Summa de Ecclesia

The superiority of the principate which the Roman pontiff has in the Church of God having been elucidated, it is easy to understand that to the authority of the Roman pontiff it pertains as to the general principal master and doctor of the whole world to determine those things which are of the faith, and consequently to publish the symbol of the faith, to interpret the senses of sacred scripture, and to approve or reprove the sayings of singular doctors pertaining to the faith. Which we show both by reasons and by authorities. First we commemorate what elsewhere about the beginning of this second book we proved, that as in every well ordered republic there was to be given one president in it who could move by his authority the whole republic to all things chiefly without which the safety of the republic could not stand: so also in the community of the Church there was necessarily to be given one prince who those things which chiefly confer to the salvation of the faithful and the attainment of the last end, of which sort is the notice of things to be believed and to be done, should by his authority and magisterium move and direct the whole Christian republic itself. Since the Roman pontiff is such a president over the whole Christian republic, his it will be to insinuate and determine to the Christian people those things which are of the faith without which it is impossible to please God, to the Hebrews the eleventh. This is also shown because the first in every genus according to the sentence of Aristotle, 10 Metaphysics, is the meter and measure of all following things, and since the Roman pontiff is the first and greatest of prelates in the Church, to him it will chiefly pertain that he be the meter and rule and science of things to be believed and of all things which are necessary to the direction of the faithful into eternal life. Wherefore Pope Nicholas says in the epistle which he writes to Photius the patriarch: For it is certain that the holy Roman Church through blessed Peter the prince of the apostles who merited to receive the primacy of the Church by the Lord's mouth is the head of all churches and from it to require and follow rectitude and order in all useful and ecclesiastical institutions which according to the canonical and synodal sanctions of the holy fathers it inviolably and irrefragably retains. These things he. Hence the apostolic see is named by the holy fathers mistress and mother of the faith, whence in ch. Omnes, distinct. 22, Pope Nicholas of glorious memory says: For he violates the faith who acts against that which is the mother of the faith and he is found contumacious who is known to have preferred it to all churches. Whence also St. Ambrose himself professes in himself to follow in all things the holy Roman mistress Church. Likewise for this reason Pope Stephen the 5th says in ch. Enimuero, distinct. 19: Indeed the holy Roman Church has been placed in a mirror and example to all; whatsoever it has established and whatsoever it has ordained must perpetually and irrefragably be observed. Of the grace of which privilege of the apostolic throne blessed Cyril says in the book of treasures: That we may remain members in the head in our apostolic throne of the Roman pontiffs, from whom it is ours to seek what to believe and what to hold we are bound, beseeching him, venerating him before all: since his alone it is to reprehend, correct, establish, dispose, loose and bind in the place of Him who built and chose him and to no other gave what is His full but to him alone. These things he. Moreover we read this prerogative of the Roman supreme pontiff designated, Exodus 18, where to Moses who was the leader and ruler of the Jews, as the pope of the Christians according to that of Bernard to Eugenius, book 2, ch. 6: Who art thou, etc. And among other things he says: As to power to Moses, so it is read to have been said: Be thou in the people in those things which pertain to God, that thou may show them the ceremonies and rite of worshipping God. As therefore all questions emerging concerning the law and worship of God were reserved to Moses to be determined, so all things which are of the Christian faith are reserved to the Roman pontiff to be determined, defined and commanded to be held and observed. Hence it is that when Christ commanded the other apostles to let down the nets, to Peter alone He said: Launch into the deep, Luke 15, that is into the profundity of disputations, as the Gloss of Ambrose says, and it is had in ch. Non turbatur, twenty-fourth q. 1. Whence because the cause of faith must be referred to the apostolic see, Paul over the question of legals deferred to Peter, as is had Acts 15. Likewise blessed Jerome sends to the Roman pontiff Pope Damasus the profession of his faith to be examined corrected and emended saying in ch. Haec est fides, 24, q. 1: This is the faith most blessed pope which we have learned in the catholic Church and which we have always held, in which if anything has been placed less skilfully or little cautiously we desire to be emended by thee who holdest the see of Peter and the faith: but if this our confession shall have been approved by the judgment of thine apostolate, whosoever shall wish me culpable will prove himself unskilled or malevolent, or even not catholic but a heretic. Secondly the aforesaid prerogative of the apostolic see is so shown by reason: One faith ought to be of the whole Church according to that 1 Cor. 1: Say ye all the same thing and let there be no schisms among you. But this could not be kept unless a question of faith arisen should be determined to be held through one who presides over the whole Church, so that his sentence be firmly held by the whole Church. Hence Pope Innocent writing to Silvanus the elder, Valentinus, and to the others who were present in the Milevitan synod, saying: Most beloved brethren in the Lord greeting, diligently and congruously ye have consulted the ark of the apostolic honor concerning anxious matters what