Textos

Seletos:
Núcleos do
Integralismo
Inglês.
II. Os Poderes e
seu Governo.






St. Thomas on the Two Powers
Translated by Timothy Wilson
Dubbed the “Common Doctor” of the Church, St. Thomas
Aquinas has constantly been upheld by the Church as a model
and exemplar for theologians, both in his method and
doctrine. The great work for which he is principally known,
the Summa theologiæ, became in the centuries after him a
standard textbook for theologians and was the subject of a
great many Scholastic commentaries (including that of
Cardinal Cajetan, a relevant excerpt of which has been
translated on The Josias). The insuperable excellence of
the Summa, however, has unfortunately obscured for many
the excellence of his early Scriptum super Sententiis, his
commentary upon the Liber sententiarum of Peter Lombard,
which St. Thomas composed as part of the requirement for
obtaining his masters in theology. Lombard’s text was the
standard textbook used by theology students in high medieval
universities, and hence a large portion of the great medieval
works of theology are commentaries upon the Sentences.
The Summa of St. Thomas, left unfinished at his death, was
soon supplemented, through the labors of his disciples, with
material from his Sentences commentary.

The text translated here today is taken from St. Thomas’s

commentary on the forty-fourth and final distinction of Book
II of the Sentences. Here the Lombard discusses the question
of whether the power to sin (potentia peccandi) in man is
from God, or rather from ourselves, or the devil; he answers
that it is from God, and adduces many authorities to prove
such. Then he considers the objection that, since it has just
been proved that the devil’s power for evil (potestas mali)
comes from God, it would seem that we ought not to resist the
devil’s power, since according to the Apostle in Romans 13, he
who resisteth the power, resisteth the ordinance of God. But he
responds by clarifying that the Apostle speaks there of the
secular power, and that it is the command of God that we obey
no power in things that are evil.

St. Thomas’s commentary on the text of distinction 44 begins

first with a divisio textus, in which he briefly divides into parts
the text of the Lombard, followed by the main bulk of his own
composition, in which he proposes questions and articles
based upon the material in the text before him. Thus his
first quæstio, on the potentia peccandi, divided into three
articles; then comes his second quæstio, on obedience, which
is divided into three articles as well. Finally there is
the expositio textus, in which he comments directly upon the
words of the Lombard in dist. 44, and which is the very last
portion of his commentary on Book II. It is this expositio
textus which we offer today.

St. Thomas, In II Sent., dist. 44, q. 2, a. 3, exp. text.

Exposition of the text.

After what has been said, there occurs a question worthy of

consideration, etc. The reason for this order is, that a power is
known through its act; wherefore it was necessary first to
determine regarding the act of sin, before discussing the
powerof sinning; although a power is naturally prior to act.

Whether the power of sinning is in us from God or from

ourselves. It seems that he ought to have said ‘powers of
sinning’, plurally, because sin takes place through the acts of
many powers. But it should be said, that no power may elicit
an act of sin, except insofar as it is the will or is moved by the
will; and thus there is one power according to which sin is
first of all present, namely the will, or free choice.
An evil will is not in us from God, but from ourselves and from
the devil. This is true, if the will be taken for the act of the will;
but not if it is taken for the power which is the principle of the
act; and thus the similitude, through which they wish to draw
a conclusion from the similarity of power, is null.

But it is shown indisputably by the many testimonies of the

saints, that the power for evil is from God. It seems that the
proof of the Master is not valid: for the authorities following
speak not of the power of sinning, but of the power of
prelation. But it should be said that in the power of prelation,
which is an habitual power, there is also included the habitual
power of sinning: because on account of the power of
prelation, prelates are able to commit many sins, which they
could not commit if they were not prelates.

By me kings reign, and by me tyrants hold the earth. What the

difference is between a king and a tyrant, is clear from what
has been said in the third article of the first question.

But it should be known, that the Apostle speaks there of the

secular power. It seems that the solution of the Master is
insufficient: because he shows above that even the power to
harm which the devil has, is from God; and thus it seems that
if one is to obey the power, because the power is from God,
one must obey even the devil. But it should be said that
without doubt, the authority of the Apostle is understood only
of the power of prelation; this sort of power the devil does not
have over men, except insofar as they enter, as it were, into a
compact with him, consenting to him by sin, and are made his
slaves. But this pact is unlawful; and thus from this there is
not acquired a debt of obedience, but rather the pact is to be
broken, Isaias 28, Your covenant with hell shall not stand.
Wherefore it is not necessary that one obey every power
which is from God, but that only which is instituted by God for
the purpose that due obedience be given to it, and only the
power of prelation is of this sort.
Disregard power, fearing greater powers. From this, it seems
that one ought to obey a greater power rather than a lesser.

1. But this seems to be false, because in some things one obeys

one more than another, and in some things less, as in some
things one obeys one’s father more than the general of the
army, and in some things the general of the army more than
one’s father, as is said in 9 Ethic. Therefore it follows that the
same is greater and lesser than the same.

2. Moreover, the power of an Archbishop is greater than the

power of a Bishop. But in some cases the subjects are bound
to obey their bishops more than Archbishops. Therefore it is
not always the case that one must rather obey the greater
power.

3. Moreover, the Abbots of monasteries are subjected to

Bishops, unless they be exempt. Therefore the power of a
Bishop is greater than the power of an Abbot. But a monk is
bound to obey the Abbot more than the Bishop. Therefore one
need not always obey the greater power.

4. Moreover, the spiritual power is greater than the secular

power. If therefore the greater power is rather to be obeyed, a
spiritual prelate will always be able to absolve from the
precept of the secular power: which is false.

I respond that it should be said, that a superior and inferior

power can be related in two ways. Either such that the
inferior power springs entirely from the superior; and then
the whole power of the inferior is founded upon the power of
the superior; and then one must simply and in all things obey
the superior power rather than the inferior; just as also in
natural things, the first cause has greater influence upon the
thing caused by the second cause than even the second cause
itself, as is said in the beginning of the Liber de causis: and the
power of God is thus related to every created power; thus also
is the power of the Emperor related to the power of the
proconsul; thus also is the power of the Pope related to every
spiritual power in the Church: because by the Pope himself
are the diverse degrees of dignities in the Church both
appointed and ordained; whence his power is a certain kind of
foundation of the Church, as is clear from Matthew 16. And
thus in all things we are bound more to obey the Pope than
the Bishops or Archbishops, or a monk his Abbot, without any
distinction. Again, a superior and inferior power can be
related such that both spring forth from one supreme power,
which subjects the one to the other according as it wishes;
and then one is not superior to the other except in these
things in which the one is placed under the other by the
supreme power; and in these only must one obey the superior
rather than the inferior: and in this way are the powers both
of the Bishop and of the Archbishop, which descend from the
power of the Pope.

To the first, therefore, it should be said, that it is not unfitting

that the father be superior in familial matters, and the general
in the affairs of war; but simply speaking one ought rather to
obey him who is superior in all things, namely God, and him
who plenarily holds the place of God.

To the second it should be said, that in those things in which

one ought rather to obey the Bishop than the Archbishop, the
Archbishop is not superior to the Bishop, but only in the cases
determined by law, in which one has recourse from the
Bishop to the Archbishop.

To the third it should be said, that a monk is bound rather to

obey his Abbot than the Bishop in those things which pertain
to the statutes of the [monastic] rule; but in the things which
pertain to Ecclesiastical discipline, he is bound rather to obey
the Bishop: because in these latter the Abbot is placed under
the Bishop.
To the fourth it should be said, that the spiritual and secular
power are both derived from the divine power; and thus, the
secular power is under the spiritual to the extent that the
former is placed under the latter by God, namely, in the things
which pertain to the salvation of the soul; and thus in these
matters, one must obey the spiritual power rather than the
secular. But in the things which pertain to the civil good, one
should obey the secular power rather than the spiritual, as it
is said in Matthew 22:21: Render unto Caesar the things which
are Caesar’s. Unless perhaps the secular power is also
conjoined to the spiritual power, as it is in the Pope, who
holds the summit of both powers, namely the spiritual and the
secular, this being appointed by him who is Priest and King
forever according to the order of Melchisedech, King of kings,
and Lord of lords, whose power shall not be taken away, and
whose kingdom shall not be corrupted for ever and ever.
Amen.
Molina on Civil and Ecclesiastical
Power.
The term “integralist” was originally applied to Catholic anti-
liberal and anti-modernist movements in the 19th and early
20th centuries— such as Ramón Nocedal’s party in Spain, and
the Sodalitium Pianum, based in Rome. One of the main goals of
such movements was to defend traditional Catholic political
teaching against liberalism. Liberals have ever pretended (even
to themselves) to separate politics with concern for the end of
human life, hence their demand for the so-called “separation of
Church and state.” In practice, however, they have ever ordered
politics to the false and individualistic conception of the human
good implicit in liberalism itself. Hence integralists were always
particularly opposed to the liberal demand for the separation of
Church and state. Integralist movements took various
contingent positions on indifferent matters, on which Catholics
are free to disagree with them. But on the central points of
Catholic political teaching they were merely defending
the perennial and infallible teaching of the Church.

It is this essence of the integralist programs that we defend

at The Josias. What we mean by integralism is merely this:
Political action is naturally and inevitably directed towards
what we take to be good for human beings, and ought therefore
to be directed towards the true human good, which is a
common good. But the common good of human life is twofold: a
temporal common good proportioned to human nature, and the
eternal common good proportioned to the divine nature in
which human beings participate by grace. Hence there are two
authorities directing human beings towards these two common
goods: a temporal authority and a spiritual authority. The
former is subordinate to the later, just as the temporal common
good is subordinate to the spiritual common good. On account
of the danger of human pride, it is necessary that these two
kinds of authority be placed in the hands of different persons—
temporal authority in lay hands, and spiritual authority in the
hands of bishops.

Integralism in this basic sense has always been taught by the

greatest theologians of the Church— from St. Augustine to St.
Bernard to St. Thomas. Apart from a few regalist special
pleaders it was universally held by the scholastic theologians. In
later scholasticism it was held not only by Thomists such
as Cajetan, but also by opponents of Thomism. This is shown by
the following translation of a passage from the De iustitia et
iure of Luis de Molina, S.J. (1535-1600). Molina was the great
opponent of Thomists in the controversies on grace and
predestination. “I am convinced,” wrote Charles De Koninck,
“that in philosophy the most extreme limits of opposition have
been reached by Thomism and Molinism.” And yet, so basic to
Catholic tradition is the integralist thesis that on this even
Thomists and Molinists agree.— The Editors

Translated by Timothy Wilson

Luis de Molina, S.J.

De iustitia et iure, tract. II, disp. xxi
What power is, and regarding the civil and ecclesiastical power
Having explained dominion in general, in order that we might
descend to the parts subject to it, it is necessary that we begin
from the dominion of jurisdiction—as much because it is
more noble, as because knowledge of it conduces to a better
understanding of the titles of the dominion of property. It is
also the case, that explicating it is a less involved task than
that of explaining the dominion of property. But because the
dominion of jurisdiction is a certain kind of power, we shall
have to begin from the explication of power.

As regards the present design, therefore: power, according to

Vitoria in Relectio de potestate Ecclesiæ, q. 1, at the beginning,
and Navarrus, c. Novit. de iudiciis, nota. 3. corol. 16. in
accordance with St. Thomas in 4. d. 24. q. 1 art. 1. quæstiunc. 2
ad 3, is the faculty of one having authority and eminence over
others for their rule and government.This is consonant with
Paul, Rom 13, Let every soul be subject to higher powers. In this
place, rulers, who have the faculty and authority for the
governance of others and thus have superiority and eminence
over them in this respect, are called powers, the name of the
abstract thing being transferred to signify the suppositum in
which that faculty is found, but so that the suppositum is
endowed with that faculty. The power, therefore, of which we
speak, is only in those who have intellect and free will for
ruling and governing others, and thus, amongst all corporeal
things, it is in men alone.

