The Pamphlet Collection of Sir Robert Stout: Volume 34
Chapter II. The Relations of the Spiritual and Civil Powers
Chapter II. The Relations of the Spiritual and Civil Powers.
We will now go on to my second proposition, that the relations of the Catholic Church to the Civil Powers have been fixed immutably from the beginning, because they arise out of the Divine constitution of the Church and of the Civil Society of the natural order.
I. Inasmuch as the natural and civil society existed before the foundation of the Christian Church, we will begin with it; and here my concessions, or rather my assertions, will, I hope, satisfy all but Cæsarists.
1. The civil society of men has God for its Founder. It was created potentially in the creation of man; and from him has been unfolded into actual existence. The human family contains the first principles and laws of authority, obedience, and order. These three conditions of society are of Divine origin; and they are the constructive laws of all civil or political society.
2. To the Civil Society of mankind supreme authority is given immediately by God; for a society does not signify mere number, but number organised by the laws and principles which its Divine Founder implanted in the human family. Sovereignty, there- page 44 fore, is given by God immediately to human society; and mediately, or mediante societate, to the person or persons to whom society may commit its custody and its exercise. When once the supreme power or sovereignty has been committed by any society to a king, or to consuls, or to a council, as the case may be—for God has given no special form of Civil Government—though it be not held by those who receive it by any Divine right, as against the society which gave it, nevertheless it has both a Divine sanction and a Divine authority. For instance, it has the power of life and death. God alone could give to man this power over man. God gave it to man for self-defence. It passes to society at large, which likewise has the right of self-defence. It is committed by society to its chief executive. But, inasmuch as the supreme power is still given by God to the Civil Ruler, even though it be mediately, it has a Divine sanction; and so long as the Civil Ruler does not deviate from the end of his existence, the society has no power to revoke its act. For example: the Civil Ruler is for the defence of the people; but if he should make war upon the people, the right of self-defence would justify resistance. I am not now engaged in saying when or how; but the right is undeniable. Manslaughter is not murder, if it be in self-defence; wars of defence are lawful; and just resistance to an unjust prince is not rebellion. All this is founded upon the Divine sanctions of the civil and political society of man, even in the order of page 45 nature. It has, then, God for its Founder, for its Legislator, and by His divine Providence for its supreme Ruler.
3. The laws of such society are the laws of nature. It is bound by the natural morality written on the conscience and on the heart. The ethics which govern men become politics in the government of states. Politics are but the collective morals of society. The Civil Ruler or Sovereign is bound by the laws: the subject within the sphere of these laws owes to him a civil allegiance. The Civil Ruler may bind all subjects by an oath of allegiance. He may call on all to bear arms for the safety of the State.
'Let every soul be subject to higher powers: for there is no power but from God; and those that are, are ordained of God. Therefore he that resisteth the power, resisteth the ordinance of God; and they that resist, purchase to themselves damnation. . . . For he is God's minister to thee for good. But if thou do that which is evil, fear, for he beareth not the sword in vain: for he is God's minister, an avenger to execute wrath upon him that doeth evil. Wherefore be subject of necessity, not only for wrath but also for con-science sake.'1
1 Romans xiii. 1-5.
The State, then, is a perfect society, supreme within its own sphere, and in order to its own end: but as that end is not the highest end of man, so the State is not the highest society among men; nor is it, beyond its own sphere and end, supreme. I have drawn this out in greater fulness to show that the Church is in the highest degree conservative of all the natural authority of rulers, and of the natural allegiance of subjects. It is mere shallowness to say that between the Civil authority, as Divinely founded in nature, and the spiritual authority of the Church there can be opposition.
Now, as to the Divine institution of the Civil Society of the world and of its independence in all things of the natural order, what I have already said is enough. The laws of the order of nature are from God. So long as a father exercises his domestic authority according to the law of God, no other authority can intervene to control or to hinder his government. So likewise of the Prince or Sovereign power, be it lodged in one or in many. There is no authority upon earth which can depose a just sovereign or release such subjects from their obedience.1
1 'Etiam nocentium potestas non est nisi a Deo.'—St. Augustine, De Natura Boni contra Manich. cap. xxxii.
1. | That the society which has for its end the eternal happiness of man is of an order higher than the society which aims only at the natural happiness of man. |
2. | That as the temporal and the eternal happiness of man are both ordered by Divine laws, these two societies are, of necessity, in essential conformity and harmony with each other. Collision between them can only be if either deviates from its respective laws. |
The natural society of man aims directly at the temporal happiness of its subjects, but indirectly it aims also at their eternal happiness: the supernatural society aims directly at their eternal happiness, and indirectly at their temporal happiness, but always in so far only as their temporal happiness is conducive to their eternal end.
1. | That the higher or supernatural society is supreme because it has no other society, above it or beyond it, with an end higher than its own. 1 Suarez, Defensio Fidei, lib. iii. cap. ii. sect. 5, 15, 16. |
2. | That the office of the supernatural society is to aid, direct, and perfect the natural society; that its action upon it is always in ædificationem non in destructionem, inasmuch as it is governed by the same Divine Lawgiver, and it is directed to an end which includes and ensures the end of the natural society also. |
To put this briefly. The State has for its end the temporal happiness of its subjects; the Church has for its end their eternal happiness. In aiming directly at temporal happiness, the State aims also indirectly at the eternal; for these things are promoted by the same laws. In aiming at eternal happiness, the Church also indirectly aims at the temporal happiness of men.
