Summa de Ecclesia

To the sixth argument¹ which is adduced, that the Church is mistress, etc.: the Pope is not lord, but minister, etc. Answer is given by denying each part of the antecedent, namely first that the universal Church is mistress. Second that the Pope is not lord. And to the proof of the first part we say that that authority of Lam. 1 is understood according to the letter not of the universal Church, but of the city of Jerusalem and the whole of the Jewish people, whose ruin the prophet lamented, whence the Gloss says thus: How solitary sits the city Jerusalem, despoiled of people, full of ignominy, humiliated among enemies, once populous, and made glorious among enemies, as a widow, mistress of nations, destitute of kings, desolate of priests, profaned as to temple, and despoiled of the glory of vessels, etc., and so according to the literal sense. (whence an effectual argument is taken, as Aug. says,) that authority is not to the point. But let that authority be expounded allegorically² and in the Gloss of the universal Church, yet not to the understanding of the adversaries, namely that the city of the Church diffused through the world, or gathered synodally, is mistress of nations and prince of provinces. But it is expounded and understood thus, that the Church is mistress, as the Gloss below has, in her prelates, for the Church does not exercise lordship after the manner of one community in all her members, but in her prelates only and most of all in the highest of prelates, namely the Roman pontiff, since the rule and principate of the Church is not instituted, as we declared above, after the manner of the rule of aristocracy, in which the highest principate is not with any single one, but with many, but after the manner of royal rule, in which the highest principate is with one, namely the Roman pontiff, as is had in ch. nolite errare, dist. 11, whence he himself is called prince of the Church, and is called our lord. Whence the universal synod calls the Roman Church mistress in ch. oportebat, dist. 79. Where, to know how the Roman pontiff can and ought to be called lord of the Church, and the other prelates of their churches, and how not, it is to be noted that, as St Thomas touches in the 1st part, q. 96, arg. 4, lordship is taken in two ways. In one way according as it is opposed to servitude, and thus he is called lord to whom one is subjected as a slave, and in this way the prelates of the Church are not lords of others. In another way lordship is taken according as it is commonly referred to a subject in whatever way, and thus even he who has the office of governing and directing freemen can be called lord, and in this way the Roman pontiff, since he is the universal governor and director of all the faithful, can be called lord of the Church or of the faithful, and so is he called by all. Which manner of domination would also have been in the state of innocence, as it is also among the angels, among whom one order is called dominations. But what the adversaries say, that the prelates of the Church are dispensers and ministers and consequently the Pope, and so not lords. It is to be said that this consequence is null. First, because it well stands with lordship that one is minister of another superior lord, as of princes both spiritual and secular, who all are ministers of God, as the Apostle says in Rom. 13. Second, because it well stands with lordship said in the second way that one is also minister of those whose lord he is called, by serving their advantage, whence the Pope is called servant of the servants of God. Moreover Christ, who was prince of the kings of the earth and lord of lords, calls himself our minister, whence in Matt. 20 he says: The Son of man came not to be ministered unto, but to minister. It stands therefore that the Pope is servant of the servants of God by ministry of charity and lord by superiority of authority. Whence it is false what the adversaries say, that the Pope is minister of the Church as one in whose stead or name he acts, for in this manner he is minister of Christ alone, and vicar whose stead he fills on earth, as we showed in the foregoing, in ch. 37. To what is adduced from Bernard in the book on Consideration answer is given that blessed Bernard, saying that the Pope is not lord or the Roman Church mistress, means lordship taken in the first way, namely according as it is opposed to servitude, of a master or from a slave, as Aristotle says in the 3rd book of the Ethics, is a tyrannical prelation over subjects. But the tyrant differs from the king, as the Philosopher says in the same place, because the king orders his prelation to the good of the nation over which he is set, making statutes and laws for their utility. But the tyrant exercises lordship for his own utility, and such lordship is not, nor ought to be, in the Church. And this is the lordship which is forbidden to the apostles by the Lord in Matt. 20, when he says, Ye know that the princes of the nations exercise lordship over them and they that are greater exercise power over them: it shall not be so among you, and of such lordship blessed Bernard speaks, and not of lordship said in the second way. Which is clear from what he says in a certain epistle to Pope Eugene, where distinguishing of the aforesaid twofold lordship he speaks thus: If Christ has sent thee, thou wilt reckon that thou hast come not to be ministered unto, but to minister, and to minister not only substance, but thy very soul. The true successor of Paul will say with Paul: not that we exercise lordship over your faith, but we are helpers of your joy. The heir of Peter will hear Peter saying: not as exercising lordship over the clergy, but made a pattern of the flock. Behold where he excludes the first manner of lordship from the Pope. Of the second he subjoins thus a little after in the same epistle: Terrible, utterly terrible is this place: the place where thou standest is holy ground, the place of Peter, the place of the prince of the apostles, where his feet stood, the place of him whom the Lord constituted lord of his house, and prince of all his possession: thus he. Behold that he names Peter lord of the house of God, and so it is clear what is to be said to the saying of Bernard. Moreover to the saying of blessed Bernard the Archdeacon answered on ch. fidelis, Extra, On the Highest Trinity and the Catholic Faith, in the 6th book, after the aforesaid word of Bernard recited in the Gloss, saying that the Roman Church is not mistress, says thus: Whatever Bernard says, in the canon the Roman Church is called mistress, dist. 79, oportebat.