Power is twofold, namely, Lay, and Ecclesiastical. Here it

should be noted, that albeit man were not fitted for a
supernatural end, to be achieved through supernatural
means, but only for a natural end, yet still this twofold power
could be distinguished. Though both would be natural, and
could be more easily conjoined in one and the same supreme
chief and head, from whom power—which would be
ecclesiastical in its own mode—could be derived from him to
others. This is explained thus: albeit man had been made for a
natural end only, still, men would recognize that there is one
first principle, supremely good, from whom they have
received and await their being and other goods, and hence is
worthy of being shown obedience and honor. For this reason,
just as those gathered to establish one Republic would be able
to choose a common ruler, who would restrain them in peace
and justice, and defend them, and procure their common
temporal good: thus they could also choose another who
would preside for the purpose of showing worship and due
service to God, and who would be, in that function, superior to
the secular ruler. They could also choose at will one common
ruler, who would be supreme in both functions, and who
either would exercise both kinds of regime by himself, or, if
one were insufficient for both, or could be exercised less
fittingly by the same, for that different mores and demeanor
seem to befit each function; he would substitute for himself
another to carry out the functions of the other, who would do
so through the power received from him. Wherefore history
shows, that sometimes, amongst the gentiles there were
priests and ministers of idols, distinct from kings and secular
princes, and meanwhile the supreme priesthood was
conjoined with the royal office. Even today amongst the
Japanese, and other unbelievers, the priests are distinct from
the secular princes, whether these depend upon, are
promoted by, or deposed by them, or not, according to the
custom of the diverse regions. And in a similar way, resting
upon only the natural light and end of men, they could be
instituted for the worship of the true God, as Vitoria rightly
notes, De potestate Ecclesiæ relectio 1, q. 3, n. 3, and relectio 2,
q. 1, n. 2.

But now, since man is made for a supernatural end to be

attained through supernatural means, the ecclesiastical power
is distinguished from the lay power. The lay power, of itself, is
established to govern in a manner suitable to the natural end
to which it is ordained by its nature. But the ecclesiastical
power is instituted to govern in a manner suitable to the
supernatural end, namely, by inducing to means
accommodated to the supernatural end. In this way it
happens, that these two powers are distinguished on the part
of diverse ends subordinated one to the other: in a way
similar to that by which the equestrian art is distinguished
from the art of bridle-making: and this kind of distinction is a
familiar one amongst the practical skills. Wherefore, just as it
is for the equestrian art to command the bridle-making art, in
order that the latter apply its work in a manner suitable to the
superior end of the former: so also is it the concern of the
ecclesiastical power to command the lay power, in order that
the latter administer suitably to the supernatural end of the
former, to which end the natural end of the lay power is
ordered.[1] But since the nobility and eminence of any faculty
is to be considered most of all from its object and end, the
nobility and eminence of the ecclesiastical power above the
lay power will have to be judged according to the degree that
the supernatural end exceeds the natural, and the soul’s
spiritual salvation does the temporal interests, and the
peaceful and tranquil state of this life.

But now, since in the state of innocency every one would be

conceived in grace, and hence would be born furnished with
the principles sufficient to obtain by himself the fact of the
supernatural end, and would easily be instructed in those
things in which he would need to be instructed, and would not
require coercion for it: certainly in that state, both powers,
namely the ecclesiastical and the lay, would be without
coercive force, the superiors directing the inferiors to their
ends, as we have shown in our commentary on the Prima pars,
in the treatise De opere sex dierum: and it would be expedient
for both to be conjoined in the same suppositum, and, granting
that supernatural state, neither in this sense would be
supernatural, inasmuch as men, directed by the natural light
and the illumination of faith, would not be able to set up both
by themselves. But since men of that state were composed of
body and soul, they would have worshiped God, not otherwise
than as we do, not only with an internal but also an external
and corporeal worship, and their worship would be uniform,
as Vitoria rightly teaches in the cited relectio, q. 4, n. 1.

With nature having been damaged by sin, and grace having

been lost, both powers have coercive force, their subjects
requiring coercion in order that they might be led by direction
to their ends. But it is necessary to distinguish three times, or
three states, of the universal Church: namely, of the law of
nature, of the written law, and of the law of grace. And indeed,
in the law of nature, the faith and supernatural knowledge
then necessary for salvation having been granted, and
likewise the remedy instituted for that state against the sin of
origin, which was of positive divine law, since the men of that
state were held only to the natural law, they would have been
able to institute by themselves both civil and ecclesiastical
power, by which they would be directed to the natural and
supernatural end. And they would have been able either to
divide them, so that the one would be in one suppositum, and
the other in another: or to conjoin them in one and the
same suppositum. In this way was Melchisedech at once king
of Salem, and priest of God the most high, as is read in Heb 7
and Gen 14. Many weighty authors think, that the firstborn in
the law of nature, especially after the flood, were priests; and
that Melchisedech was Sem, the firstborn of Noah. And this is
the right, which Esau, as the firstborn, sold to Jacob: for which
reason Paul calls him profane, in Heb 12. Vitoria,
in Relectio 1 de potestate Ecclesiæ, q. 4, n. 2 and 3,
and Relectio 2, q.1, n. 2, justly says, that ecclesiastical power
was in the law of nature immediately after sin. Indeed I
should add, that in order to institute it, in the form it then had,
the natural and supernatural knowledge which remained in
Adam from the state of innocency was sufficient, being joined
with the knowledge of the Fall, and of the promise of a
redeemer immediately made to him, and the knowledge of
original sin, and of the remedy against it which God revealed
to him. Yet I do not think, that there was anything of positive
divine law, other than the application of the remedy against
original sin, or any ecclesiastical power, or any other sort of
oblation or sacrifice instituted by God by divine positive law:
but the mode of ecclesiastical power and divine worship was
left to men themselves, that they would institute it: and it was
instituted in great part by Adam, and by Noah after the flood,
who both lived for a long time, and were much illuminated by
God.

At the time of the written law, when God chose a people

peculiar to himself, from which would be born a redeemer,
and in which he would foretell and presignify, what things
were to come in the law of grace, inasmuch as in this way they
would be rendered more credible, and would prepare a way
for the coming of his only-begotten son, he himself instituted
the ecclesiastical power, namely, the high priesthood of the
Synagogue, and the other grades and ministries of that power,
and the sacrifices, rites, and worship by which he would
worshiped, all of which were of positive divine law. And he
willed the whole ecclesiastical power to be the tribe of Levi
only. All these things are plain from the sacred scriptures. Yet
that power was not supernatural such as would obtain a
supernatural effect, in the way that the ecclesiastical power of
the law of grace instrumentally obtains the supernatural
effects of the remission of sins, the granting of grace, the
confection of the Eucharist, etc. Although in the old law there
was the sacrament of circumcision, at whose presence grace
was conferred, just as it was also conferred in the law of
nature at the presence of the remedy against original sin.
Because, therefore, that power obtained no supernatural
effect, as Vitoria says, Relectio 1 de potestate Ecclesiæ, q. 3, n.
6, and certain others, that whole power could have been
instituted by human law: although men would not have
known to institute all those things so that they would be
symbols of things to come in the law of grace, nor would they
have known to adapt them to the ends to which they were
instituted by God in that manner.

That power could have been conjoined in the

same suppositum with lay and civil power. No indeed, in very
fact it was conjoined in Moses, who both administered the
Commonwealth in temporal things, and was a priest, and
offered sacrifices, according to Psalm 98: Moses and Aaron
among his priests. It was also conjoined in Samuel, who was a
priest, and governed the Commonwealth in spiritual and
temporal things, as is clear from 1 Kings. Likewise afterward
in the Maccabees, who were high priests, and had supreme
care of the Commonwealth in temporal things, as is manifest
from the books of the Maccabees. But in the time of the kings,
the ecclesiastical power was disjoined from the civil and
temporal: for, according to the prescript of the law, the high
priest, and other priests could not be otherwise than from the
tribe of Levi: but the kings were of the tribe of Benjamin, and
of the tribe of Juda. Whence it was that Saul, in 1 Kings 13,
offering holocausts and peace offerings, so displeased God,
that his degradation from the kingdom drew its origin from
that act, as is clear from the words of Samuel: Thou hast done
foolishly, and hast not kept the commandments of the Lord thy
God, which he commanded thee. And if thou hadst not done
thus, the Lord would now have established thy kingdom over
Israel for ever: but thy kingdom shall not come. The Lord hath
sought him a man, etc. And Ozias, in 2 Para 26, was stricken a
leper, because by burning incense, he had wished to usurp the
office of the priests.

But now, the ecclesiastical power, which in the time of the law
of grace is in the Christian Church, since it is wholly
supernatural for the most part, inasmuch as it obtains the
supernatural effects of the remission of sins, the granting of
grace, the confection of the Eucharist, the creating of priests,
and the conferring to these of power for doing those things,
the granting of indulgences, by which sins are remitted as
regards punishment, excommunication, and other similar
things; indeed, of itself and on the whole, it could take its
origin neither from the State, nor from human or natural law,
but only from positive divine law. In truth, this power was,
and is, in Christ as man, according to excellence, and not at all
bound to the sacraments. For to him was given all power in
heaven and on earth, as it is said in Matt 27, and he was
appointed by God the Father as high priest, head, and king of
the Church, according to Psalm 2: But I am appointed king by
him over Sion, his holy mountain, that is the Church, preaching
his commandment. And Heb 2: So Christ did not glorify himself,
that he might be made a high priest, but he that said unto him,
Thou art my son, this day I have begotton thee: as he saith in
another place: Thou art a priest forever, according to the order
of Melchisedech, and in ch. 7: For the others indeed were made
priests without an oath: but this with an oath, by him that said
unto him: The Lord hath sworn and he will not repent: Thou art
a priest forever, according to the order of Melchisedech. Finally,
the reason for that letter which Paul wrote to the Hebrews, is
to show the excellence of the priesthood of Christ in the new
law according to the order of Melchisedech, over the
priesthood of the old law according to the order of Aaron:
which has been set aside, and has ceased to be, by the
priesthood and death of Christ. Now this power Christ left in
the Church, yet bound by the sacraments, and by certain sure
laws. But he left it, not to all of the Church, but to Peter his
vicar, and the rest of the successors of Peter, as to the head in
place of himself, upon whom the whole depends. For in Matt
16, to Peter especially he promised the keys of the kingdom of
heaven, which keys imply this power. Likewise he promised
in the same place that he would found his Church upon Peter,
as upon the head and vicar in place of himself, against which
Church the gates of the underworld would not prevail: which
he fulfilled after the resurrection, John 21. He left it also to the
other Apostles, and to the Bishops their successors, to whom
he also promised the power of the keys in Matt 18, though he
conferred it partly at the time of the Last Supper, and partly
after the resurrection. And he instituted seventy-two disciples
as their ministers and helpers, to whose place the parish
priests succeed, and the other priests, inferior to the Bishops,
who have a certain part of this supernatural power. And thus
it happens, that just as Christ did not have ecclesiastical
power from the Church, according to John 15: You have not
chosen me: but I have chosen you; rather, he had it from the
Father: thus also the power which today is in the Church, as
much in the Supreme Pontiff as in the Bishops and inferior
priests, is not from the Church, but committed by Christ to
Peter, to the Apostles, and to the other disciples, and their
successors: although Christ committed the future elections by
which this power is applied to the Church, and to the
ordinance of the Supreme Pontiffs, as has been explained
broadly in the discussion on faith.
It is not our design in this place to dispute on the ecclesiastical
power in itself, and the comparison of its acts and effects,
since we have said many things commenting upon IIaIIæ, q. 1,
a. 10,[2] especially regarding that power which resides in the
Supreme Pontiff, and upon which the rest depends. The other
disputations concerning the ecclesiastical power are
concerned with the matter of the sacraments, and other
places. What we intend in this place is nothing else, than to
distinguish the ecclesiastical power from the lay, and to
compare the one, as it resides in the Supreme Pontiff, with the
lay power as regards the dominion of jurisdiction, concerning
which we now treat.