III. The Divine Founder of the Christian Church said: 'To thee I will give the keys of the kingdom of heaven. And whatsoever thou shalt bind on earth shall be bound also in heaven, and whatsoever thou shalt loose on earth shall be loosed also in heaven.'1 And again: 'All power is given to me in heaven and in earth. Going therefore, teach all nations,' . . . 'teaching them to observe all things whatsoever I have commanded you.'2
1 St. Matthew xvi. 19.
2 Ibid, xxviii. 18, 19.
That authority and that office are directive and preceptive, so long as Princes and their laws are in conformity with the Christian law; and judicial, ratione peccati, by reason of sin, whensoever they deviate from it.
If any man deny this, he would thereby affirm that Princes have no superior upon earth: which is the doctrine of the heathen Cæsarism.
But no man will say that Princes have no superior. It is unmeaning to say that they have no superior but the law of God: for that is to play with words. A law is no superior without an authority to judge and to apply it.
To say that God is the sole Lawgiver of Princes is a doctrine unknown, not only to the Catholic Church, but to the Constitution of England. When we say, as our old Jurists do, Non Rex facit legem, but Lex facit Begem, we mean that there is a will above the King; and that will is the Civil Society, which judges if and when the King deviates from the law. But this doctrine, unless it be tempered by vigorous restraint, is chronic revolution. What adequate restraint is there but in a Divine authority higher than the natural society of man?
'Power and authority are established by human right; the distinction between the faithful and those who do not believe is established by Divine right. But the Divine right, which comes by grace, does not destroy the human right, which is in the order of nature.'1
Let us suppose that the Sovereign Power of a heathen people were to make laws contrary to the law of God, would the Church intervene to depose such a sovereign? Certainly not, on the principle laid down by the Apostle, 'What have I to do to judge those that are without?'2
Such a people is both individually and socially outside the Divine jurisdiction of the Church. The Church has therefore, in this respect, no commission to discharge towards it except to convert it to Christianity.
1 St. Thomas, 2da 2dæ, quast. x. art. 10.
2 1 Cor. v. 12.
If Christian Princes and their laws deviate from the law of God, the Church has authority from God to judge of that deviation, and by all its powers to enforce the correction of that departure from justice. I do not see how any man who believes in the Revelation of Christianity can dispute this assertion: and to such alone I am at present speaking.
'Any power which is independent and can alone fix the limits of its own jurisdiction, and can thereby fix the limits of all other jurisdictions, is, ipso facto, supreme. But the Church of Jesus Christ, within the sphere of revelation—of faith and morals—is all this, or is nothing or worse than nothing, an imposture and an usurpation; that is, it is Christ or Antichrist."1
1 Cæsarism and Ultramontanism, p. 36.
'In any question as to the competence of the two powers, either there must be some judge to decide what does and what does not fall within their respective spheres, or they are delivered over to perpetual doubt and to perpetual conflict. But who can define what is or is not within the jurisdiction of the Church in faith and morals, except a judge who knows what the sphere of faith and morals contains, and how far it extends? And surely it is not enough that such a judge should guess or opine, or pronounce upon doubtful evidence, or with an uncertain knowledge. Such a sentence would be, not an end of contention, but a beginning and a renewal of strife.
'It is clear that the Civil Power cannot define how for the circumference of faith and morals extends. If it could, it would be invested with one of the supernatural endowments of the Church. To do this it must know the whole deposit of explicit and implicit faith; or, in other words, it must be the guardian of the Christian revelation. Now, no Christian, nor any man of sound mind, claims this for the Civil Power. . . . .If, then, the Civil Power be not competent to decide the limits of the Spiritual Power, and if the Spiritual Power can define with a Divine certainty its own limits, it is evidently supreme. Or, in other words, the Spiritual Power knows with Divine certainty the limits of its own jurisdiction; and it knows therefore the limits and the competence of the Civil Power. It is thereby in matters of religion and conscience supreme.'1
1 Cæsarism and Ultramontanism, pp. 34, 35.
But the Church being the highest society, and independent of all others, is supreme over them, in so far as the eternal happiness of men is involved.
1. | First, that in all things which are purely temporal, and lie extra finem Ecclesiæ, outside of the end of the Church, it neither claims nor has jurisdiction. |
2. | Secondly, that in all things which promote, or hinder, the eternal happiness of men, the Church has a power to judge and to enforce. |
IV. Such propositions are no sooner enunciated than we are met by a tumult of voices, such as those of Janus, Quirinus—and I lament to detect the tones of a voice, hitherto heard in behalf of the authority of Christianity and of the Christian Church,—affirming that the Church of Rome and its Pontiffs claim page 54 supreme temporal1 power, and that direct, over all Temporal Princes and things; to be used at their discretion even to the deposing of Kings, to the absolution of subjects from allegiance, to the employment of force, imprisonment, torture, and death.
