Summa de Ecclesia

From what we have established with many testimonies of the holy fathers concerning the judgment and teaching office of the apostolic see, the error of the adversaries who despise the decretals or decrees of the apostolic see which are not included in the canons of the councils is most openly refuted. Against this error, since it is most pernicious and the gateway to countless schisms, there are arguments of many holy fathers besides those we have set forth above in this second book around ch. 48 and 50. First there is the argument which Pope Nicholas of bright memory makes, writing to all the archbishops appointed throughout Gaul, as in ch. Si Romanorum, dist. 19, speaking thus: If by the decree of the Roman pontiffs the little works of other treatise-writers are approved or reprobated, so that what the apostolic see has truly approved is today held as accepted, and what it has rejected is hitherto held as of no effect, how much more ought the things which the Pope writes at different times for the catholic faith, for sound doctrines, for the various and manifold needs of the Church and the morals of the faithful, to be preferred with every honor and to be reverently taken up by all without exception on every occasion, with discretion or dispensation as teacher, although some of ours have written that the decretal letters of the ancient pontiffs are not set down in the whole body of the canonical code and therefore are not to be taken up among the canons, whereas they themselves, where they see these things support their own intention, use all of them indifferently, and only now declare them less acceptable as an argument for diminishing the power of the apostolic see and for their own privileges. Again, if they say that the decretal letters of the earlier Roman pontiffs are therefore not to be admitted because they are not enrolled in the code of canons, then neither the institute nor any writing of Saint Gregory nor of any other who lived before him or after him ought to be received, because it is not enrolled in the code of canons. Let them therefore hand over from their own books the doctrine and the sanctions of those whom every tongue venerates, because they are not enrolled in the code of canons — why do they occupy parchments, seeing they are not held as received? But why should we delay long, since we would not receive even the divine Scriptures themselves of the Old and New Testament if we were to listen to these men, for neither of these is inserted in the code of ecclesiastical canons. But these men, who are ready to resist rather than to obey, will answer by asserting that among the canons is found a chapter of Pope Innocent by whose authority we are taught that each Testament is to be received, although in those earlier canons neither of them is contained inserted in the whole — to which this must be said in reply: that if the Old and New Testament are to be received, it is not because they were annexed in whole to the code of canons, but because the sentence of holy Pope Innocent is seen to have been pronounced for receiving them. It undoubtedly remains that the decretal letters of the Roman pontiffs are to be received even if they are not included in the code of canons, since through the canons themselves one chapter of blessed Leo is established to be intermixed, by which all the decretal constitutions of the apostolic see are commanded to be kept, so that whoever offends against them may know that pardon is denied him — namely, the fifth chapter of his decretals¹: Lest there be anything which may perhaps be believed to have been passed over by us, we command that all the decrees and constitutions of Innocent of blessed memory, as well as of all our predecessors, which have been promulgated concerning ecclesiastical orders and canonical discipline, be so kept by your charity that whoever offends against them may know that pardon will henceforth be denied him. But in saying all the decretal constitutions he passed over none of the decretal constitutions which he did not command to be kept, and again in asserting of all our predecessors he excepted no Roman pontiff among those who had already lived whose decretal constitutions he did not command to be kept by all, so that whoever offends against them may know that pardon will henceforth be denied him. And so it matters nothing whether or not all the decretal constitutions of the apostolic see are mixed among the canons of the councils, since all cannot be bound together in one volume, and those are present among them which assign firmness to the things that are lacking and their own vigor, especially since the synodal acts, among which the canons themselves were established, are not contained in the code of canons but are venerated by us with all due reverence. With this most blessed Leo, both most eloquent and holy, Pope Gelasius in his decrees agrees, speaking thus: We have decreed that the decretal letters which the most blessed popes have given at different times from the city of Rome upon the consultation of various fathers are to be received with veneration. In which it is to be noted that he did not say decretal letters because they are found among the canons, or which the modern pontiffs have issued, but which the most blessed popes have given at different times from the city of Rome; and in saying at different times that holy man also embraces those times when the growing persecutions of the pagans scarcely permitted the causes of bishops to be brought to the apostolic see. With these things thus set forth by divine favoring grace, we have shown that there is no difference between those decrees of the prelates of