Regarding the present matter, therefore, in the first place we

have it, that the power of the Christian Church which resides
in the Supreme Pontiff as in the head of the Church, is distinct
from the lay and civil power of secular princes: which Gelasius
affirms, capit. Duo sunt, dist. 96, saying: Two there are,
emperor, by which this world is principally ruled. Which is
confirmed with many things by Soto, In IV Sent., dist. 25, q. 2,
a. 1, concl. 1; Vitoria, Relectio 1 de potestate Ecclesiæ, q. 1,
from n. 3; Durandus, De origine iurisdictionum, q. 2; John of
Paris, De potestate regia et papali, from c. 2; Castro, De
potestate legis poenalis, c. 1; Navarrus, on the cap. Novit de
iudiciis, from coroll. 16, n. 80, and others: but we have
touched upon the chief resources in what has been said thus
far.

We have it, then, that the same power of the Supreme Pontiff
differs from the power of secular princes subject to him. First,
on the part of the end: for the former regards the
supernatural end, and the means proportionate to that end;
while the latter is concerned with the natural end, and the
means accommodated to it. For this reason, since the natural
end is ordered to the supernatural end, and since a faculty
which concerns a superior end ought to command and order
the faculty which concerns an inferior and subordinate end; it
happens, that it is for the Supreme Pontiff to command and
order the secular princes subject to him (that is, those who
are within the bosom of the Church) so that they
accommodate themselves to the supernatural end, when they
deviate from it in their government. It differs secondly,
because the power of the Supreme Pontiff is supernatural,
extending itself to supernatural effects: while the power of
secular princes is merely natural. Thirdly, because the power
of the Supreme Pontiff is instituted, not by the Church, but by
Christ in the Church; although its application to this or that
person depends upon the election of the Church: for which
reason it is of positive divine law. However, the lay power of
secular princes is of human law, instituted by the
Commonwealth, and committed to the prince, as shall be
manifest in the following disputation. It differs fourthly, in
that the power of the Supreme Pontiff is one throughout the
whole world: while the power of secular princes, unless there
be many who, by right of war, or legitimate succession, or the
consensus of the commonwealths themselves, have one
common ruler, is multiplied according to the diversity of
commonwealths choosing for themselves a prince. For as
Christ is the single head of the whole universal Church: thus it
is fitting, and expedient, that there be appointed a single
Supreme Pontiff, whom Christ left on earth as head and his
vicar. Moreover, since the faith is one, admitting no variety, it
was most expedient, with the multiplication of things to be
believed, that a single head be established, which would settle
controversies which have arisen concerning the faith, from a
chair having for this purpose the infallible assistance of the
Holy Spirit, so that the unity of faith and the Church, and
peace among the faithful would be better preserved. And this
is the reason why when, in the state of the law of nature, when
only a very few things were proposed to man to be believed
explicitly, one high priest was not established, who would
preside over the Church; yet in the Synagogue, and much
more in the Church of Christ, with the things to be believed
explicitly having increased, one high priest was established, to
whom the others would be subject, and would be bound to
obey. Finally, it differs in that, although the power of the
Supreme Pontiff was instituted posterior in time to the royal
power, yet as Gelasius relates from Ambrose, in c. Duo sunt,
dist. 96, the former exceeds the latter in nobility as much as
gold does lead. Innocent III, cap. Solitæ, de maior. et
obedientia, compares these two powers to those two great
lights placed in the firmament of heaven: and he says that the
power of the Supreme Pontiff is the greater light, which
presides over the day of spiritual things: while the power of
the Emperor is the lesser light, which presides over the night
of temporal things. Nor is it only from the excellence of the
end, common to the Ecclesiastical power in the time of the law
of nature and of the written law, that the excellence of the
Supreme Pontiff’s power over the royal and imperial power is
to be considered, but also from the nobility and excellence of
the means which it uses for that end, and of the supernatural
effects which it obtains. Concerning this matter, see
Vitoria, Relectio 1 de potestate Ecclesiæ, q. 3, at the beginning;
Soto, In IV Sent., dist. 25, q. 2, a. 1, concl. 2; and John of Paris, c.
5.

[1] This particular similitude is somewhat common amongst

the Scholastics of this time; but see the criticism which
Bellarmine levels against it, in De Romano Pontifice, lib. V, c. vi.
— Trans.

[2] Molina’s commentaries upon the Secunda Secundæ of St.

Thomas remained in manuscript form until only very
recently, when in the later part of the 20th century they were
published in the Archivo teológico granadino; in particular, his
commentary De fide (In IIamIIæ, qq. 1-16) was brought out by
Eduardo Moore in 1976. Cf. Alonso-Lasheras, Luis de
Molina’s De Iustitia et Iure: Justice as Virtue in an Economic
Context, p. 14, fn. 14. — Trans.
On the Utility and Necessity of
Prohibiting Harmful Books
St. Alphonsus Liguori
To protect the faithful from pernicious ideas, Pope Paul IV
established the Index of Prohibited Books, which remained in
use as a safeguard for the protection of public morals from 1559
A.D. until the reorganization of the Holy Office under Bl. Pope
Paul VI in 1966 A.D. The Index came under attack during the
time of St. Alphonsus Liguori, and he chose to include a treatise
defending it in an Appendix to the first book of his
great Theologia Moralis. St. Alphonsus was named a Doctor of
the Church by Bl. Pope Pius IX in 1871 A.D.

Alphonsus’s magisterial moral manual, which was praised by

Pope Benedict XIV as being “of great profit for the salvation of
souls”, has never yet been translated into English. Here we are
pleased to present a translation of one chapter of
Alphonsus’s Treatise on the Just Prohibition and Destruction of
Dangerous Books, for the first time in English. The original text
can be found here. —The Editors

The occasion of this treatise.

I have come across two hand-written letters recently, in which

that very wholesome and entirely indispensible practice of the
Church concerning the prohibition of books is wickedly
assailed. The authors rashly maintain that, the law of the
Church notwithstanding, any person may read any book
whatsoever, so long as that book does not obviously appear to
contain dangerous or subversive material.

The authors rely on two false arguments. First, that the practice
of prohibiting books has been introduced into the Church only
in recent times and is not founded in ancient practice. Second,
that in ordering this practice the Church fails to observe due
process of canon law, and therefore that a law of this sort bears
no force of obligation.

I confess that I was quite amazed to see these novel opinions

bruited with such impudence by the letters’ authors, since it is
well enough established, first of all, that the practice of
forbidding the reading of erroneous books has been promoted
vigorously in the Church from the very earliest centuries, and
upheld without interruption since then; and that the Catholic
Church, in Her proscription of books, has always proceeded
with careful discernment and due process.

My intention here is to treat this question copiously, principally

because experience clearly shows how the aforementioned
erroneous opinions considerably erode the authority of the
Church and withdraw the minds of the faithful from that
deference which is owed to the Church’s definitions. As a result,
the poor faithful fall easily into many other errors contrary to
faith and morals, resulting in an immense loss of souls.

For these reasons, I thought it worthwhile to publish this

treatise, in which I will first show the necessity of prohibiting
all books that can lead readers into error. Second, I will prove
that the Church’s law forbidding books was established from
its very origin and confirmed by uninterrupted custom.
Thirdly, we will demonstrate how prudently and lawfully the
church has always proceeded and even now proceeds in this
prohibition. Finally, we will refute the frivolous objections of a
number of heretics, from whom Catholics have incautiously
borrowed opinions and shamelessly spread them among the
public, causing great ruin among the faithful.

 CHAPTER I.
THE UTILITY AND NECESSITY OF PROHIBITING
HARMFUL BOOKS IS DEMONSTRATED

That we must avoid the society of heretics.

1. The Lord explicitly commands us to avoid heretical men with

all effort and zeal, as much in the Old Testament[1] as in the
New.[2] Most notably, we find in St. John (II Jn. 10): “If there
come any unto you, and bring not this doctrine, receive him not
into your house, neither bid him God speed.” For as St. Paul
wisely said (II Tim. 2:16-17), their words “will increase unto
more ungodliness. And their word will spread like a cancer.”

Hence John made every effort to avoid Ebion. He even scorned

to enter a bathhouse if Cerinthus had used it.[3] Polycarp
comported himself in the same way towards
Marcion.[4] Eusebius of Vercelli preferred to die of hunger
than to take bread from the hands of Arians.[5] St. Cyprian,
speaking about certain excommunicates, warned his flock in
this way: “Do not easily give ear to deceptive words, lest you
mistake shadows for light…, poison for medicine, death for
health… Keep yourselves far from these men’s contagion, and
avoid their conversations as if you were fleeing a cancer or the
plague.”[6]

Further, the Church always made sure that the faithful avoided
any association with heretics and excommunicates, a fact to
which St. Ephrem,[7] Alexander Alexandrinus,[8] St.
Athanasius,[9] and St. Leo[10] testify together with the
councils, Popes, and all the Fathers.

That dangerous books are much more to be avoided.

2. Therefore, if the Church so insistently commanded the

faithful to avoid the company of anyone who speaks falsely,
how much more ought Christians to avoid harmful books,
which corrupt readers much more easily than speech? If the
spoken word that instantly flits away still creeps in like a
cancer and deals a mortal wound, what evil might not come
from a dangerous book, which remains a perpetual font of
subversion? An impious book can make its way into any home,
even if the author himself is denied entry.

If religion and public order cannot be maintained while wicked

men are allowed to spread false doctrines or circulate
dangerous opinions contrary to accepted norms of morality—
as the Congruit law says[11]—how much more will they be
threatened if worthless rascals such as these are permitted to
disseminate these same opinions even more widely in writing,
and make them more compelling with cunning arguments that
are more dangerous when read than heard? For whatever we
read makes a stronger impression on our minds and more
easily slips into our hearts. Just as holy reading can foster
virtue, perverse reading urges us into vice; and more strongly
so, since men are more naturally inclined to vice than to virtue.
St. Basil was right to call books the food of the soul; because just
as food is pleasurable while we eat it, and goes on to become
human blood, so a book pleases when read—for who reads
unwillingly?—and thus is more quickly digested.

Further, a reader gives himself like a student to the author he

reads, offering him a docile and benevolent heart, and thus
leaves himself vulnerable to deception. For it is very difficult
not have some affection toward an author, from which it easily
comes about that the impiety and error latent in the text is
absorbed insensibly, and later tenaciously retained.
How impious writers disguise their poison.

3. Consider also that impious writers embellish their errors

with great care, in order to deceive both the simple and the
educated. They never state their case openly, at least in the
beginning. Instead, they vest it in specious arguments,
impressive erudition, and an attractive style, thus slipping a
lethal venom past our guard.

While they earnestly profess their sanctity and zeal, protest

their solicitude for the public good, and offer sound rules of
perfection, they lurk like a snake in the grass. You will see them
making innumerable references to Scripture and the Fathers,
all of it either distorted or falsely interpreted. Thus the heretics
have learned to deceive many, knowing that their fetid
concoctions will not easily please if taken alone; and so with
heavenly eloquence they dilute them with pleasing perfumes,
so that some people who otherwise abhor impiety are led to
hold divine revelations in contempt. About these the Savior
cried: “Beware of false prophets, which come to you in sheep’s
clothing, but inwardly they are ravening wolves”(Matt. 7:15).
What does “sheep’s clothing” signify, if not that pretended piety
with which deceptive authors skillfully endue themselves?
what “ravening wolves” except the notions of heretics, who
tear apart the Christ’s flock? “See,” Origin writes, “that the
brilliance of the work does not deceive you, lest the beauty of
its golden diction seize and carry you off.”[12] St. Gregory says
the same: “The heretic mixes together truth with perversity in
his speech, so that, by exhibiting good things, he captures the
goodwill of his audience; and by giving out the bad, he corrupts
them with hidden errors.”[13]

4. It is very pertinent here to refer to the words of a learned

heretic, Abraham Le Moine, who, speaking about the many
books published in English smacking of atheism, said this:
Books likes these, when many of them fall into the hands of the
people, engender infinite harm, the more so because they appear
at first so very well presented, with laudable intention and
convincing argument. Each one defeats all incredulity. But these
English authors, under the pretext of handing down the Gospel’s
truth, supplant its very foundations with their subtle “difficulties”
and subvert its principles, omitting nothing by which its
teachings might be rendered deeply suspect. They foment a
disease that much more lethal, as it is more subtle and casually
admitted. Hence, persons of unsound mind drink deeply, seeing
nothing to cause suspicion. They mix ironic taunts with erudite
sayings, the better to obscure the truth with their filth. And
because novelty causes delight, and religious instruction in this
country is deplorable whilst the inclination to depravity is great,
it is no wonder if books of this sort pervert the spirits and hearts
of those who read them carelessly. The efforts of the agnostics
bear quick fruit: readers are ensnared, scruples enter in, and
finally they become unbelievers almost without knowing it. Thus
an unrestrained liberty of thought necessarily and irresistibly
creates license in the heart; these things indulge the passions and
enlarge the dominion of the vices. Hence it may truly be said, that
this great polity [he speaks of London] was never more depraved
than it is today. And indeed nearly every other European state
and kingdom is so miserably infected; but without a doubt they
would be even worse off, if in them was permitted that liberty of
thought, expression, and publication which exists here.