sentence must be held, having followed the form of the ancient rule which ye know with me to have always been kept by the whole world. But these things I pass over, for I believe your prudence is not ignorant of this which ye have also confirmed by action, knowing that through all provinces answers ever emanate from the apostolic fount to those asking, especially as often as the reason of faith is ventilated. I deem all our brother co-bishops ought to refer the authority of his name and honor to Peter alone, as also now your charity has referred. This is had in ch. Quotiens, 24, q. 1. Hence also Maximus in the epistle sent to the orientals says: All the ends of the earth who have received the Lord and everywhere the catholics confessing that faith regard the power of the Roman pontiffs as the sun and from its light behold the truth of the catholic and apostolic faith, nor undeservedly, because Peter is read first to have confessed the perfect faith the Lord revealing when he says, Matt. 16: Thou art Christ the Son of the living God. These things he. Likewise Pope Nicholas testifies this in the epistle which he writes to Photius the monk patriarch, as is had in the fourth action of the eighth ecumenical council: Because the universality of believers seeks doctrine from this holy Roman Church which is the head of all churches, demands the integrity of the faith, the absolution of crimes for those who are worthy, and rightly seeks the grace of God: it behooves us to whom the solicitude has been committed to be solicitous and to aspire to the watch of the Lord the King so much the more fervently by how much greedy wolves to tear seek the patient mouth hence and thence, etc. Further concerning this prerogative of the apostolic see, Pope Maximus says: It becomes a man of so great dignity and wisdom not to require the arcana of the heavenly mystery from another but from him chiefly whom flesh and blood could not instruct, but to whom the Lord Himself deigned to open the decrees themselves: Blessed art thou, he says, Simon Bariona, because flesh and blood hath not revealed to thee, but my Father who is in heaven. For him before all other mortals of the whole world the founder of the world chose to whom He granted by perpetual privileged right to hold principally the chair of the magisterium, that whosoever desires to know anything divine or profound should recur to the oracle of the doctrine of this precept, nor blush humbly to offer to him what must be solved, even also if he himself is not ignorant of what is sought. For was the angel coming from heaven ignorant to teach Cornelius how namely what must be done by him he should learn? He destined him to Peter: Send, he says, men to Joppa and call a certain Simon who is surnamed Peter; he shall tell thee what thou must do. Plainly the holy angel could teach the gentile man what was needful to him for salvation, but he would not usurp his office to whom he knew it had been committed to teach. What wonder therefore if a priest although conspicuous in sanctity, although vehemently instructed in divine eloquences, sent to the magisterium of the prince of the apostles, to whom even the angel for the sake of teaching destined Cornelius the firstfruits of the gentiles? For to the Galatians these are the words of Paul: Paul says an apostle not from men or through man, but through Jesus Christ and God the Father who raised Him from the dead. He therefore who not from men but from Christ Himself and God the Father had been made an apostle, and sufficiently instructed by the author of wisdom, yet came to the magisterium of Peter and not in passing but through many days remained with him as in school, I came he says to Jerusalem to see Peter and remained with him 15 days, through the mystic number of the week and the ogdoad he signifies the sacrament of the Old and New Testaments together. These things he. Furthermore in testimony of this prerogative of the Roman pontiff there is the fact that wheresoever Peter was present all the apostles deferred to him in preaching and determining doubts. Whence on the day of Pentecost he made the first sermon, Acts 2: Peter standing with the eleven lifted up his voice and spoke, etc. In the question also concerning the observance of legals Peter determined the question although James pronounced, Acts the fifteenth, where it is said that when there was made great inquiry Peter rising said to them, the interlinear Gloss: before all he speaks first; and as the Gloss says, all others passed into the sentence of Peter, so that Jerome says writing to blessed Augustine, epistle 22, that Peter had been the prince of that decree, that the law after the gospel must not be kept. Moreover the argument of this prerogative is manifestly taken from this that blessed Jerome in the epistle to Augustine which begins, At once three epistles: Of so great authority was Peter that Paul wrote in his epistle: Then after three years I came to Jerusalem to see Peter and remained with him 15 days. Again in what follows: After fourteen years I went up again to Jerusalem with Barnabas and Titus taken, but I went up according to revelation, and expounded to them the gospel which I preach among the gentiles, showing he had no security of preaching the gospel unless it had been fortified by the sentence of Peter and of those who were with him. And at once follows: But apart to them who seemed to be something, lest perchance I should run or had run in vain. These things Jerome. Likewise the argument of the same prerogative is gathered from this that blessed Jerome in the book of illustrious men, book 5, ch. 8, says: Mark, he says, the disciple and interpreter of Peter according to what he had heard Peter relating, asked at Rome by the brethren wrote a brief gospel, which when Peter had read he approved and by his authority delivered it to the churches to be read. These things he. Behold that the apostolic see has to approve and authorize the writings of doctors. Further the testimony of this signal prerogative of the