the Emperor Michael speaks thus: The privileges of the apostolic see can in no way be diminished, in no way infringed, in no way changed, since what foundation God has laid no human effort can move, and what the Lord has established stands firm and valid, and he above all sins who attempts to resist the ordination of God. The privileges, I say, of this see are perpetual, divinely rooted and planted; they can be assailed, they cannot be transferred; they can be drawn, they cannot be uprooted; this is what he says. Nor can it be said that any unworthiness of prelates could diminish these privileges of the apostolic see, as the same most blessed Leo attests, who says: Sometimes the merits of prelates are diverse, yet the rights of the sees remain, to which rivals can bring some disturbance, yet they cannot diminish the dignity. Nor must what Gregory IX says against the presumption of Michael of Constantinople be passed over here: Whoever strives to empty or diminish the authority or privileges of the Roman Church machines not here the subversion and ruin of one Church, but of the whole of Christendom. By whose compassion or sustenance the daughters, oppressed by any, will breathe again, that sole mother being stifled to whose refuge they will appeal, to whom they will have refuge. For she receives Athanasius; she receives, cherishes, and defends all catholics, and restores to their own sees those driven out. This is what he says. Fifthly, the power of any vicar no one can restrict or amplify except the principal whose vicar he is. But the Pope is the vicar of Jesus Christ, bearing his stead on earth; therefore the power of such a vicar no one except Christ, whose vicar he is, can restrict, diminish, change, or even amplify. The consequence is good, and the premises are clear. But if any of the adversaries should wish to say to these points, as we have heard many who follow the teaching of a certain Jason say when we were at Basel, that although the power of the Pope can be taken away or diminished by no men, yet the fathers gathered in council could impede or restrict the execution of his power, or so regulate it that it could not come into act unless as shall have been dictated to it by the general council — to such a reply, in our judgment, answer is badly given; indeed he seems to speak foolishly, since he seems to imply either an opposition in the object or an ignorance of the term. Which is clear thus: For jurisdiction, as we said elsewhere in book 1, is the power of declaring or judging right, and of executing; likewise full and total jurisdiction is the whole full and perfect power of judging and of executing what has been judged; otherwise it is not full and perfect. Hence to say that one has jurisdiction, yet so that he cannot judge and execute it if he willed, is to say that he has the power of judging and cannot judge, which is to have power and not to have it. Likewise to have the whole full and perfect power of jurisdiction, and not to have the whole full and perfect exercise, so that not everything which he might wish to do according to the power given to him would be valid, is to say that he has full and perfect power of judging or of doing other things, and yet cannot do them neither perfectly nor totally, which is to have full and not full, which is a manifest contradiction. Moreover that the aforesaid answer is of no strength or value is clear, because just as no one except a superior power can take away any power, so no one except a superior power can by right restrict or impede the exercise of that power. Since therefore it must be held, as we have said, that the power of the Pope is supreme in the Church, there is no doubt that, just as no ecclesiastical power whatsoever can take away the power of the Pope, so it cannot impede or restrict its exercise. But concerning these things, in book 3, where the universal councils and their authority must be treated, we shall speak more fully, the Lord helping.

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