Thus far Le Moine. Certainly this heretic’s loud complaints

alone suffice to show how indispensible it is for the support of
religion and public peace to prohibit pernicious books.

And would what this author asserts in the last place were false,
namely that the plague of atheism has infected many Catholics!
To what ought this fact be attributed, except to the reading of
books condemned for their false doctrines? Other Englishmen
join this heretic in decrying this pestilence spreading among
their nation; but meanwhile they take little care to suppress
that excessive liberty of publication and access to books. In the
times when England obeyed the Roman Church, there was not
so much lament over agnostics, atheists, deists, or
latitudinarians, for the very reason that none of them were
allowed to publish, and none of the books promoting their
doctrines were allowed to be read.

That men are corrupted by reading impious books.

5. Now we ought to demonstrate this through examples. Bl.

Dionysius Alexandrinus, in Baronius,[14] attests that the
harmful books of Nepos, a bishop on the side of the chiliasts,
won over nearly half the Orient. In Mesopotamia, Bardesanes
Syrus had already converted to the faith and was for a long time
so conspicuous for his piety and so dutiful in opposing heretics
in speech and writing that all Catholics admired him. But upon
reading some volumes of the Valentinians, he not only
subscribed to their errors but invented even more strange and
atrocious errors, and thereby seduced innumerable
men.[15] — St. Jerome asserts that Spain and Portugal would
not have been contaminated, if the books of the Priscillians had
not been published there.[16] — Similarly St. Turibius, in his
letters to Idacius, Ceponius and Bl. Leo, deplores the corruption
of Spain and Gaul of Narbonne on account of some wicked
books, which he blamed as the sole cause of such a
disaster.[17] — Eutyches, before an unconquerable defender
of the faith, after one reading of a book of some Manichean, was
changed into the unspeakable fount of innumerable
heretics.[18] Afterwards, detained in a monastery, he was
forced to keep his voice quiet, but notwithstanding the silence
of their author his writings never ceased to conquer the East
with their corruption. — Julian of Halicarnassus, in Caria,
similarly defected from the faith after reading Valentinus’s
books.[19] Avitus also, a Spanish priest, reading Origen’s
books, although he read a confutation of them at the same time
and had been admonished by Jerome to avoid his errors,
mortally quaffed the disease.[20]
The mournful Heinrich Bullinger, a Catholic doctor, once not
only very pious, but zealous for perfection, soon before he
would have entered a Carthusian monastery happened upon a
book of Melanchthon, and even though he was warned by a
terrifying inner voice, compelled to read by a demon he read
and he fell: and so, from the holy service of God the poor priest
went to Satan.[21]

John Wycliffe, after many of his evil works were published in

England, never made many followers for his errors as long as
he taught them by word of mouth, even though he spoke almost
nothing but calumny; but when he poured out his wicked
books upon the public, he caused all Bohemia, which he had
never even visited, to be lost, and handed the poisoned cup to
even more. For when Jan Hus received Wycliffe’s books from a
Bohemian who had studied at Oxford, he disseminated their
impious doctrines everywhere.[22]

For the sake of brevity we have omitted other similar stories,

which are found everywhere in history. It is plain enough to the
educated that in nearly every case new heresies are drawn and
copied from the books of other, older heretics.

That the Fathers protected the faithful from erroneous

books.
6. Hence councils, Pontiffs, and saintly princes, by both pen
and voice, by both censure and other penalties, were all for
the extirpation of books that in any way worked to pollute
faith and morals. — Hence the Fathers in their writings
especially tried to steer the faithful from reading books of this
sort. Origen maintained that those who peruse immodest or
impious books without cause are guilty of the same sin as
those who eat meat sacrificed to false gods.[23] St. Isidore
wrote that reading impious works is the same as burning
incense to the devil; and he added that it is not licit for
Christians to read the lies of the poets, because they can excite
the mind to lust. St. Jerome says: “No one steps into a leaky
boat if he wants to learn to avoid shipwreck; would you
then turn your innocent soul to a book full of heresies in order
to learn the Catholic truth?” More strongly Tertullian: “No one
is built up by that which destroys him; no one is illuminated
by that which casts him into shadow.”[24]

Even heretics have done the same.

Even the blasphemous Luther published a book supporting
the destruction of books containing false doctrines.[25] Calvin
too would rail against bad books.[26] It is also known that in
1533, the books of Michael Servetus, together with their
impious author, were all burned in Geneva by Calvin’s orders.

As have the Gentiles.

Even the gentiles, led by reason and experience alone, came to
the same conclusion concerning the destruction of bad
writings. Plato, for example, thought it necessary that books
be subjected to examination by the wise before being passed
on to others.[27]

The custom of burning books among the pagan nations.

7. Indeed, the custom of removing books of ill-repute
prevailed in all the civilized nations of the world. Among the
Hebrews, when he had received a book transmitted by
Jeremiah through Baruch, Joachim cast it into the flames
fearing it might be a scandal to the Jews.[28] King Herod, as
well, wanted to burn all books of Hebraic origin, as dangerous
to public peace.[29] — Among the Syrians, Antiochus
Epiphanes decreed by public edict that the books of the
Hebrews must be burned.[30] — Among the Athenians,
Protagoras was abolished everywhere by legislative decree
and his works consigned to public burning, since in them he
cast doubt on the existence of the Gods. Cicero[31] and
Lactantius. — [32] Among the Greeks, the works of Epicurus
were also burned.[33]
Among the Romans, a farmer plowing his fields found an
ancient tomb containing some works of Numa, in which Numa
spoke unfavorably (though truly) about Roman religion. The
Senate ordered them burned.[34] Marcus Aemilius,
discovering a cargo of books being shipped to Rome, ordered
that all of them be burned, since they contained novel rituals
and prayers. In Baronius,[35] Arnobius asserts that the
Romans tried to extirpate Cicero’s De Natura Deorum, where
Cicero clearly seemed to speak against their religion.[36] Many
Roman laws are extant commanding books of ill-repute to be
burned.[37] Livy testifies that one duty of the Pontifex
Maximus was to censure, condemn, and burn
books.[38] Emperor Augustus burned over two thousand
books whose authors were either unknown or
disreputable.[39] The same emperor tried to prevent Ovid’s De
Arte Amandi being read and sent its author into exile.

That obscene books and tracts about love must be

removed.

8. Here we must insist that bishops and priests make every

effort to remove from their sheep all books that are obscene or
that treat of illicit love, books that Origen wisely called the cups
of Babylon, full of venom, and St. Augustine: “Frogs climbing
out of the mouths of beasts.” — Even the gentiles denounce this
kind of indecent writing. Plato said that immodest books ought
to be kept entirely out of cities. Among the
Lacedaemonians and the whole Spartan realm, it was
forbidden to read and own the books of Archilochus, because
they were obscene.[40] There is a rumor passed on by
Beyerlinck that Virgil ordered the Aeneid burned because of
Dido’s immoral love affair.

On the emergence of “romance” literature.

Many books of this genre called “romance” (romanzi in the

vernacular) are in common circulation everywhere today, and
fall into the hands of simple adolescents. The creator of this
Romance genre was Heliodorus, Phoenix, a bishop of Trikala in
Thessalia, as Nicephorus has it.[41] This bishop had written
such a book in his youth, which easily induced youths to
immorality. A provincial synod, apprised of this danger,
ordered Heliodorus to either burn his work or renounce his
episcopate. He preferred to relinquish his office than to destroy
his work.

That romances are dangerous and to be condemned.

9. The romance genre is not condemned universally by church

law, for the Index bans only “books, which treat, narrate, or
teach lascivious or obscene matters as their chief
subject.”[42] Nevertheless, as a learned author Continuator
Tournely notes, such books are often to be avoided per se, on
account of the grave damage they cause to readers, for they are
more dangerous when their intent is more disguised.[43] —
Alexander Tassoni writes about this genre:

By reading about amorous chance incidents and schemes and

obscene books, particularly in the solitude and leisure that
literature requires, obscene phantasms and thoughts and desires
for illicit things arise under the guise of pleasure and delight and
the prudent faculties are abandoned.[44]

Further, these impurities do not gush forth upon him

openly, but cloud his heart mysteriously by enkindling profane
passions, alienating him from God and urging him strongly
towards evil; just as, when the occasion is given, a man easily
rushes into sinful lusts, and more intractably perseveres in
them afterward.

This should be noted too, that sometimes fathers of families are

guilty, because their duty is to keep these indecent books from
the hands of their children. If they fail to do so, they must
understand that they are guilty of sin. And let them not
complain if their children neglect their studies because,
obsessed with romances, they refuse to read more edifying
books. Thus they remain uncultivated and turn out vicious.
— John Gerson, writing against some romance book called On
the Rose, mentions Augustus’s ban on Ovid’s book, exclaiming:
“O God!…O the morals of our time! A pagan judge condemned
another pagan whose teachings seduced men to immorality;
and among Christians and by the agency of Christians this book
and far worse are not only sold, but even praised and
defended!”

10. Of a similar vein is the book entitled Faithful

Shepherd (today explicitly condemned, for good reason); Peter
Bayle says that there used to be an ignorant man who took it
upon himself to defend this pernicious little book, arguing
foolishly that it would cause no harm, if only girls would refuse
the lovers who come to them! Bayle—though he is otherwise
impious and irreligious—rightly berated that idiotic apologist
(I translate from the French):

This response is sophistical because it demands a condition that

the book itself makes very difficult. You ask two things: that we
read the book, and that we refuse lovers. If you ask both these
things, you are unjust, because the same poem undermines our
strength to resist them. It fills us with sexual passions, ignites
concupiscence, clouds the mind, impels us violently to seek the
presence of lovers… But even granting we are able to refuse
them: on account of these stories won’t we poor wretches still be
tossed and turned by impure passions?

Bayle continues to insist that this genre of books ought to be

everywhere entirely abolished.

That we must avoid the pagan poets.

11. Cicero wrote: “Do you see how much evil the poets bring?
…they soften our hearts…, they destroy every fiber of
virtue.”[45] Thus Quintilian forbade the works of Horace and
poets of his ilk to be read to his boys.[46] St. Jerome said: “The
songs of poets are the food of demons.”[47] Even Luther,
himself a man of the lowest morals, wrote: “The books of
Juvenal, Martial, Catullus, and the Priapeia of Virgil must be
removed from all cities and schools because they write such
vile and obscene things that they cannot be read by the young
without great harm coming of it.[48] — Even more dangerous
is that wicked book of Boccaccio (which after being
expurgated remains in circulation). In my opinion, it can do
more damage to youths than the works of Luther and Calvin.

That the excuse of teaching language is a pretense.

Some argue that from these works students may learn not
only choice idiom but also many things that are conducive to
good morals. John Gerson responds well in his critique of the
romance On the Rose: “I ask you, are the objectionable parts in
them deleted? Fire is more dangerous. The baited hook still
hurts the fish, and a honeyed blade cuts none the worse.”
Gretserus sagely adds: “For these purposes you will find
everything you need, but more pure, whole, and sincere in the
writings of Catholic writers. What need is there to turn to
those muddy little streams? Who would not more eagerly
drink limpid water, than water tinctured with venom, even if
he knows how to filter out the venom? At least the one who
drinks water free of any contagion is spared the danger of
death and the labor of filtration.”[49] — Augustine also wrote
against those who would read Terence to learn vocabulary:
“You will not learn those words more easily through their
uncleanness; rather the uncleanness they teach will become
easier to perpetrate. I do not blame the words…, but the
draught of error to be found in them.”[50]

Wicked books must be rooted out and destroyed

completely.
12. But let us return to our theme and draw the conclusions
following from all the arguments adduced: Nature herself
teaches that books offending religion or good morals should
be destroyed by all possible means. All theologians teach the
same, adding that not even the Pope Himself could permit
someone to read a book that could be damaging to his faith.
Juenin,[51] Continuator
Tournely,[52] Graveson,[53]Busenbaum (see Lib. II, n. 19, ad
6), Habert.[54] The most learned Silvius adds, according to
Continuator Tournely, that no one can read the works of
heretics without proximate danger of grave sin, unless he has
studied theology for at least three or four years.

