Summa de Ecclesia

The adversaries object against this which has been said, that obedience is to be rendered to the Roman pontiff by all faithful of Christ of whatever state or condition they be. First thus: Whosoever is bound to obey another must necessarily have the will of the one commanding as the rule of his action. But the will of God alone, which is always right, is the rule of human action. Therefore no one is bound to obey except God.

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Second. The Pope can err and fail, according to ch. if pope, dist. 40. Therefore it does not seem that he is to be obeyed by all, but only he who cannot err and fail.

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Third thus. As the law of the old was a figure of the new law, so the old priesthood was a figure of the evangelical priesthood; but the old priesthood was subject to the royal dignity, so that priests were subject to kings and not conversely. In sign of which it is said in Exod. 19 to the priests that they are a priestly kingdom, where it is given to be understood that the royal power was more principal and the sacerdotal less. Therefore it seems that Christian kings are not bound to obey the supreme pontiff, who is called the supreme priest.

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Fourth thus. It seems that obedience is to be rendered to inferior prelates rather than to the pope. It is proved thus: The immediate power inflows more than the mediate. But the inferior power is more immediate than the superior; therefore it seems that obedience is to be rendered more to the inferior power than to the superior, and thus more to a bishop or abbot than to the pope. But these notwithstanding, it must be said, as has been said in the preceding chapter, that all Christians of whatever condition or state they be are bound to obey the supreme pontiff, and in those things in which they are bound to obey, first and more than any other human power whatsoever, which is known from the foregoing and will become clearer than light from the responses to be given to the objections. To the reasons therefore on the contrary I answer.

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To the first I answer by denying the minor, namely that the divine will alone is the rule of human action. To the first, for we say that the divine will is indeed the first rule, by which all rational wills are ruled. Yet there are other secondary rules, according as there are secondary causes moving inferiors, and in this way the will of one man commanding can be as it were a second rule of the will of another obeying. Hence at the last chapter to the Hebrews the Apostle says: Obey your prelates and be subject to them, because the Lord says concerning them: He that heareth you heareth me. But as among secondary moving causes there is a degree, so among those secondary rules inasmuch as one approaches the first more than another according to the divinely instituted order, of which kind is the will of the supreme pontiff, who is the principal vicar and ruler of all the faithful. Hence he, as the supreme rule after the divine, is to be obeyed by all.

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To the second I answer by denying the consequence, since although from this, that the pope can sometimes err and command things not to be done, it well follows that he is not to be obeyed in all things simply, yet from this it is not argued nor does it follow that when he commands well he is not to be obeyed by all. But to know in which things he is to be obeyed and in which not, since, as Augustine says, and it is held in ch. not always, 11, q. 3, it is not always evil not to obey a prelate, it is to be noted according to St. Thomas in the second part of the second part, q. 104, art. 5, that it can happen in two ways that a subject is not bound to obey his superior. In one way on account of the command of a greater power. Hence Augustine, and it is held in ch. who resists, 11, q. 3, and in the Gloss at Rom. 13, says thus to the purpose: He that resisteth the power resisteth the ordination of God. But what if he commands what ought not to be done? Here indeed contemn the power, the very degrees of human laws. Mark, if the curator shall have commanded anything, yet the proconsul commands against it, thou dost not indeed contemn the power but choosest to serve the greater, nor ought the lesser hence to be angry if the greater is preferred. Again, if the proconsul commands one thing and the emperor another, it is never doubted that, the former being contemned, the latter is to be served. Therefore if the emperor commands one thing and God another, what do you judge? The greater power is God; the former being contemned, God is to be obeyed. The same is held in ch. God commands and in ch. Julian. And this is what is held in Acts 5: We ought to obey God rather than men. Where therefore the pope should command anything contrary to sacred Scripture or to the articles of faith or to the truth of the saints or to the commands of natural or divine law, he is not to be obeyed, but commanding such things he is to be despised. Hence it is held in ch. whosoever, 11, q. 3: If anyone prohibit us what is commanded by the Lord, or again commands to be done what the Lord prohibits to be done, let him be execrable to all who love God. And again the same in the following chapter, If any preside: If apart from the will of God or apart from what is evidently commanded or said in the sacred Scriptures he commands us anything, let him be held as a false witness or sacrilegious; this he.