1. | The authority of Princes and the allegiance of subjects in the Civil State of nature is of Divine ordinance; and therefore, so long as Princes and their laws are in conformity to the law of God, the Church has no power or jurisdiction against them, nor over them. |
2. | If Princes and their laws deviate from the law of God, the Church has authority from God to judge of that deviation, and to oblige to its correction. |
3. | The authority which the Church has from
1 Expostulation, p. 27. |
4. | This spiritual authority is not direct in its incidence on temporal things, but only indirect: that is to say, it directly promotes its own spiritual end; it indirectly condemns and declares not binding on the conscience such temporal laws as deviate from the law of God, and therefore impede or render impossible the attainment of the eternal happiness of man. |
5. | This spiritual authority is inherent in the Divine constitution and commission of the Church; but its exercise in the world depends on certain moral and material conditions, by which alone its exercise is rendered either possible or just. |
I have affirmed that the relations of the Catholic Church to the Civil Powers are fixed primarily by the Divine constitution of the Church and of the Civil Society of men. But it is also true that these relations have been declared by the Church in acts and decrees which are of infallible authority. Such, for instance, is the Bull of Boniface VIII., Unam Sanctam. As this has become the text and centre of the whole controversy at this moment, we will fully treat of it. This Bull, then, was beyond all doubt an act ex cathedra. It was also confirmed by Leo X. in the Fifth Lateran Œcumenical Council. Whatever definition, therefore, is to be found in this Bull is to page 56 be received as of faith. Let it be noted that the Unam Sanctam does not depend upon the Vatican Council for its infallible authority. It was from the date of its publication an infallible act, obliging all Catholics to receive it with interior assent. Doctrines identical with those of the Unam Sanctam had been declared in two Œcumenical Councils—namely, in the Fourth Lateran in 1215, and the First of Lyons in 1245.1 On this ground, therefore, I have affirmed that the relations of the Spiritual and Civil Powers were immutably fixed before the Vatican Council met, and that they have been in no way changed by it.
V. We will now examine, (1) the complete text of the Unam Sanctam; (2) the interpretations of its assailants and its defenders; (3) the interpretation which is of obligation on all Catholics.
1. The Bull was published by Boniface VIII., in 1302, during the contest with Philip le Bel of France.
1 Bellarmin. De Potest. Papæ, in præf. p. 844, Cologne, 1617.
'We are hound to believe and to hold, by the obligation of faith, one Holy Church, Catholic and also Apostolic; and this (Church) we firmly believe and in simplicity confess: out of which there is neither salvation nor remission of sins. As the Bridegroom declares in the Canticles, "One is my dove, my perfect one, she is the only one of her mother, the chosen of her that bore her:"3 who represents the one mystical Body, the Head of which is Christ; and the Head of Christ is God. In which (the one Church) there is one Lord, one Faith, one Baptism.4 For in the time of the Flood the ark of Noe was one, prefiguring the one Church, which was finished in one cubit,5 and had one governor and ruler, that is Noe; outside of which we read that all things subsisting upon earth were destroyed. This also we venerate as one, as the Lord says in the Prophet, "Deliver, O God, my soul from the sword: my only one from the hand of the dog."6
'For He prayed for the soul, that is, for Himself; for1 Döllinger's Church History, vol. iv. p. 90.
2 Ibid. p. 91.
3 Cant. vi. 8.
4 Epliesians iv. 5.
5 Genesis vi. 16.
page 58 the Head together with the Body: by which Body He designated the one only Church, because of the unity of the Bridegroom, of the Faith, of the Sacraments, and of the charity of the Church. This is that coat of the Lord without seam,1 which was not rent but went by lot. Therefore of that one and only Church there is one body and one Head, not two heads as of a monster: namely, Christ and Christ's Vicar, Peter and Peter's successor; for the Lord Himself said to Peter, "Feed my sheep."2 Mine, He says, generally; and not, in particular, these or those: by which He is known to have committed all to him. If, therefore, Greeks or others say that they were not committed to Peter and his successors, they must necessarily confess that they are not of the sheep of Christ, for the Lord said (in the Gospel) by John, that there is "One fold, and one only shepherd."3 By the words of the Gospel we are instructed that in this his (that is, Peter's) power there are two swords, the spiritual and the temporal. For when the Apostles say, "Behold, here are two swords,"4 that is, in the Church, the Lord did not say, "It is toe much," but "it is enough." Assuredly, he who denies that the temporal sword is in the power of Peter, gives ill heed to the word of the Lord, saying, "Put up again thy sword into its place."5 Both, therefore, the spiritual sword and the material sword are in the power of the Church. But the latter (the material sword) is to be wielded On Behalf of the Church; the former (the spiritual) is to be wielded By the Church: the one by the hand of the priest; the other by the hand of kings and soldiers, but at the suggestion and sufferance of the priest. The one sword ought to be subject to the other, and the6 Psalm xxi. 21.
1 St. John xix. 23, 24.
2 St. John xxi. 17.
3 St. John x. 16.
4 St. Luke xxii. 38.
page 59 temporal authority ought to be subject to the spiritual power. For whereas the Apostle says, "There is no power but from God; and those that are, are ordained of God;"1 they would not be ordained (or ordered) if one sword were not subject to the other, and as the inferior directed by the other to the highest end. For, according to the blessed Dionysius, it is the law of the Divine order that the lowest should be guided to the highest by those that are intermediate. Therefore, according to the order of the universe, all things are not in equal and immediate subordination; but the lowest things are set in order by things intermediate, and things inferior by things superior. We ought, therefore, as clearly to confess that the spiritual power, both in dignity and excellence, exceeds any earthly power, in proportion as spiritual things are better than things temporal. This we see clearly from the giving, and blessing, and sanctifying of tithes, from the reception of the power itself, and from the government of the samethings. For, as the truth bears witness, the spiritual power has to instruct, and judge the earthly power, if it be not good; and thus the prophecy of Jeremias is verified of the Church and the ecclesiastical power: "Lo, I have set thee this day over the nations and over, kingdoms," &c.2 If, therefore, the earthly power deviates (from its end), it will be judged by the spiritual; but if a lesser spiritual power trangresses, it will be judged by its superior: but if the supreme (deviates), it can be judged, not by man, but by God alone, according to the words of the Apostle: "The spiritual man judges all things; he himself is judged by no one."3 This authority, though given to man and exercised through man, is not human, but rather Divine—given by the Divine voice to Peter, and confirmed to5 St. Matthew xxvi. 52.