Therefore if the gentiles, as we saw above, thought it necessary

for the preservation of their false religion to destroy subversive
books, how much harder must the Church strive to guard the
true religion unscathed? “It is imperative,” said Theodosius,
“that no one should so much as hear about any book provoking
God’s wrath or tempting men’s souls to wickedness and
deceit.” And Marcianus said: “The occasion of error is removed,
if neither teacher nor listener are to be found.” And “May all the
vestiges of wickedness perish utterly in flames.”[55] Charles V
wisely offered these words: “If we throw away even the most
expensive food when we suspect it of being tainted with poison
harmful to the human body, how much more ought we to avoid
those writers which are everywhere infected with such
noxious venom for souls, and, so that no harm comes to others,
should we not obliterate them from the memory of
mankind?”[56]

NOTES
[1] Deuter. XIII, 6 et seqq.

[2] Rom. XVI, 17; Tit. III, 10.

[3] Baronius, Annal., ad ann. 74, n. 8 et 9.

[4] Euseb., Histor. Eccles., lib. 4, cap. 14.

[5] Baronius, Annal., ad ann. 365, n. 96.

[6] Epist. 40, ad plebem, etc., n. 4 et 5.

[7] De Virtute, cap. 8.

[8] Epist. Ad Alexand. Constantinop., 13.

[9] Vita S. Anton., n. 68

[10] Serm. 16, de Ieiun., cap. 5.

[11] Edit.–The law Congruit referred to here contains this article: “The good and
serious ruler must assure that the region he governs remains quiet and peaceful.
This will not be difficult, if he takes care to find and rid the province of bad men,
namely, the sacrilegious, robbers, kidnappers, and thieves.”

[12] Origen., in libr. Iesu Nave, homil. 7, n. 7.

[13] Moral., lib. 5, cap. 11, n. 28

[14] St. Dionysius Alexandrinus, in Baronius’s Annales Ecclesiastici, 264 A.D., n. 5,

says that a false dogma (from a book of Nepos) was published: “so that not only were
schisms born, but whole churches fell away from the faith.”

[15] Ephraim Chambers, Dizionar. Univers., v. Bardesanisti.

[16] St. Jerome, in Isaiam, lib. 17, cap. 64, v. 4 et 5, says that many young girls in Spain
and Portugal were deceived by reading the apochryphal books, “to seek the portents
of Basilis, Balsamus, and Thesaurus, Barbelo and Leusibora, and other names.”

[17] Zaccaria does relate this in Storia polemica delle proibizioni de’ libri, lib. 2, diss.
1, cap. 4, n. 5; but the letter of St. Turibius of Asturia is written only to Idacius and
Ceponius, and is found among the epistles of St. Leo. Nor does the substance refer to
Gaul of Narbonne, but to Gallicia, as it seems we can gather from Leo’s epistle 14.

[18] See Anastasius Sinaita

[19] Viae dux advers. Acephalos, cap. 14.

[20] Baronius, ad ann. 414, n. 10 et 11.

[21] Ladvocat, Dizionar. Portat, v. Bullinger.

[22] Cochleus, Historia Hussitarum, lib. 1, pag. 7 et seqq.; see also Bon. Blanciotti,
Nota c ad doctrinam 6 Wicleffitarum, apud Thomam Waldensem, tom. 1, fol. 19.

[23] In Numer., homil. 20, num. 3.

[24] De Praescript., capit. 12.

[25] See Sleidanus.

[26] Braschius, De Libert. Eccl., tom. 3, capit. 26, num. 5.

[27] Plato, de Republ., dialog. 2, v. f.

[28] See Bodinus.

[29] Eusebius

[30] Joseph Hebraeus

[31] De Natur. Deor., lib. 1, cap. 23.

[32] Lib. De Ira Dei, cap. 9.

[33] Erasmus

[34] Valerius Maximus and Pliny

[35] Annal, ad ann. 302, n. 19.

[36] Advers. Gent., lib. 3, cap. 7; cfr. Migne, Patrol. Lat., tom. 5.

[37] L. Caeterae 4, ff. Familiae erciscundae, § Tantumdem; Paul. Jul. Sententiar.

Receptar., lib. 5, tit. 23, § 12; L. Damnato 6 et 1. Quicumque 8, § ult., C. De haeret. et
Manich.

[38] Lib. 6, cap. 1; cfr. IX, 46, et lib. 39, 16 (edit. Taurin.).

[39] Suetonius, In Octav. August., cap. 31. Origen, in Jerem., homil. 21, n. 7 et
seq. Plato, de Repub., dialog. 2 et 10.; and Nicephorus

[40] Valerius Maximus

[41] Eccles. Hist., lib. 12, cap. 34.

[42] Reg. VII; cfr. et Constit. Officiorum, cap. 14, n. 9.

[43] De Decal., cap. 1, art. 1, punct. 3, § 2, concl. 2.

[44] Pensieri diversi, lib. 7, cap. 11, v. Che similmente.

[45] Tuscul. Disputat., lib. 2, cap. 11.

[46] De Institut. Orator., lib. 1, cap. 8, n. 6.

[47] Epist. 21, ad Damas., n. 13.

[48] Serm. Convivial., tit. de Authoribus; Gersonius, tract. Contra Romanti. De Rosa,
v. Si dicatis.

[49] De Iure et more prohib. etc. libros haeret. etc., lib. 1, cap. 29.

[50] Confess., lib. 1, cap. 16, n. 26

[51] Instit. Theol., part. 7, diss. 4, qu. 1, cap. 6, art. 3, § 2, qu. 2.

[52] Decal., cap. 1, art. 1, punct. 3, § 2, concl. 2.

[53] Histor. eccl., saec. XVI, colloq. 6, i. f.

[54] Tr. De Fide, etc., cap. 4, qu. 9.

[55] Act. Concil. Halcedon., part. 3, cap. 12 et cap. 19. Cfr. 1. Quicumque 8, C. de
Haeret. et Manich.

[56] Edict. Wormat. 1521, apud Petram, inconstit. Gelasii Valde, sect. un., n. 8.

Have the Principles of the Right
been Discredited? Leo Strauss’s
Rome and Ours
by Gabriel Sanchez

[T]he fact that the new right-wing Germany does not tolerate
us says nothing against the principles of the right. To the
contrary: only from the principles of the right, that is from
fascist, authoritarian and imperial principles, is it possible with
seemliness, that is, without resort to the ludicrous and
despicable appeal to the droits imprescriptibles de l’homme[the
rights of man] to protest against the shabby abomination. I am
reading Caesar’s Commentaries with deep understanding, and
I think of Virgil’s Tu regere imperio . . . parcere subjectis et
debellare superbos [to rule the peoples . . . to spare the
conquered and subdue the proud]. There is no reason to crawl
to the cross, neither to the cross of liberalism, as long as
somewhere in the world there is a glimmer of the spark of
Roman thought. And even then: rather than any cross, I’ll take
the ghetto.

These striking words, penned by a Leo Strauss in his May 19,

1933 letter to Karl Löwith, remain at the heart of a seemingly
endless debate over whether or not one of the most polarizing
thinkers of the past century was not only the secret
mastermind behind the ideology of neoconservatism, but also
a crypto-fascist whose obscure and labyrinthine books lead
unsuspecting young men to adopt opprobrious political
principles. Had Strauss never become the progenitor of a
controversial hermeneutics and the founder of loosely aligned
“school” which, if one believes the frequent complaints of Paul
Gottfried, has strong-armed itself into unmerited positions of
power and prestige in American academia, the paragraph
quoted above might be interpreted for what it likely is: a young
German Jew’s defiant rejection of an intellectually, morally, and
pragmatically bankrupt liberalism which had, since the close of
the Great War, helped plunge Germany into socio-economic
ruin while proving incapable of stopping the rise of National
Socialism. Strauss saw first-hand what the principles of the Left
had done to his native land; the principles of the Right—fascist,
authoritarian, and imperial—were, to a fledgling scholar who
would later inform readers that he was caught in the midst of
the theological-political problem, all that was left.

Eight decades later all of us, whether sympathetic to

“Straussianism” or not, can appreciate that Strauss was holding
to a dream that never came true. Though opinions vary with
respect to where Strauss believed “a glimmer of the spark of
Roman thought” still existed in the 1930s—Great Britain?
Italy? The United States?—it is clear that no imperium came
forward in time to vanquish the Nazis before they blanketed
the Continent in genocide. Strauss informed Löwith that rather
than liberalism he’d “take the ghetto.” Would he have taken the
gas chamber, too? Perhaps the horrors which transpired after
Strauss wrote his letter changed his mind. By 1937 he was
living in the United States and, according to some of his
students, voted Democrat. While some still seek to find
totalitarian teachings in Strauss’s body of work, it should not
go unnoticed that a significant contingent of his students and
their own academic progeny have written a library’s worth of
commentary on, along with defenses of, the American
Founding and the thought of liberal thinkers ranging from John
Locke and Montesquieu to Thomas Jefferson and Abraham
Lincoln.

We living in the West today are far removed from the concrete
political situation Strauss was facing in the 1930s. The
principles of the Right, so the story goes, proved themselves to
be as incapable of sustaining domestic and international order
as the principles of the Left—those which informed Soviet
Russia and the communist polities of Asia and Latin America.
Where the Right has emerged, often in reaction to the Left, it
has, at best, quickly decayed into petty authoritarianism or, at
worst, initiated years of bloody persecution before eventually
ceding to liberal ideology. Have the principles of the Right not
been discredited?

The answer to that question is “Yes,” albeit with qualifications.

None of the principles of the Right Strauss adumbrates in his
1933 letter are intrinsically good or meaningful in and of
themselves. They are lower principles that must be ordered to
higher ones; as such they remain negotiable. The Roman
thought to which Strauss alludes is, needless to say, not Roman
Catholic thought; it is superficially pagan and imperial,
untransformed by the light of the Gospel. A new imperium
based on “a glimmer of the spark of Roman thought” which can
impose a degree of order and stability in an otherwise chaotic
world fractured by ideological and religious strife has a certain
practical draw to it, but only if one believes—as Strauss likely
did—that there should be no notice given to which, if any, of
these contending powers marches on the side of Truth. So long
as a “new Rome” spares the conquered and subdues the proud,
there will be right order. Beyond this brute reality there is
nothing left to do except carve out, privately, one’s “way of
being.”

And this is where liberalism appears again on the horizon,
quickly moving in to ensnare those under it in an unserious, but
entertaining, life without the fear of a violent death. Deprived
of its gods and cults—without its political theology—what
would imperial Rome have been except a more visceral form of
liberalism? There is a possible irony here insofar as Strauss, in
1932, excoriated Carl Schmitt for failing to extricate himself
fully from the machinery of liberalism in his review of the
latter’s anti-liberal polemic The Concept of the Political. “The
critique introduced by Schmitt against liberalism,” according to
Strauss, “can . . . be completed only if one succeeds in gaining a
horizon beyond liberalism”—something Strauss only believed
possible from the standpoint of pre-modern philosophy,
medieval and ancient. When it came to seeking a concrete
power “to the rule the peoples,” Strauss longed for something
neither medieval nor ancient, but thoroughly modern.

Perhaps Strauss wasn’t deaf to this difficulty; maybe he just

didn’t care. In looking for a space to live in a world
contemptuous toward his existence as a Jew, Strauss was
agnostic toward the truth of any prevailing orthodoxy so long
as it demanded little while furnishing protection. He would
neither flatter nor challenge this orthodoxy; it would let him be
and he would, overtly at least, leave it alone. There’s an
argument to be made that this is exactly what Strauss did
during the last four decades of his life, ensconced in a liberal
polity that has become increasingly less bashful about its limp-
wristed imperialism and soft socio-economic authoritarianism.

