Summa de Ecclesia

Since universal councils at times seem to oppose or disagree with one another, as is adduced by Isidore in ch. Domino sancto, dist. 50, it remains now to be seen to the sentence of which council obedience or standing is rather owed. Concerning this question the conclusion seems to be that of blessed Augustine: That provincial councils ought to yield to universal ones, and earlier universal ones are at times amended by later ones. ¹ Whence Augustine himself, placing the various degrees among those who have authority in the Church, speaks thus in book 2 on baptism against the Donatists, saying: who knows not that the sacred Scripture, both of the old and of the new Testament, is contained in its certain bounds, and is so set before all later letters of bishops that concerning it there can be no doubt or dispute at all whether whatever is established to be written in it be true or right, but that it is lawful for the letters of bishops which were written or will be written after the confirmed canon both to be reprehended through the perhaps wiser speech of anyone in that matter, and through the weightier authority of other bishops and the prudence of doctors, and through councils, if anything in them has perchance deviated from the truth, and for the councils themselves which are held through single regions or provinces to yield without any ambiguity to the authority of plenary councils which are held from the whole Christian world, and for the plenary councils themselves often the earlier to be amended by the later, when by some experience of things what was closed is opened, and what lay hid is known, without any mark of sacrilegious pride, without any inflated neck of arrogance, without any contention of livid envy, with holy humility, with catholic peace, with Christian charity. Likewise in the same, speaking of Cyprian, he says thus: if his council be considered, to it is to be preferred the later council of the whole Church, of which he rejoiced to be a member. For both later councils are to be set before earlier among posterity, and the whole is ever by best right set before the parts. So Augustine. ² But perhaps to some the sentence of blessed Isidore will seem to oppose this sentence of Augustine, who, as found in ch. Domino sancto, dist. 50, says that as often as a discordant sentence is found in the acts of councils, the sentence of that council is rather to be held whose authority is more ancient and weightier. So he. To which sentence the most holy Pope Leo also seems to favour, who writing to Anastasius the bishop says thus: Let no synodal councils pride themselves on the multiplication of the congregation, nor may any number of priests, however much more copious than those 318 bishops, dare either to compare itself or to prefer itself, since the Nicene synod is consecrated by divine privilege, so that whether ecclesiastical judgments be celebrated by fewer or by more, whatever shall have been diverse from their constitution is wholly void of all authority. Likewise the same sentence is found from the same Pope Leo writing to the bishops who were gathered in the holy synod of Chalcedon. Likewise Pope Nicholas in the epistle to the emperor Michael, as found in the eighth synod, to the argument of the associate and his followers who argued from the number of fathers, saying that in the universal council where Ignatius was deposed there were as many bishops as in the Nicene council, answered thus: We indeed follow not only the so numerous college of holy bishops of the Nicene or Chalcedonian councils and the synodal constitutions of the other holy fathers, but we venerate their liberal, just and divinely inspired sentences, and they are observed by us not only for the multitude of their members, since in persons they were truly many, but in their most valid sentences we weigh them as more.

³ But for the harmony of these it has seemed to us, always saving better judgment, to be distinguished: since that dissonance which is said or is between plenary universal councils is either concerning those things which are of faith or not, but concerning judgments or institutes concerning profitable matters, and the regime of human life or ecclesiastical discipline; if in the first way, thus the conclusion. ⁴ If discord be found between concilia universalia (which we do not believe possible according to what has been said) one should stand by the sentence of the earlier or prior council, provided it was universal, propped and strengthened with the full authority of the Roman pontiff and approbation, since, as we said above, such a council by divine promise cannot err in the substance of faith, and faith is simple and unchangeable, as Aug. and Pope Leo say: a later council cannot oppose it in truth, unless one of the two deviates from the truth of faith, because only what is false disagrees; either therefore the controversy is not true (which is rather to be believed) or one of them is not catholic, which is rather to be presumed of the later, since the ancient had been approved by the acceptance of the whole Church. For which part the saying of blessed Isidore in ch. Domino sancto, dist. 50, adduced above, seems to make, where it will also be not a little useful to note what Saint Thomas says in 4 against the Gentiles, ch. 25, that when it is said in the synod of Chalcedon that the fathers gathered at Constantinople strengthened the doctrine of the Nicene synod, it is not to be understood by way of addition, as if bringing in what was lacking, but by way of declaration, strengthening by testimonies of the Scriptures those things said of the Holy Spirit against those who attempted to reject him as Lord. Whence blessed Hilary, book 5 on synods, in defence of the synod of Chalcedon against some criminating the same synod because it seemed to have added some things which were not in the Nicene council, saying thus, not knowing the rule and custom of councils, that new decrees are thus sanctioned for later councils according as the necessity of the emerging heretics demanded, yet those remaining in force which long ago were promulgated by more ancient councils against the old heretics. For if after the statutes of the Nicene council it were lawful to receive nothing further, by what authority would we dare assert the Holy Spirit of one glory with the Father, which is established to have been there wholly passed over in silence. So there.

⁵ If indeed the dissonance found between councils be concerning those things which are of positive law, concerning the regime of human life or ecclesiastical discipline, it seems one should stand rather by the later, through which in such doings, because their matter is variable, the earlier are often supplied, moderated and even corrected, as blessed Augustine says, as adduced above, that often the earlier are amended by the later, when by some experience of things what was closed is opened, and what lay hid is known. In such therefore antiquity has no place: since some things in earlier times were fitting which in ours would be most unfitting and wasteful. Whence the canons of the apostles, though they be more ancient than the rest, yet in many their rigid sentences are not stood by, but the sentences mitigated through piety by other following councils, for in them it was decreed that a presbyter committing fornication in whatsoever way be deposed, but such rigour is today mitigated through the council of Gangra, and it is stood by, and thus the canons of the apostles are prejudiced, as dist. 82. presbyter. Thus also the Nicene council concerning the disposition of patriarchal sees was prejudiced by the sixth universal council: since according to the disposition of the Nicene council the Alexandrine Church had the first place after the Roman, but according to the disposition of the sixth Constantinopolitan council the Constantinopolitan had place before the Alexandrine, as in ch. Renovantes, dist. 22. follows the second, and it is now stood by, and the Nicene, though more ancient, is prejudiced; yet as touched in the Gloss of the aforesaid ch. Domino sancto, dist. 50. some distingunt concerning the constitutions in which councils are found to disagree: since those constitutions are either local and temporal or general; if local and temporal, then that constitution is to be set first which the more and weightier receive, than which the fewer observe by authority, according to the rule given in ch. Canonicis, dist. 19, and thus it seems one should stand in this case by the council whose authority is weightier. If indeed they are general, the later seems to prejudice the earlier. Extra, De cognatione spirituali, ch. 1, and in the Digest, De legibus, Non est novum, where it is said that later laws draw earlier ones to themselves. But both the glossator and Hugh ask: how can there be contrariety in canons, since they are said to be composed through the Holy Spirit, as in ch. Violatores 25. q. 1. To this Hugo, answering, says that it can be said that the holy fathers did not always speak through the Holy Spirit, and thus could say contraries either ignorantly or knowingly; or it can be said that there is no contrariety there except as to us who do not fully understand. So he. The Glossator indeed answers that two canons can be contrary, and yet each is justly instituted, because one rightly decrees, and another can rightly decree the contrary, and justly, as in dist. 63, ch. Verum, which is to be understood with consideration of diverse causes or circumstances of times or places, whence properly they are not contrary. For diversity of statutes is in no way judged contrary if diversity of places and times and of persons to whom they are distributed be understood.