1 Romans xiii. 1.
2 Jeremiah i. 10.
page 60 him and his successors in Him whom Peter confessed, the Rock, for the Lord said to Peter: "Whatsoever thou shalt bind upon earth, it shall be bound also in heaven: and whatsoever thou shalt loose on earth, it shall be loosed also in heaven."13 1 Corinthians ii. 15.
'Whosoever therefore resists this power that is so ordered by God, resists the ordinance of God,2 unless, as Manichæus did, he feign to himself two principles, which we condemn as false and heretical; for, as Moses witnesses, "God created heaven and earth not in the beginnings, but in the beginning."3 Moreover, we declare, affirm, define, and pronounce it to be necessary to salvation for every human creature to be subject to the Roman Pontiff.'
2. We will next take the interpretations. They may be put into three classes:—
(1) First, of those who assailed it at the time.
1 St. Matthew xvi. 19.
2 Romans xiii. 2.
3 Genesis i. 1.
4 Joann. Gerson, De Potest. Eccles. Consid. xii. Bianchi, Della Potestà et della Politia della Chiesa, tom. i. lib. i. cap. xi.
When the Unam Sanctam was published, Egidius Romanus, the Archbishop of Bourges, wrote against it, being deceived into a belief that Boniface claimed a direct temporal power over the King of France, over and above that power which had always been admitted in France according to the Bull Novit of Innocent III.—viz. an indirect spiritual power in temporal matters when involving sin.1 The same course was taken by other French writers.
Boniface had already declared in a Consistory in 1302 that he had never assumed any jurisdiction which belonged to the King; but that he had declared the King to be, like any other Christian, subject to him only in regard to sin.2
(2) Secondly, the Regalists once more assailed the Unam Sanctam in the reign of Louis XIV.
1 Bianchi, lib. i. cap. x.
2 Döllinger's History of the Church, vol. iv. p. 91.
The history of the Four Gallican Articles, and of the writers who defended them, is too well known to need repetition.
(3) We come, lastly, to those who have assailed it at this time.
1 Lib. i. cap. xiii.
2 In the Appendix A will be found in full the Text of the three Pontifical Acta, Novit, Unam Sanctam, Meruit.
VI. I will, therefore, now give what may be affirmed to be the true and legitimate interpretation of the Unam Sanctam.
'Boniface opened the council, at which there were present from France four archbishops, thirty-five bishops, and six abbots, in November 1302. One consequence of this council appears to have been the celebrated decretal Unam Sanctam, which was made public on the 18th of November, and which contains an exposition of the relations between the spiritual and temporal powers. In the Church, it says, there are two powers, a temporal and spiritual, and as far as they are both in the Church, they have both the same end: the temporal power, the inferior, is subject to the spiritual, the higher and more noble; the former must be guided and directed by the latter, as the body is by the soul; it receives from the spiritual itspage 64 consecration and its direction to its highest object, and must therefore, should it ever depart from its destined path, be corrected by the spiritual power. It is a truth of faith that all men, even kings, are subject to the Pope; if, therefore, they should be guilty of grievous sins, in peace or in war, or in the government of their kingdoms, and the treatment of their subjects, and should thus lose sight of the object to which the power of a Christian Prince should be directed, and should give public scandal to the people, the Pope can admonish them, since in regard to sin they are subject to the spiritual power; he can correct them; and, if necessity should require it, compel them by censures to remove such scandals. For if they were not subject to the censures of the Church, whenever they might sin in the exercise of the power entrusted to them, it would follow that as kings they were out of the Church; that the two powers would be totally distinct from each other; and that they were descended from distinct and even opposed principles, which would be an error approaching to the heresy of the Manichees. It was therefore the indirect power of the Church over the temporal power of kings which the Pope defended in these Bulls; and he had designedly extracted the strongest passages of them from the writings of two French theologians, St. Bernard and Hugo of St. Victor.'1 Hist. iv. p. 91.
The interpretation given here by Dr. Döllinger is undoubtedly correct. All Catholics are bound to assent to the doctrines here declared; for though they are not here defined, yet they are certainly true. The only definition, properly so called, in the Bull is contained in the last sentence.
page 651. | That it does not say that the two swords were given by our Lord to the Church; but that the two swords are in potestate Ecclesiæ, 'in the power of the Church.' |
2. | That it at once goes on to distinguish, 'Both (swords) are in the power of the Church, the spiritual, that is, and the material. But this (the material) is to be used for the Church; that (the spiritual) is to be used by the Church. This, indeed (by the hand) of the Priest; that, by the hand of kings and soldiers, but at the bidding and sufferance of the Priest.' |
3. | That though both swords are in the Church, they are held in different hands, and to be used by the subordination of the one to the other. Oportet autem gladium esse sub gladio: the one sword must be subordinate to the other, the lower to the higher. |
4. | That Boniface VIII., in this very Bull Unam Sanctam, expressly declares that the power given to Peter was the 'Suprema Spiritualis potestas,' not the Temporal, or a mixed power, but purely Spiritual, which may judge all Powers, but self is judged of God alone. |
Now, on the principles already laid down, there page 66 ought to be no difficulty in rightly and clearly understanding this doctrine.