magisterium of the apostolic see is had from blessed Augustine. Both from this that he says against the fundamental epistle soon after the beginning: I would not believe the gospel unless the authority of the catholic Church moved me. And from this that he says in the book of questions of the old and new testament, q. 79, that as in the Savior were all causes of the magisterium so also after the Savior in Peter all are contained. And from this that he writes to Glorius and Eleusius that in the Roman Church of the apostolic chair the principate ever flourished. All things now said and well considered and catholically pondered, the following propositions follow in manifest light as corollaries. First indeed it is elicited as a corollary¹ that to the Roman pontiff for the sublimity of the magisterium of the apostolic see it pertains to ordain the symbol of the faith. But this according to blessed Thomas in the second 2, q. 2, last article, is so proved: Since a new edition of the symbol is necessary to avoid insurgent errors, therefore to his authority it pertains to determine sententially those things which are of the faith, that they be held by all with unshaken faith. But this pertains to the authority of the supreme pontiff, as has been said, to whom the greater and more difficult questions of the Church are referred, as is had in ch. Multis, distinct. the seventeenth, and in ch. Rogamus, twenty-fourth question the first; therefore to the sole authority of the Roman pontiff pertains the new edition of the symbol. The aforesaid corollary St. Thomas also shows where above from this that the edition of the symbol was made in a general synod, but such a synod can be congregated by the authority of the supreme pontiff alone, as is had in the decrees, distinct. 17, therefore the edition of the symbol pertains to the authority of the Roman pontiff. These things he. From the aforesaid it is inferred secondly as a corollary² that to the Roman pontiff it pertains to interpret sacred scripture and declare the doubts which emerge concerning natural or divine law. But this corollary is so deduced from what is above. For which first it is noted that to determine doubts in cases can be in two ways. In one way namely inquisitively, as anyone can from genius or habit inquire concerning the doubts of any science, and in that way to declare can pertain to any learned man in any science and is called magisterial determination or declaration. In another way to declare can be taken with some authority, so namely that the declaration ought to be held as true, or opined so that it is not licit to hold or opine the opposite. And in that way the power or authority of declaring the aforesaid doubts is only with the supreme pontiff simply. Similarly it must be distinguished concerning the interpretation of the divine law or sacred scripture, because one is made through mode of scholastic disputation and inquiry seeking what is the sound understanding of them adding nothing to the words of the law or scripture, or subtracting. Another is the mode of interpretation through mode of obligatory determination to hold the understanding or sense given through the interpretation. The first mode is of masters whose interpretation nevertheless compels no one so to hold. But the second mode of interpretation is of the Roman pontiff whose determination obliges all so to hold and observe. Which can so be shown by reason: it behooves to posit in the Church one head to whom it pertains to determine and declare and interpret those things which are doubtful concerning whatsoever pertain to the faith whether speculative or practical; but it is certain that in the Church there cannot be any such head but the pope alone, therefore etc. The minor is clear from what is above, the major is proved: because it behooves to posit the Church so disposed by God that the whole community of the universal Church remains in unity of faith and in one sentence concerning the faith. Whence the apostle, 1 Cor. 1: I beseech you brethren through the name of our Lord Jesus Christ that ye say all the same thing and that there be no schisms among you: but that ye be perfect in the same sense and in the same sentence. But this cannot be unless the whole community of the Church has recourse to one head namely to the president with whom is the authority of declaring and interpreting doubts concerning those things which are of the faith; therefore it pertains to the Roman pontiff to declare doubts and interpret concerning those things which are of the faith or of natural and divine law. Whence Augustine against the Manichees, and it is had ch. Palam, distinct. 11: It is open that in a doubtful matter the authority of the catholic Church avails for the faith which is confirmed from the most founded sees themselves of the apostles even unto this day by the series of bishops succeeding one another and the consent of so many peoples. These things Augustine. Hence it is as has been said above that a question arisen whether legals ought to be observed with the gospel they consulted Peter and the other apostles who were in Jerusalem, and Peter as prince of the apostles and president over the whole community of the Church decreed and declared that legals must not be observed, as is clear Acts 15. Moreover from what is above it is elicited thirdly as a corollary that to the Roman pontiff it pertains to approve or reprove the sayings or little works of singular doctors in those things which pertain to the faith³ is clear manifestly from what has been said. This is also had expressly in ch. Si Romanorum, distinct. 19, where Pope Nicholas so says: If by the decree of the Roman pontiffs the little works of other treatise writers are approved or reproved, so that what the apostolic see has truly approved is today held accepted, and what it has rejected is hitherto had inefficacious, etc. where the Gloss: An argument that what he approves or reproves we also ought to approve or reprove, 24, q. 1, Haec est fides, and 35, q. 9, Veniam.