the apostolic see which are contained in the body of the canons and those which for their great multitude are scarcely found through the single bodies of volumes, since we have proved that the eminent prelates, namely Leo and Gelasius, commanded that all the decretal constitutions of all their predecessors, the decretal letters which the most blessed popes gave at different times from the city of Rome, are to be venerated, to be received with veneration, and to be kept. Secondly, against the aforesaid error of the adversaries is Lord Aymar, archbishop of Rheims, in his book on synods, ch. 3, where, bringing forward many testimonies of the holy fathers for the authority of the decretal letters of the supreme pontiffs, he says: Concerning the authority of the pontifical decrees themselves no doubt is left to us, since even the universal councils themselves have received authority from them and could obtain synodal firmness from no other source. This therefore we too ought to observe irrefragably, as the apostolic fathers have commanded us by the apostolic authority through which they are also read to have canonized for our observance the statutes of others. For our most blessed fathers Damasus and Leo the great Pope confirmed by apostolic authority through the second universal council, otherwise the fourth, first at Chalcedon — by the same authority, they say, by the same authority and voice they also decreed generally: All, they say, the decretal letters of our predecessors which have been promulgated concerning ecclesiastical orders and canonical disciplines we command to be so kept by all bishops and generally by all priests that whoever offends against them may know that pardon will henceforth be denied him. Likewise Damasus, writing to all bishops: Let there be observed, he says, by all, so that those things which have always been constituted by apostolic institution and the tradition of the fathers may be held under fear with irrefragable authority. Likewise Pope Gelasius, writing to all the bishops appointed throughout Sicily, says: Since we strive with all our might to keep the decrees of the venerable sanctions, and believe that even those things which may seem to be relaxed for the sake of some useful gain ought to be so without loss to them, and since we desire that nothing be rashly permitted to us against reverence for the salutary rules, and since the apostolic see, superior to all these, with the Lord favoring, strives with pious and devoted resolve to hold those things which stand prefixed by the paternal canons, it is quite unworthy for anyone, whether of the pontiffs or of the subsequent orders, to refuse this observance which he sees the see of blessed Peter both follow and hold fitting, and it is most fitting that the whole body of the Church agree in this observance for itself which it sees flourish there where the Lord has placed the principate of the whole Church, as Scripture says: He hath ordered charity in me; and, Let all things be done in order — thus far. Likewise Agatho, who instituted the sixth universal synod through his legates and when instituted confirmed it by apostolic authority, announced to all bishops by the same authority, speaking thus: All sanctions of the apostolic see are to be received as if confirmed by the divine voice of Peter himself. Likewise his successor, blessed Pope Nicholas I, presiding over a universal synod, decreed generally by the judgment of the same synod that whoever despised the decrees issued by the Roman pontiff should even be anathema. Holy Pope Adrian also anathematized even kings who did not fear to violate the decrees of the apostolic see. By these testimonies, therefore, we are sufficiently taught how undoubtingly we ought to obey the apostolic institutes. All these things the aforesaid Lord Aymar says. Thirdly, against the aforesaid error of the adversaries Pope Nicholas argues, writing to Photius, patriarch of Constantinople, whose letter was received and approved in the holy eighth universal synod with all his acts concerning Constantinople and against the said Photius and Michael the Emperor, his supporter. In which letter, as is gathered from the acts themselves of the eighth council, it is thus contained: But the decretal letters which have been instituted by the holy pontiffs of the Roman Church, by whose authority and sanction all synods and holy councils are strengthened and from which they take their stability — why do you say you neither have nor observe them, unless because they contradict your ordination? And below: and if you do not have them, you are to be accused of neglect and carelessness; if you have them and do not observe them, you are to be corrected and rebuked for rashness — and it is found in ch. Si decreta, dist. 20. Fourthly, against the aforesaid error is the chapter on the canonical scriptures, dist. 19, which is of blessed Augustine, in which he seems to number the letters of the apostolic see among the canonical scriptures. Likewise, fifthly, against the same error is ch. Decretales, dist. 10, where it is contained that decretal letters are executed by equal right with the canons of councils — the Gloss of the Archdeacon: In observance and authority; and are executed: in authority, in reverence, in observance. Huguccio. Sixthly, against the aforesaid error seems to be the article condemned in the Council of Constance, where among the other articles of John Wyclif this one was condemned: Decretal letters are apocryphal and seduce from the faith of Christ, and clerics are fools who study them. Since many things have been said about receiving the apostolic precepts above around ch. 48, let those suffice for now.