1. | For first the Material Sword is as old as human society. It was not given by grace, nor held by grace, which is a heresy condemned in Wiclif by the Council of Constance; but it belongs to the Civil Ruler in the order of nature, as St. Paul, speaking of the heathen empire, says: 'He beareth not the sword in vain; for he is the minister of God to execute wrath.' |
Nothing but want of care or thought could have led men to forget this, which is a truth and fact of the natural order.
1 Bianchi, lib. i. cap. iv.
2. | When it is said that both Swords are 'in the power of the Church,' it means that the Church in a Christian world includes the natural order in its unity. The conception of the Church included the whole complex Christian Society, made up of both powers, united in a complete visible unity. |
'Thus the Holy Roman Church, and the Holy Roman Empire are one and the same thing in two aspects; and Catholicism, the principle of the universal Christian Society, is also Romanism: that is, rests upon Rome as the origin and type of universality, manifesting itself in a mystic dualism which corresponds to the two natures of its Founder. As Divine and eternal, its head is the Pope, to whom all souls have been entrusted; as human and temporal, the Emperor, commissioned to rule men's bodies and acts.'1
1 The Holy Roman Empire, p. 108. (Macmillar., 1871.)
'The theory of the Mediæval Empire is that of an universal Christian Monarchy. The Roman Empire and the Catholic Church are two aspects of one Society.' . . . 'At the head of this Society, in its temporal character as an Empire, stands the temporal chief of Christendom, the Roman Cæsar; at its head, in its spiritual character as a Church, stands the spiritual chief of Christendom, the Roman Pontiff. Cæsar and Pontiff alike rule by Divine right.1
Now here are two things to be noted. First, that the Emperor holds an office of human creation; the Pontiff an office of Divine creation. Secondly, that the office of Divine creation is for a higher end than the office which is of human origin. The former is for the eternal, the latter for the earthly happiness of man.
But, as I have said before, the office of Divine creation, ordained to guide men to an eternal end, is higher than the office of human origin, directed to an earthly and temporal end; and in this the perfect unity and subordination of the whole is constituted and preserved.
1 Freeman's Historical Essays, pp. 136-137. (Macmillan, 1872.)
Nevertheless, both Mr. Bryce and Mr. Freeman bring out clearly what Boniface means when he says that the two swords are in Ecclesia, in the Church, and in potestate Ecclesiæ, in the power of the Church.
'The Civil Society of Catholics is distinguished from others by this—that it consists of the same assemblage of men as the Church of Christ, that is, the Catholic Church, consists of: so that it in no way constitutes a real body diverse and separate from the Church; but both (societies) together have the character of a twofold federative association and obligation inhering in the same multitude of men, whereby the Civil Society under the government of the Civil Magistrate exerts its powers to secure the temporal happiness of men, and, under the government of the Church, to secure eternal life; and in such wise that eternal life be acknowledged to be the last and supreme end to which temporal happiness and the whole temporal life is subordinate; because if any man do not acknowledge this, he neither belongs to the Catholic Church, nor may call himself Catholic. Such, then, is the true notion of the Civil Society of Catholics. It is a society of men who so pursue the happiness of this life as thereby to show that it ought to be subordinate to the attainment of eternal happiness, which they believe can be attained alone under the direction of the Catholic Church.'1
1 Tarquini, Juris Eccl. Publici Institutiones, p. 56. (Rome, 1873.)
Dr. Döllinger's interpretation, then, is strictly correct—namely, 'It was therefore,' he says, 'the indirect power of the Church over the temporal power of Kings which the Pope defended in these Bulls;' but that power of the Pope is itself Spiritual.
1. | In things temporal, and in respect to the temporal end (of Government), the Church has no power in Civil society. |
The proof of this proposition is that all things merely temporal are (præter finem Ecclesiæ) beside, or outside of, the end of the Church. It is a general rule that no society has power in those things which are out of its own proper end.
2. | In whatsoever things, whether essentially or by accident, the spiritual end, that is, the end of the Church, is necessarily involved, in those things, though they be temporal, the Church may by right exert its power, and the Civil State ought to yield.1 |
'Directly the care of temporal happiness alone belongspage 71 to the State, hut indirectly the office also of protecting morals and religion; so, however, that this he done dependency on the Church, forasmuch as the Church is a society to which the care of religion and morals is directly committed.1 Tarquini, Juris Eccl. Publici Institutiones, p. 57.
'That which in the Civil Society is indirect and dependent, is direct and independent in the Church; and, on the other hand, the end which is proper and direct to the Civil State, that is, temporal happiness, falls only indirectly, or so far as the spiritual end requires, under the power of the Church.
'The result of all this is—
'1. That the Civil Society, even though every member of it be Catholic, is not subject to the Church, but plainly independent in temporal things which regard its temporal end. '2. That the language of the Fathers, which seems to affirm1 an absolute independence of the Civil State, is to be brought within this limit.'