In another way one is not bound to obey his superior if he commands him anything in which he is not subjected to him. For Seneca says in book 3 on Benefits: He errs if anyone thinks that servitude descends upon the whole man; the better part of him is excepted; bodies are subject and assigned to masters, but the mind is indeed of its own right, and therefore as to those things which pertain to the interior motion of the will man is not bound to obey man but God alone. But man is bound to obey man in those things which are to be done exteriorly through the body; yet in certain things according to those which pertain to the nature of the body man is not bound to obey man but God alone, because all men are by nature equal: for example in those things which pertain to the sustenance of the body and the generation of offspring. Hence servants are not bound to obey masters nor sons parents concerning contracting marriage or keeping virginity or anything else of this kind. But in those things which pertain to the disposition of human acts and things the subject is bound to obey his superior according to the reason of superiority, as a soldier his leader of the army in those things which pertain to war, a servant his master in those things which pertain to performing servile works, a son his father in those things which pertain to the discipline of life and domestic care. But all Christians are bound to the pope in those things which pertain to the Christian religion and to the chair, consonant with divine and natural law.

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To the third reason I answer that it is not like concerning the priesthood of the old law and of the new. The reason of which is both according to St. Thomas in the book which he made on the king and the kingdom to the king of Cyprus, book 1, ch. 5, and according to Bonaventure in book 4, ch. at the end, dist. 24: what is the difference between the new and the old testament, and between the comparison of priest and kingdom. For since the old testament was as yet of carnal men and men living carnally, therefore the secular power was more principal and the sacerdotal power was less. And therefore it was significantly said in the old law, a priestly kingdom, because the priesthood depended upon the kingdom. But on the contrary in the new it is said, 1 Pet. 2: A royal priesthood, because the new priesthood is more principal than the kingdom, and the spiritual power than the temporal or carnal. For this comprehends the state of grace. These things Master Bonaventure.

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To the fourth reason I answer that St. Thomas and Master Bonaventure note at the end of the second book of Sentences that superior and inferior power can stand to each other in two ways. Either so that the inferior power derives its origin from the superior, and then, since the whole virtue of the inferior is founded in the virtue of the superior, obedience is to be rendered simply in all things more to the superior than to the inferior, as also in natural things the first cause inflows more upon the second cause than even the second cause itself, as is said in book 1 on Causes; and thus stands the power of God to every created power; so also stands the power of the emperor to the power of the proconsul; so also stands the power of the pope to all spiritual power in the Church, because from the pope himself the diverse grades of dignities in the Church are disposed and ordained; hence his power is as it were the foundation of the Church, as is evident Matt. 16; and therefore in all things we are bound to obey the pope more than bishops or archbishops, or even a monk his abbot, without any distinction. Again superior and inferior power can so stand that both arise from one supreme power, which subjects one to the other according as it wills, and then one is not superior to the other except in those things in which one is subjected to the other by the supreme power, and in those only is obedience to be rendered more to the superior than to the inferior. And in this way stand the power of bishop and archbishop descending from the papal power. And thus the response to the reason is evident, that what was also said, that the inferior power would be more immediate, is false; indeed the power of the pope, since it is the cause of the inferior power, since from it it emanates and descends, is more immediate than the inferior, as is evident from what has been said. Hence as St. Thomas says in the treatise against those impugning religion, the pope has immediate jurisdiction over all Christians, because the Roman Church obtained its primacy over the other prelates and churches by no synodal constitutions but by the evangelical voice of the Lord and its Savior, as is held in the Decrees, dist. 22, ch. although, as is also gathered in ch. principal, 9, q. last.