Strauss could hold to that view, but we—Catholics of the 21st

Century—cannot. We are not agnostic about orthodoxy and we
are rightly hostile toward the prevailing one. Our immediate
concern is not with the principles of the Right, but
the principles of right. We have no reason to crawl to the false
and crooked cross of liberalism or preach its perverted gospel
of individualism, materialism, and religious indifferentism, not
as long as there is a glimmer of the spark of Catholic thought
left in a world rapidly descending into a new dark age where
even the most elemental distinctions between high and low,
man and woman, child and beast, are blackened out. We do not
want the ghetto, but we will, for a time, take it over any
compromise or capitulation that would tear us asunder from
the indefectible teachings of our Holy Mother the Church and
the true Cross of our Lord Jesus Christ.
Cajetan on the soul-body model of
the relation of spiritual and
temporal authority
Thomas de Vio, O.P., Cardinal Cajetan (1469-1534) was one of
the most important commentators on the Summa theologiæ of
St. Thomas, whose teachings he defended against Scotists,
Renaissance Humanists, and Protestant Reformers. In the
following passage he explicates St. Thomas’s use of the
traditional likeness of the subjection of temporal to spiritual
power to the subjection of the body to the soul. Translated by
Timothy Wilson.

St. Thomas, ST IIaIIæ, q. 60, a. 6, obj. 3 and ad 3:

Obj. 3: Moreover, spiritual power is distinguished from

temporal power. But sometimes prelates having spiritual
power involve themselves in those matters which pertain to
the secular power. Therefore usurped judgment is not
unlawful.

[…]

Ad 3: To the third, it should be said that the secular power is

subject to the spiritual power as the body to the soul. And
thus judgment is not usurped if a spiritual prelate involves
himself in temporal matters so far as concerns those matters
in which the secular power is subject to the spiritual, or which
are granted to the spiritual power by the secular power.

Commentary of Cardinal Cajetan, in IIamIIæ, q. 60, a. 6

Having omitted the fifth article, the matter of which (as

regards subjects) has been discussed in the preceding Book;
in the sixth article, in the response to the third objection, note
that the Author, assuming from the decretal Solitæ
benignitatis, de Maiorit. et Obed.that the temporal power is
subject to the spiritual as the body to the soul, assigns two
modes in which the spiritual power involves itself in temporal
things: the first of which belongs to the spiritual power from
its nature; while the second belongs to it from another,
namely, from the secular power itself.

Now, for evidence of this assumption, know, from the De

anima bk. II [415b8-12; St. Th., In libros de anima, lib. II, lect.
vii], that the soul acts upon the body according to three kinds
of cause: namely, effectively, because it effects the corporeal
motions of the animal; formally, because it is its form; and
finally, because the body is for the sake of the soul. And it is
similar, proportionally speaking, regarding the spiritual
power in respect of the secular power: indeed, it is as its form
and mover and end. For it is manifest, that the spiritual is
formal in respect of the corporeal: and by this, the power
administering of spiritual things is formal in respect of the
power administering of secular things, which are corporeal. It
is also indubitably clear, that corporeal and temporal things
are for the sake of spiritual and eternal things, and are
ordered to these as an end. And since a higher end
corresponds to a higher agent, moving and directing; the
consequence is, that the spiritual power, which is concerned
with spiritual things as its first object, moves, acts, and directs
the secular power and those things which belong to it to the
spiritual end. And from this it is clear that the spiritual power,
of its very nature, commands the secular power to the
spiritual end: for these are the things in which the secular
power is subject to the spiritual. The text intends this
specification with the words: so far as concerns those matters
in which the secular power is subject to the spiritual. The
Author observes by this, that the secular power is not wholly
subject to the spiritual power. On account of this, in civil
matters one ought rather to obey the governor of the city, and
in military matters the general of the army, than the bishop,
who should not concern himself with these things except in
their order to spiritual things, just as with other temporal
matters. But if it should happen that something of these
temporal things occurs to the detriment of spiritual salvation,
the prelate, administering of these things through
prohibitions or precepts for the sake of spiritual
salvation, does not move the sickle unto another’s crop, but
makes use of his own authority: for as regards these things, all
secular powers are subject to the spiritual power. And thus,
besides the thing assumed, the first mode by which the
spiritual power judges of temporal things is clear.

And the second mode, namely, from the concession of the

secular power, is quite sufficiently clear in prelates who have
both jurisdictions in many places, as gifts from princes.

Integralism and The Logic of The

Cross.
By Edmund Waldstein, O.C.

I. Timothy Troutner’s Objections to Integralism

Catholic integralism is the position that politics should be

ordered to the common good of human life, both temporal
and spiritual, and that temporal and spiritual authority
ought therefore to have an ordered relation. As a
consequence, it rejects modern liberal understandings of
freedom. Timothy Troutner, in a recent article, strongly
objects to the integralist position. Troutner argues that
integralists in reacting to liberalism become liberalism’s
mirror image. Liberalism, he claims, is understandable as a
reaction to real errors in Christendom, and promoted,
though in a distorted way, the precious Christian truths of
the goodness of liberty and equality that Christendom had
forgotten. In simply rejecting liberalism as a deception of
the Anti-Christ, Troutner argues, integralists end up
defending indefensible crimes of Christendom, and
condemning important truths associated with liberalism.
Integralists commit a fatal error, Troutner thinks, in
attempting to attain spiritual ends by means of coercive,
temporal power. In this, he suggests they play the role of the
devil. Just as the devil tempted Christ in the desert with the
kingdoms of the world, so integralists tempt the Church
with the use of worldly power. But the power that the
Church uses should be quite different he maintains. Just as
Christ rejected the devil’s temptation and chose to win his
victory through the self-emptying sacrifice of the Cross, so
too the Church must strive for the spiritual end with
spiritual means, with a power that takes its form from
Christ’s kenotic love.
Troutner’s conclusion that integralism must be rejected by
Catholics is, however, false. The arguments that he uses to
support it are based on exaggerations and
misunderstandings. He tries to distinguish his own
understanding of freedom and equality from the liberal
understanding. But he does not distinguish them enough.
For Troutner, as for liberals, freedom and equality are
opposed to hierarchy and obedience. Whereas, in reality,
true freedom and true equality depend on hierarchy and on
obedience.
Troutner accuses integralists of uncritically accepting
everything about Christendom that liberals reject, thus
blinding their eyes to the errors of Christendom. But
integralists have always distinguished abuses of power in
Christendom and its proper uses. It is Troutner who
uncritically accepts liberal rejections of the use of temporal
power for spiritual ends an sich. Troutner manifests here a
view of temporal power as so deformed by libido
dominandi that it can never be used for good ends. On
Troutner’s view, grace does not heal, elevate, and perfect
man’s political nature, rather it replaces it with an
inclination to a vague and inconsistent anarchism.
Moreover, Troutner’s contention that integralists promote a
worldly understanding of power not formed by Christ’s
kenotic love, misunderstands both the form of power in
Christendom and (more importantly) Christ’s love. Christ
self-emptying in the Incarnation and the Crucifixion is
meant to restore and elevate the hierarchy of creation
wounded by sin, not to replace it with egalitarianism. Nor
was the Church’s juridical understanding of herself in
Christendom an imitation of worldly power, unaffected by
Christ’s kenosis. In fact, the very opposite is the case: the
form of temporal politics in Christendom was a conscious
imitation of the hierarchy of the Church and the rules of the
monastic orders. And the ruler was always understood as an
image of Christ, bound to give himself for the common good
of his commonwealth just as Christ offered himself for the
Church.
I am grateful for Troutner’s article, because it gives me the
opportunity to clarify the properly theological character of
integralism. I will do so by considering the
following points: the liberal understanding of freedom and
equality as a reactionary rejection of the goods of hierarchy
(II.), the goodness of created hierarchy (III.), the wounding
of that hierarchy through sin (IV.), the restoration and
elevation of it through Christ (V.), the Christological form of
politics in Christendom (VI.), and finally the incoherence of
Troutner’s Christian anarchism (VII.).

II. Liberalism’s Reactionary Rejection of Hierarchy

The modern liberal project has always aimed at overcoming

unjust inequality and servitude. Liberals have understood
the special privileges of aristocratic classes as a form of
unjust domination that has to be steadily overcome in favor
of equal civil and domestic liberty for all. Each person
should have as much liberty as is consistent with the same
liberty in others. In this, liberalism promotes in a half-
hearted way—moderated by cautious procedures
and indirect mechanisms—the same program of liberation
that has been pursued in a direct and violent way by
revolutionary and totalitarian leftism. Two of the most
eloquent recent defenses of this program are Helena
Rosenblatt’s The Lost History of Liberalism and Corey
Robin’s The Reactionary Mind.
Rosenblatt’s book is a history of liberalism from a frankly
liberal perspective. She attempts to defend liberalism
against critics who see it as individualistic and egotistical,
and as undermining virtue and religion. The liberal
tradition, she argues, is founded on the ideal of the ancient
virtue of generous and public-spirited liberality, purified of
its aristocratic element. Apart from a few marginal
libertarian cranks, she argues, the liberal tradition—the
tradition of Constant, Tocqueville, and Lincoln—has always
aimed at the public good, convinced that the abolition of
privilege and the establishment of civil and domestic liberty
serves that good, and fosters true virtue. Liberals, she
argues, have not been against religion as such, but have only
opposed reactionary forms of religion such as the Catholic
Church which by teaching the goodness of hierarchy and
obedience has always given ideological cover to tyranny.
Robin’s book is a strident defense of the same program of
liberation in the form of an attack on the reactionary
conservatism that has always opposed it. “Since the modern
era began,” Robin writes, “men and women in subordinate
positions have marched against their superiors in the state,
church, workplace, and other hierarchical institutions.”
Robin sees this series of rebellions of subjects against their
rulers—the bourgeoisie against the nobles, peasants against
land owners, workers against industrialists, wives against
husbands, and so on—as fully just. Conversely, the
reactionary response has always been unjust. It has been
the response of those who enjoy an unjust share of power
and liberty to defend that share. Reactionaries have always
clothed their propaganda in high-sounding, public-spirited
words, but this has always been a pure concoction of lies.
The original defense of hierarchy, Robin perceptively notes,
was in terms of “ancient and medieval ideas of an orderly
universe, in which permanent hierarchies of power reflected
the eternal structure of the cosmos.” Later reactionaries
were to modify such justifications somewhat, due to the
decline of their plausibility after the anti-teleological
Scientific Revolution, but the original justification remains
the foundation of reactionary thought. Again, like
Rosenblatt, Robin sees the Catholic Church, with her
hierarchical understanding of Divine Order, as being one of
the chief culprits in spinning the web of reactionary lies.
As an integralist I am convinced that Rosenblatt and Robin
are in error. Creation truly does reflect the goodness of the
Creator through the wonderful harmony of hierarchy—an
order of goods, an order of beings, an order of rulers and
subjects. And human affairs are indeed best when they
reflect that order; when they are composed of many parts
each subordinated to the other, the lower obeying the
higher in humble obedience, the higher helping the lower in
loving condescension. Rightly understood, freedom and
equality are true goods. As rational beings, men are capable
of understanding their good and pursuing it by their own
will: true freedom. As beings of the same specific nature,
men are all called to participate in the same common good:
true equality. But freedom and equality are goods that
depend on hierarchy and rule, obedience and humility. “If
you remain with my teaching,” our Lord says, “then you are
truly my disciples and you will know the truth, and the truth
will set you free” (John 8:32). True liberty is not opposed to
hierarchy and obedience; it depends on obedience to the
hierarchy of truth and goodness. And the same is true of
equality: “You are my friends if you do what I tell you to. No
longer do I call you slaves, because the slave does not know
what his master is doing; but I call you friends, because I
made known to you all that I heard from my father.” (John
15:14-15). Jesus raises his disciples from slavery to a quasi-
equality with God, so that they can even call him friends.
But this quasi-equality depends on submissive obedience to
the commands of the Lord. It is only in losing our lives in
this obedience that we find our true lives and reach our
deepest desires. Indeed, the great wonder of this quasi-
equality depends on a more fundamental inequality. It is
because God, as the shoreless ocean of perfect happiness, is
so infinitely higher than us that his condescension in calling
us into the friendship of his Trinitarian life is so marvelous.
I admit, of course, that in human affairs the good of
hierarchy has often been abused. Rulers have often
exploited their subjects for selfish advantage rather than
aiding them to attain to the common good. And, indeed, the
world has seen many false hierarchies—such as chattel
slavery—founded on unjust principles. But the abuse of
something does not take away its proper use.
Liberalism is a reactionary program in Troutner’s sense of
the word. In reacting to the abuses of hierarchy, liberalism
sees hierarchy itself as evil. This inevitably backfires. By
misunderstanding liberty and equality as opposed to
hierarchy, liberals deprive those whom they would liberate
of true liberty, true equality, and truly common goods. The
result is a tyranny worse than that which came before.