VIII. I will now give a summary of this matter in the words of Suarez, and also his comment on the terminology used by Canonists and theologians on this subject.
He says that the opinion which gives to the Pontiff direct temporal power over all the world is false.
Next, he sets aside the opinion that the Pontiff has this direct temporal power over the Church.
1 Tarquini, Juris Eccl. Publici Institutiones, p. 55 and note.
One chief cause of the confusion of Regalists and our non-Catholic adversaries has been the uncertain use of language, and the want of a fixed terminology until a certain date.
The word Temporal was used in two senses. It was used to signify the power of Civil Rulers in the order of nature. And in this sense the Church has never claimed it for its head. It was used also to signify the spiritual power of the Pontiff when incident indirectly upon temporal things. The spiritual power, then, had a temporal effect, and took, so to speak, its colour and name from that use, remaining always spiritual as before.
For instance, we speak of 'the Colonial power' of the Crown, meaning the Imperial power applied to the government of the Colonies; in like manner the Spiritual power of the Pope, applied indirectly to temporal things, was (improprie) improperly called Temporal, and this usus loquendi gave rise to much misinterpretation.
'Barclay says that there are two opinions amongpage 73 Catholics (on the power of the Pontiff). The one, which most Canonists follow, affirms that in the Supreme Pontiff, as Vicar of Christ, both powers, Spiritual and Temporal, exist: the other, which is the common opinion of Theologians, affirms that the power of the Supreme Pontiff, as Vicar of Christ, is strictly spiritual in itself; but that, nevertheless, he may, by the same, dispose temporal things so that they be ordered for spiritual ends.'11 Suarez, De Legibus, lib. iii. c. vi.
'That this power is in the Pope is not opinion but certitude among Catholics, though there be many discussions as to what and of what quality the power is: that is to say, whether it be properly and in itself of a temporal kind, or whether it be not rather spiritual, but by a certain necessary consequence, and in order to spiritual ends, it dispose of temporal things.'2
'Temporal Princes, when they come to the family of Christ, lose neither their princely power nor jurisdiction; but they become subject to him whom Christ has set over His family, to be governed and directed by him in those things which lead to eternal life.'3
1 Bellarmine, De Potestate Summi Pontificis, cap. i. p. 848 A, Cologne, 1617.
2 Ibid. cap. iii. p. 852 A.
3 Ibid. cap. iii. p. 858 A.
1 Tarquini, p. 46.
'Those authors who teach absolutely that the Pope has Supreme Power, and that temporal, in the whole world, mean this, "that the Pontiff, in virtue of his Spiritual Power and jurisdiction, is superior to Kings and temporal Princes, so as to direct them in the use of their temporal Power in order to Spiritual ends."'
'For though they sometimes speak indistinctly, and without sufficient clearness, or even (improprie) incorrectly—because the power of the Pope is not temporal but spiritual, which contains under itself things temporal, and is exercised about them indirectly, that is, for the sake of Spiritual things—nevertheless they often make this sense clear, and lay down their distinctions either expressly or virtually; for they affirm that the Pontiff can do some things indirectly, but deny that he can do them directly.1
But if the Pope had temporal power properly so called, he could do all things directly. This negative proves that the power of which they spoke was only Spiritual.
'Subjection is of two kinds—direct and indirect. Subjection is called direct when it is within the end and limits of the same power: it is called indirect when itpage 76 springs from direction to a higher end, which belongs to a higher and more excellent power. The proper Civil Power in itself is directly ordained for the fitting state and temporal happiness of the human commonwealth in time of this present life; and therefore the power itself is called temporal. The Civil Power, therefore, is then called supreme in its own order when within the same, and in respect to its end, the ultimate resolution (of power) is made within its own sphere.' . . . . 'The chief ruler is, then, subordinate to no superior in order to the same end of Civil Government. But, as temporal and civil happiness are related to that which is spiritual and eternal, it may happen that the matter of Civil Government must be otherwise ordered and directed, in order to spiritual welfare, than the Civil policy alone seems to require. And then, though the temporal Prince and his power do not directly depend in their acts upon any other power in the same (i. e. the temporal) order, which also regards the same end only, nevertheless it may happen that it needs to be directed, helped, and corrected in the matter of its government by a superior power, which governs men in order to a more excellent and eternal end; and then this dependence is called indirect, because that higher power is not exercised in respect to temporal things (per se) of its own nature, nor for its own sake, but indirectly, and for another end.'11 Suarez, Defensio Fidei Catholicæ, tom. xxiv. lib. iii. c. xxii. 2nd ed. Paris, 1869.
1. | That the superior power cannot be temporal, or its jurisdiction would be direct. |
2. | That, if temporal, it would not be of a higher, but of the same order. 1 Suarez, Defensio Fidei, &c. lib. iii. cap. v. sect. 2. |
3. | That, therefore, the claim of indirect power is an express exclusion of temporal power, properly so called, from the spiritual supremacy of the Head of the Church. |
'In no other place did Christ imply that He gave to Peter or to the Church temporal dominion, or a proper and direct royalty; nor does Ecclesiastical tradition show this, hut rather the reverse.'1
With these authorities before us, there can be little difficulty in explaining the texts usually quoted by adversaries, who desire to fasten on the Unam Sanctam and upon the Catholic Church a claim to temporal power, that is, temporal in its root and in itself.
1 Suarez, Defensio Fidei, &c. lib. iii. cap. v. sect. 14.
1 This may be seen in his Controversia de Summo Pontifice, cap. v.; and in Bianchi's work, Della Potestà, tom. i. p. 91, lib. i. ch. x. xi.
2 Expostulation, p. 26.
'Answers in abundance were obtained, tending to show that the doctrines of deposition and persecution, of keeping no faith with heretics, and of universal dominion, were obsolete beyond revival.1
This passage implicitly affirms what I hope explicitly to prove. How can laws become obsolete, but by the cessation of the moral conditions which require or justify their exercise? How can laws, the exercise of which is required by the permanent presence of the same moral conditions which called them into existence, become obsolete? I pass over the 'no faith with heretics,' which is an example of the injustice which pervades the Pamphlet. I should have thought it impossible for Mr. Gladstone not to know the true meaning of this controversial distortion: but I am willing to believe that he did not know it; for if he had, it would have been impossible for such as he is to write it.
1 Expostulation, p. 26.
'The Pope has sent forth his prohibitions and his anathemas to the world, and the world has disregarded them. The faithful receive them with conventional respect, and then hasten to assure their Protestant friends that Papal edicts can make no possible difference in the conduct of any human being.'1
Nothing can be less true. The first principles of morals forbid the exercise of the supreme judicial power of the Church on such a civil order as that of England. When it was de facto subject to the Church, England had by its own free will accepted the laws of Christendom. It can never be again subject to such laws except on the same condition—namely, by its own free will. Till then the highest laws of morality render the exercises of such Pontifical acts in England impossible.
1 Times, Wednesday, December 30, 1874, in leading article on the Pope.
2 Expostulation, p. 26.
X. The command of our Lord to the Apostles: 'Go ye into the whole world and preach the Gospel to every creature: he that believeth and is baptised shall be saved, but he that believeth not shall be condemned'1—clearly invests the Church with authority to baptise every creature. But the exercise of this right was suspended upon a moral condition. It conveyed no right to baptise any man against his will; nor without an act of faith on his part. But an act of faith is a spontaneous and voluntary act of submission, both of intellect and will, to the truth, and to the teacher who delivers it. The absolute and universal authority therefore of the Church to baptise depends upon the free and voluntary act of those who believe, and, through their own spontaneous submission, are willing to be baptised.
The Church so regards the moral conditions on which its acts depend, that as a rule it will not even suffer an infant to be baptised unless at least one of the parents consents.
1 St. Mark xvi. 15, 16.
This principle will solve many questions in respect to the Spiritual authority of the Church over the Civil State.
First, it shows that, until a Christian world and Christian Rulers existed, there was no subject for the exercise of this spiritual authority of judgment and correction. Those who amuse themselves by asking why St. Peter did not depose Nero, will do well to find out whether people are laughing with them or at them. Such questions are useful. They compendiously show that the questioner does not understand the first principles of his subject. If he will find out why St. Peter neither baptised nor absolved Nero, he will have found out why he did not depose him. Until a Christian world existed there was no apta materia for the supreme judicial power of the Church in temporal things. Therefore St. Paul laid down as a rule of law that he had nothing to do in judging those that were without the unity of the Church.
But when a Christian world came into existence, the Civil society of man became subject to the Spiritual direction of the Church. So long, however, as individuals only subjected themselves, one by one, to its page 83 authority, the conditions necessary for the exercise of its office were not fully present. The Church guided men, one by one, to their eternal end; but as yet the collective society of nations was not subject to its guidance. It is only when nations and kingdoms become socially subject to the supreme doctrinal and judicial authority of the Church that the conditions of its exercise are verified. When the senate and people of the Roman Empire were only half Christian, the Church still refrained from acts which would have affected the whole body of the State. When the whole had become Christian, the whole became subject to the Divine Law, of which the Roman Pontiff was the supreme expositor and executive.
It would be endless to state examples in detail. I will take, therefore, only one in which the indirect spiritual power of the Church over the temporal State is abundantly shown. Take, for instance, the whole subject of Christian Matrimony: the introduction of the Christian law of the unity and indissolubility and sacramental character of marriage; the tables of consanguinity and of affinity; the jurisdiction of the Church over matrimonial cases. This action of the Pontifical law upon the Imperial law, and the gradual conformity of the Empire to the Church, exhibits in a clear and complete way what is the power claimed by the Church over the temporal laws of Princes.
The Council of Trent reserves matrimonial causes page 84 to the Ecclesiastical Tribunals; and in the Syllabus the proposition is condemned that they belong to the Civil jurisdiction.1
In like manner, in prohibiting duels, the Council declares temporal penalties against not only the principals, but those also who are guilty of permitting them.2
1 Sess. xxiv. De Ref. can. xii.
2 Sess. xxv. cap. xix.
XI. And here I shall be met with the answer: 'You justify, then, the deposition of princes, and therefore you hold that the Pope may depose Queen Victoria.' Such, I am sorry to say, is the argument of the 'Expostulation;' for if it be not, why was it implied? I altogether deny the argument, or inference, or call it what you will. I affirm that the deposition of Henry IV. and Frederic II. of Germany were legitimate, right, and lawful; and I affirm that a deposition of Queen Victoria would not be legitimate, nor right, nor lawful, because the moral conditions page 86 which were present to justify the deposition of the Emperors of Germany are absent in the case of Queen Victoria; and therefore such an act could not be done.