III. The Glory of God and Goodness of Cosmic Hierarchy

God is infinitely and perfectly happy. He is the absolute

fullness of being, the shoreless ocean of perfection, the
entirely satisfying good. And he possesses his infinite being,
perfection, and goodness by an unspeakably joyful act of
self-comprehension. An act of the most intense and
complete life—all at once, undivided, and undistended, and
yet eternal. In this eternal instant of his happiness he
expresses his self-comprehension in an interior Word, a
Word Who so faithfully expresses the Divine
comprehension that he is himself God: God the Son. The
eternal Son is not a second god, but the one and only God.
The Father looks at the Son and sees in him the perfect
image of his life, sharing indeed the very same act of
infinitely happy life. And the Son looks at the Father and
sees in him the source of that infinitely good and joyful life
that he is. And Father and Son love each other with a
boundlessly intense love. This love they express to each
other by breathing together an eternal sigh of love—a sign, a
kiss, an embrace, a gift: the Holy Spirit. So perfectly does
the Holy Spirit express the Divine love, that he is himself
the one God.
Father, Son, and Holy Spirit are the infinite happiness of
the divine life shared, given, and received in perfect unity.
In them perfect necessity coincides with something like
freedom, and perfect equality coincides with a holy order of
subordination. The Trinitarian processions are entirely
necessary; the Father cannot but generate the Son, and
Father and Son cannot but breathe the Holy Spirit. And yet
these processions are altogether personal and (as it
were) voluntary acts—in this sense they are free. The
Persons of the Blessed Trinity are entirely equal, since
each is the One God. And yet there must be an “order”
among them, since, as St. Thomas Aquinas teaches, “where
plurality exists without order, confusion exists.” Order
consists in the relation of many to one beginning. The
beginning here is the Father. Not a beginning in time—since
Son and Spirit are equally eternal—but a beginning in
procession. And this order from the beginning implies
subordination, as Blessed John Henry Newman says: “the
very idea of order implies the idea of the subordinate . . . a
subordination exists between Person and Person, and this is
the incommunicable glory of the God of Grace.” The Son is
subordinate to the Father, and the Holy Spirit is
subordinate to Father and Son. Newman calls the order of
the Divine Persons “glory,” because order or harmony is one
of the essential properties of beauty. The order of the Divine
Persons is the greatest and most piercing of beauties, and
therefore the most luminous glory. Son and Spirit love their
subordination in this order. They never stand on their
dignity or assert their rights. Joseph Ratzinger writes of the
Son that he is: “a completely open being, a being ‘from’ and
‘towards,’ that nowhere clings to itself and nowhere stands
on its own.” The same is true of the Holy Spirit.
Although the persons of the Blessed Trinity lack nothing,
yet by a wholly gratuitous outpouring of their goodness they
decide to create creatures, who participate by way of
similitude in their Creator. They create the intellectual light
of the angels—pure spirits so great that they exceed in
natural perfection the whole of the visible world. Each angel
by a single infused thought knows more than all human
philosophers of all the ages together. Each one reflects by its
unique nature some ray of the Divine light, and thereby
glorifies the creator. These spirits are incomparably more
numerous than the trillions upon trillions of visible stars.
And they are all unequal—from the highest seraph to the
lowest angel: a holy order of holy orders, holy
principalities, hierarchies ordered by and toward their
origin and end: the Hierē Archē, the Holy Beginning of all.
Each angel is like a universe on its own, and yet the unity of
order between them is the highest natural good in which
they share. God wills that they be bound together in this
order with the higher ruling the lower, and lower
submitting to the higher. The harmonious unity of order in
this countless multitude of spiritual creatures is a more
perfect reflection of the divine goodness, a more perfect
glorification of God, than any angelic nature taken by itself.
The order of the angels is a ravishingly beautiful symphony
of spiritual life. As Dionysius writes, the celestial orders
through their “mutual indwellings” and “the providences of
the higher for those beneath them” are “Evangelists of the
Divine Silence” revealing him in whom the participate.
In this order each good angel loves his subordination to his
superiors, and to the whole order. Their delight in the
reflection of God in the common good of their order, and in
their contemplation of him in their natural knowledge,
would have already been a very great happiness. But God
wished to raise them to a greater happiness still. By grace he
gives those who accept it a share in his Divine life, an
unmediated Vision of his essence. And so the angelic
hierarchies stand before him, beholding his face, and crying
out in an ecstasy of love and wonder: “Holy, holy, holy is the
Lord God of hosts” (Isa 6:3).
Here again there is a kind of equality, for each angel enjoys
the same common good, but it is an equality that depends
on the inequality of their hierarchical order. The spiritual
symphony whereby the angels proclaim the Divine Silence
is entirely determined in all its acts and motions, and yet
this is a completely voluntary and personal determination—
in a sense, it is freedom.
Next comes the material and visible creation: the galaxies
and stars, and then the Earth with its oceans and
mountains, and its living creatures, plants, and animals,
who in their unknowing lives still show some trace of the
beauty of their creator. And then comes man who is bridge
between the material and spiritual worlds: a body vivified
by a spiritual soul. The visible and the invisible are
therefore a single order. It is this order which is the greatest
manifestation of God outside of himself, and it is what he
principally intends in creation. As Beatrice puts it in
Dante’s Paradiso, the order that things have among
themselves is “the form that makes the world resemble
God.” Spiritual creatures find their perfection and
happiness in submitting to this order; in being subject to
other creatures; in being like the Divine Son (to use
Ratzinger’s words again) completely open beings, beings
“from” and “towards,” that nowhere cling to themselves and
nowhere stand on their own.
Man comes to knowledge of the whole of which he is a part,
and the Creator to which he is ordered, indirectly. His soul
is at first dark and ignorant, all its knowledge coming from
the impressions of its bodily senses. The other visible things
are for his sake; they are words spoken to man by God to
communicate himself to the human mind: “what is His and
invisible, His eternal power and divinity, has been perceived
by the mind through what He has made” (Rom 1:20). But,
wounded by sin, it is only with great difficulty that man can
come to knowledge. He must first master his lower passions
and purify his thoughts by the moral virtues, and then
ascend by reasoning to the intellectual virtue of wisdom. He
establishes thereby a hierarchical order between body and
soul and between the various faculties of the soul, with
everything ruled by the noblest faculty: reason. The virtuous
man becomes a microcosm, reflecting in his soul the order
of the whole of creation. And by subduing, naming, and
cultivating the irrational creatures he brings them up into
fuller participation in that order.
This order is reflected in an even greater way in the
communities in which men seek their good together. First
in the family, and the tribe or village, and then in the
complete community of the polity. The polity is practically
necessary for human beings to attain to virtue. Here too, a
hierarchical order of rulers and subjects is fitting. Unlike
the angelic hierarchies, which are given by nature, human
hierarchies have to be constructed by human reason. Unlike
the angels, human beings are equal in their essential nature.
Their hierarchies are therefore in one respect an even better
reflection of the order of the Divine Persons: subordination
to natural equals. The construction of human hierarchy is
therefore not a tragic necessity, but a great good—the
highest and most godlike intrinsic practical good of human
beings. It is a life which imitates Heaven. By submitting to
such hierarchical order, men are educated to become like
the Eternal Son, beings entirely “from” and “toward,” who
do not stand on their own dignity or oppose their rights to
the common good.
The intrinsic common good of political life is called “peace”;
it is a beautiful symphony of virtuous life. My fellow
integralist Jose Mena described peace well as not merely “a
condition in which we agree not to go to war,” but rather
“the harmonious activity of God’s creation working together
within the order of divine providence for the good of all and
the worship of God.” Peace is “bustling” and “fruitful,” and
manifests itself in all the virtuous actions of mutual care.
A good person loves his subordination to the common good
of peace. He finds his dignity in obeying his rulers for the
sake of a good in which both he and they share, in
cooperating with those of his own rank in common
subordination to that good, and in helping his subjects to
attain to it. There is here a kind of freedom—for each is
enabled to achieve the true good which he really wants. And
there is a kind of equality—for each shares in the same
common good. But such freedom and such equality depend
for their very existence on obedience and inequality.

IV. Lucifer’s Proto-Liberal Rebellion Against Hierarchy

The common good of order to which creatures are meant to

submit is a greater good for them than any private good.
But for creatures to love that good more than their private
good requires a certain self-transcendence. The origin of sin
is in a refusal of that self-transcendence, a refusal to submit
to a higher good. Lucifer, the Morning Star of creation, the
highest being in the order of nature, was too proud to
submit himself to the common good:
How wise thou wast, how peerlessly fair . . . a cherub thou
shouldst be, thy wings outstretched in protection . . . From
the day of thy creation all was perfect in thee, till thou
didst prove false . . . A heart made proud by its own
beauty, wisdom ruined through its own dazzling
brightness. (Ezek 28:12-17).
The sin of Lucifer is a refusal of the common good, because
that good is hierarchical and demands subordination.
As Charles De Koninck explains, Lucifer felt injured in his
dignity by the invitation to participate of a good common to
many. Lucifer’s exalted nature, and the high freedom that it
gave him, were not enough to secure him, since freedom is
only good to the extent that it submits itself to order. To
quote De Koninck: “The dignity of the created person is not
without ties, and the purpose of our liberty is not to
overcome these ties, but to free us by strengthening them.
These ties are the principal cause of our dignity. Liberty
itself is not a guarantee of dignity and of practical truth.”
And he refers to the following words of St. Thomas Aquinas:
“Aversion from God has the nature of an end, inasmuch as
it is sought for under the appearance of liberty, according to
Jer. 2:20: For a long time you have broken the yoke, you
have broken bonds, and you have said, ‘I will not serve.’”
Lucifer’s sin was therefore a proto-liberal rebellion against
hierarchy and obedience.
After having ruined himself by rebelling against God,
Lucifer tempts others into rebellion with him. By tempting
Adam into Original Sin, he brings the whole human race
into his rebellion. Adam and Eve’s sin in the Garden is a sin
of disobedience, a failure to submit to the order established
by God for their common good. Instead of becoming free
thereby, they become the slaves of sin, unable to attain the
good that they truly desire. From the sin of our first parents
onward a shadow lies across the course of human events.
Human beings rebel against God and worship false idols,
and then their relations among themselves are corrupted
by libido dominandi, the lust of domination. Subjects rebel
against their rulers, and rulers tyrannize over their subjects
and exploit them for private advantage, rather than guiding
them to participation in the common good.