'In this controversy a most accurate discrimination should he made between the genuine rights of the Apostolical See and those that are imputed to it by innovators of this age for the purpose of calumniating. The See of Rome never taught that faith is, not to be kept with the heterodox—that an oath to kings separated from Catholic communion can be violated—that it is lawful for the Bishops of Rome to invade their temporal rights and dominions. We, too, consider an attempt or design against the life of kings and princes, even under the pretext of religion, as a horrid and detestable crime.'
I may add that this passage was not unknown to Dr. Döllinger, who quotes it at p. 51 in his work on 'The Church and the Churches.'
'In the variety of subjects which will present themselves to you, one appears to me of great importance at this time; and that is, to defeat the endeavours which are now directed to falsify the idea of the Infallibility of the Pope. Among all other errors, that is malicious above all which would attribute (to the Infallibility of the Pope) the right of deposing sovereigns, and of absolving people from the obligation of allegiance.
'This right, without doubt, has been exercised by the Supreme Pontiffs from time to time in extreme cases, but it has nothing to do with the Pontifical Infallibility; neither does it flow from the Infallibility, but from the authority of the Pontiff.
'Moreover, the exercise of this right in those ages of faith which respected in the Pope that which he is, that is to say, the Supreme Judge of Christendom, and recognised the benefit of his tribunal in the great contentions of peoples and of sovereigns, was freely extended (by aid, as was just, of public jurisprudence, and the common consent of nations) to the gravest interests of States and of their rulers.'
'But altogether different are the conditions of the present time from the conditions (of those ages); and malice page 88 alone can confound things so diverse, that is to say, the infallible judgment in respect to truths of Divine Revelation with the right which the Popes exercised in virtue of their authority when the common good demanded it. They know better than we, and everybody can discern the reason why such an absurd confusion of ideas is stirred up at this time, and why hypothetical cases are paraded of which no man thinks. It is because every pretext, even the most frivolous and furthest from the truth, is eagerly caught at, provided it be of a kind to give us annoyance, and to excite civil rulers against the Church.
'Some would have me interpret and explain even more fully the Definition of the Council.
'I will not do it. It is clear in itself, and has no need of other comments and explanations. Whosoever reads that Decree with a dispassionate mind has its time sense easily and obviously before him.'1
1 Discorsi di Pio Nono, July 20, 1871, p. 203, Rome, 1872.
'The cause of all this diversity and controversy—a diversity and controversy most fatal to historic truth—is to be traced to the unhappy mistake of looking at the men of the twelfth century with the eyes of the nineteenth; and still more of hoping to extract something from the events of the twelfth century to do service in the controversies of the nineteenth.'3
1 Appendix B.
2 Expostulation, p. 14.
3 Freeman's Historical Essays, 'St. Thomas of Canterbury and his Biographers,' p. 80.
1 Bancroft's History of the United States, vol. i. pp. 233, 235, 255, &c.
I cannot refrain from continuing the history. The Puritan Commonwealth in England brought on a Puritan revolution in Maryland. They acknowledged Cromwell, and disfranchised the whole Catholic population. 'Liberty of conscience' was declared, but to the exclusion of 'Popery, Prelacy, and licentiousness of opinion.' Penal laws came of course. Quakers in Massachusetts, for the first offence, lost one ear; for the second, the other; for the third, had their tongue seared with a red-hot iron. Women were whipped, and men were hanged, for religion. If Catholics were in power to-morrow in England, not a penal law would be proposed, nor the shadow of constraint be put upon the faith of any man. We would that all men fully believed the truth; but a forced faith is a hypocrisy hateful to God and man. If Catholics were in power to-morrow, not only would there be no penal laws of constraint, but no penal laws of privation. If the Ionian Islands had elected, some years ago, to attach themselves to the page 94 Sovereignty of Pius IX., the status of the Greek Church separate from Catholic Unity would have been tolerated and respected. Their Churches, their public worship, their Clergy, and their religious rites would have been left free as before. They were found in possession, which was confirmed by the tradition of centuries; they had acquired Civil rights, which enter into the laws of political justice, and as such would have been protected from all molestation.1
1 Our older writers, such as Bellarmine and Suarez, when treating of this subject, had before their eyes a generation of men who all had been in the unity of the faith. Their separation therefore was formal and wilful. Their separation from the unity of the Church did not release the conscience from its jurisdiction. But if Bellarmine and Suarez were living at this day, they would have to treat of a question differing in all its moral conditions. What I have here laid down is founded upon the principles they taught, applied to our times. Cardinal Tarquini, in treating the same matter, has dealt with it as it has been treated here.—Juris Eccl. Publ Institutiones, p. 78.
'That the relations of the Catholic Church to the Civil Powers have been fixed immutably from the beginning, because they arise out of the Divine constitution of the Church and of the civil society of the natural order.'
And we have also seen how far from the truth are the confident assertions put forward lately, that the Church ascribes to its head Supreme Temporal as well as Supreme Spiritual Power.1
Further, we have seen with what strange want of reflection and of depth the Pontifical acts of the old Catholic world are transferred per saltum to a world which has ceased, in its public life and laws, to be Catholic, I may almost say, to be even Christian.
1 Expostulation, &c. p. 27.