V. The Restoration of Hierarchy in the Kenosis of the Cross

Since original sin was rebellion against hierarchy, our

Lord’s work of salvation is the exact opposite. He, the
Eternal Son, God from God, Light from Light, enters into
his own creation, taking on the form of a slave in order to
heal disobedience through obedience: “Even though he was
the son, he learned obedience from his sufferings; and,
made perfect, he became for all who obey him the cause of
everlasting salvation” (Heb 5:8-9). As the eternal Son he
was always obedient to the Father, but in his suffering he
“learned” obedience in our nature.
Jesus is not a proto-Jacobin revolutionary who comes to
liberate subjects from submission to their rulers. On the
contrary, he is the obedient one who comes to teach
obedience. Certainly, he also comes to comfort the poor and
the afflicted, to call tyrants to conversion, and to heal the
wounds caused by the abuse of hierarchy through a
preferential option for the poor and miserable. Therefore,
the tyrants of his time saw him as a dangerous
revolutionary. But they were in error. As St.
Quodvultdeus says about (and to) Herod:
When they tell of one who is born a king, Herod is
disturbed. To save his kingdom he resolves to kill him,
though if he would have faith in the child, he himself would
reign in peace in this life and for ever in the life to come.
Why are you afraid, Herod, when you hear of the birth of a
king? He does not come to drive you out, but to conquer the
devil.
As long as he is a tyrant who exploits the poor and weak,
Herod should indeed fear Christ who comes to save the
poor and oppressed. But as a tyrant Herod is himself a
rebel. If he were to start ruling for the common good, his
power would be legitimate, and he would receive his
authority from God. In that case he would have nothing to
fear from our Lord. Indeed, as the First Epistle of St. Peter
teaches, the Gospel is a call to all subjects to obey their
rulers:
For love of the Lord, then, bow to every kind of human
authority; to the king, who enjoys the chief power, and to
the magistrates who hold his commission to punish
criminals and encourage honest men. To silence, by honest
living, the ignorant chatter of fools; that is what God
expects of you. Free men, but the liberty you enjoy is not to
be made a pretext for wrong-doing; it is to be used in God’s
service. Give all men their due; to the brethren, your love;
to God, your reverence; to the king, due honor. You who
are slaves must be submissive to your masters, and show
all respect, not only to those who are kind and considerate,
but to those who are hard to please. It does a man credit
when he bears undeserved ill treatment with the thought of
God in his heart . . . Indeed, you are engaged to this by the
call of Christ; he suffered for our sakes, and left you his
own example; you were to follow in his footsteps . . . You,
too, who are wives must be submissive to your husbands . .
. It may be God’s will that we should suffer for doing right;
better that, than for doing wrong. It was thus that Christ
died as a ransom, paid once for all, on behalf of our sins,
he the innocent for us the guilty, so as to present us in
God’s sight . . . He sits, now, at the right hand of God,
annihilating death, to make us heirs of eternal life; he has
taken his journey to heaven, with all the angels and
powers and princedoms made subject under his feet. (2:13-
3:22).
The program of obedience sketched out here is the opposite
of the program of liberation described by the likes of
Rosenblatt and Robin.
Troutner is right to indicate that Christ in his first coming
did not use any coercive measures to lead men towards
their end, but this is because he was winning the interior
grace necessary for them to obey. He never denies the
legitimate use of coercion in a world wounded by sin and
vice. And, indeed, his apostles make use of coercive
measures in the early Church. They wield the spiritual
sword of excommunication themselves. And they hand
evildoers over to other powers for temporal punishment. St.
Peter delivers Ananias and Sapphira to the punitive power
of God for attempting to deceive the Church (Acts 5). And
St. Paul urges the Corinthians to excommunicate a man
guilty of incest and hand him over to the devil for bodily
punishment: “When you are assembled, and my spirit is
present, with the power of our Lord Jesus, you are to deliver
this man to Satan for the destruction of the flesh, that his
spirit may be saved in the day of the Lord Jesus.” (1 Cor 5:4-
5).
Troutner rightly points out that our Lord still resembles a
slaughtered lamb in the visions of the Apocalypse, bearing
the wounds that are the sign of the mild humility of his first
coming. But Troutner fails to mention that the same lamb
will come again in Glory at the end of days and consign all
who reject his salvation to the punishment of eternal fire:
“For if the word spoken by the angels proved certain, and
every transgression and disobedience got its just
punishment, how shall we escape if we neglect so great a
salvation?” (Heb 2:2-3). Contrary to what Troutner implies,
the humility of Christ in his self-emptying Incarnation and
Passion does not destroy the nature of political power; it
presupposes, heals, perfects, and elevates it.

VI. Christ and the Form of Christendom

Troutner claims that the integration of spiritual and

temporal power in medieval Christendom obscured the
nature of the Church. By seeing herself as a
juridical societas perfecta (complete society), she lost sight
of her true nature. She begins to resemble worldly powers
no-longer reflecting her Christological “form.” We have
already seen in the preceding question that Troutner’s
understanding of the Christological form is defective. The
form of Christ’s saving acts does not in fact exclude all
coercive uses of power. But there is another error in
Troutner’s claim. It is not true that the medieval Church
formed herself on the model of worldly power. The obverse
is true: the temporal powers of Christendom modeled
themselves on the hierarchy of the Church and the rules of
the monastic orders. Of course, medieval Christendom
included many different political arrangements and
theories, and I do not mean to defend them all. But I do
wish to defend some of its most characteristic forms. I want
to defend the ideal of a hierarchical society in which
elements of freedom and equality depend on hierarchies of
inequality and subordination. And, I want defend the
authoritative ideal of the relation of temporal and spiritual
power taught by popes such as St. Gregory VII and Innocent
III.
The barbarian tribes who conquered the Western Roman
Empire had traditionally been bound together by blood-
solidarity in what Francis Fukuyama calls “segmentary,
tribal institutions.” This blood-solidarity broke down,
“usually within a couple of generations after a barbarian
tribe’s conversion to Christianity.” What replaced it were
relations of fealty between lords and vassals, modeled in
certain respects on monastic vows. And (even more
importantly) what Andrew Jones calls “networks of counsel
and aid,” which went far beyond the networks of fealty and
were based on the understanding of Christian charity as a
form of friendship.
Perhaps no document is more useful for understanding the
political ideals of Christendom than the Rule of St. Benedict
of Nursia. The Rule is written not for complete political
communities, but for monasteries, and yet its influence on
medieval political life and jurisprudence was profound.
The monastic community described by St. Benedict is a
strictly hierarchical order, in which every monk has an
exactly defined place in a scale that ranges from the abbot
through all the rest of the monks ranked by the time of
entry, down to the monk or novice who was last to enter:
“He who shall have come into the monastery at the second
hour of a day shall know himself to be junior to him who
came at the first hour of that day, of whatever age or dignity
he may be.” (RB 63). Those who rank lower are to honor
and obey those who rank higher and address them
as Nonnus (Reverend Father), while the higher ranked are
to love those below them, and condescend to call
them Frater(Brother). Already here we see a certain
equality that depends on hierarchy. If a slave enters the
monastery, and later his former master joins as well, the
slave ranks higher than the one who was his master: “For
whether slaves or freemen we are all one in Christ and
under the one Lord bear equal rank of subjection.” (RB 2).
Moreover, each monk contributes to the common good of
the monastery, and all can make their voices heard in
chapter: “We have said that all are to be called to counsel
because it is often to the younger that the Lord reveals what
is better.” (RB 3).
The abbot is to be obeyed in everything, and to be
called Dominus (Lord) and Abbas (Father), because “he is
regarded as the vicar of Christ in the monastery.” The abbot
is to rule his monastery with wisdom and gentleness. He is
to apply punishments both corporal (beatings) and spiritual
(exclusion from common prayer and meals). In
administering these punishments the abbot has to be
mindful of different dispositions:
Suiting his actions to circumstances, mingling gentleness
with severity, let him show now the rigor of a master, now
the loving affection of a father; in other words, he should
sternly reprove the undisciplined and the restless; the
obedient and the meek and the patient ones, on the other
hand, he ought rather to entreat to advance in holiness;
but such, however, as are not amenable to correction and
are contemptuous of authority, we charge him to rebuke
and punish. Let him not shut his eyes to the faults of
offenders; but as soon as they make their appearance, let
him do his utmost to pluck them out by the roots,
remembering the fate of Heli, the priest of Silo (RB 2).
But he must also be mindful not to punish too severely “lest,
seeking too vigorously to cleanse off the rust, he may break
the vessel” (RB 64).
Is the “form” of the abbot’s power as described by St.
Benedict too worldly? Is he a victim of what Troutner calls
“cognitive dissonance” in using punishments to help his
monks to conform themselves to a crucified Lord? Surely
not. The form of abbatial authority is truly Christological.
The use of punishment in the Rule is a reaction to violation
of the peace, meant to lead monks back to Christ, and the
witness of monastic saints throughout the centuries testifies
to its wisdom. The goal is to lead sinners to true freedom:
If anything somewhat severe be laid down in this rule, as
reason may dictate, in order to amend faults or preserve
charity, do not straightway depart full of fear from the
way of salvation, which way cannot be entered upon
except by beginnings which are difficult. But when one
shall have advanced in this manner of life and in faith, he
shall run with his heart enlarged and with an unspeakable
sweetness of love on the way of God’s commandments.
(RB, Prologue).
As Andrew Jones has shown in Before Church and
State, the use of coercive power in Christendom was seen
precisely along the lines of punishment in Benedict. The two
swords, temporal and spiritual, were seen as being
necessary to punish those who rebelled against the peace,
and the more they were successful in leading Christians
back to Christ, the less they had to be used.
The Rulers of Christendom were seen as being—like
abbots—vicars of Christ. Ernst Kantorowicz, in his
masterpiece The King’s Two Bodies, gives a wealth of detail
on the Christological understanding of medieval Kingship.
The King was seen as the principle of the order of peace in
his kingdom, bound to serve it, and bound even to give his
life for it as Christ did for the Church. For example, he
quotes Cardinal Piccolomini, later Pope Pius II, as follows:
“The Prince himself, the head of the mystical body of
the respublica, is held to sacrifice his life whenever the
commonweal demands it.”
The great medieval king-saints were particularly praised for
their Christ-like devotion to the poor and wretched. Every
Holy Thursday they would symbolize that devotion by
washing the feet of twelve poor men with their own hands.
In their alms-giving and in their punishment of tyrannical
lords, these kings were to remedy the wounds caused by
abuses of inequality.
The forms of Medieval representation, such as the Estates
General, the Parliament, and the Cortes, were meant, like
the monastic chapter, to allow different ranks of the social
order to contribute to deliberation about the common good.
Thus, there were forms of equality imbedded in a society of
unequals. Society itself was meant to mirror the life of the
Blessed Trinity with Laity, Secular Clergy, and Monks; or
King, Lords, and Commons representing Father, Son, and
Holy Ghost. In their hierarchical orders of obedience they
were meant to grow in virtue and devotion to the common
good, becoming conformed to the Son of God, beings
entirely “from” and “toward.”
It is certainly true that Christendom did not always live up
to such ideals. There were many abuses. But Troutner
makes no distinction between abusive and legitimate uses of
temporal power. It would be wearisome to go through the
examples of the uses of power that Troutner mentions, and
distinguish abuses from proper uses (Thomas
Pink and others can be consulted on most of them). The
point that I want to make here is a more fundamental one:
power has good uses. Troutner quotes a passage from
Augustine’s De Trinitate in which Augustine teaches that
the devil is to be conquered not by power, but by justice. But
Troutner omits the immediately following sentence in
which Augustine clarifies the point: “Not that power is to be
shunned as though it were something evil; but the order
must be preserved, whereby justice is before it.” (De
Trinitate, XIII,13). The point is that justice precedes power,
not that power has no role. When power is preceded by
justice it can become a good, albeit secondary, instrument
to be used prudently in defending the peace and leading
those who have strayed back to the right path. Rulers must
be careful not to scrape off the rust too violently, lest they
break the vessel. But they must also be mindful of Heli, the
priest of Silo (Eli of Shiloh), who neglected to punish his
sons, to the great detriment of the common good of Israel.

VII. Against Troutner’s Christian Anarchism

Having rejected integralism, Troutner is not willing simply

to capitulate to liberalism. He proposes another model for a
non-liberal Catholic politics: namely the Catholic Worker
Movement of Dorothy Day. The idea is to work practically at
the local level to help the needy, combat oppression, and
embody as much as possible the principles of love, charity,
justice, and the universal destination of goods. Troutner
recognizes the limits of such local communities. But his
hope is that they can become “workshops for imagining,
along with non-Catholics of good will, an end to capitalism
and the replacement of liberal democracy with something
that preserves its achievements.”
Now, Dorothy Day was certainly an admirable woman, full
of love for God and his beloved poor. But her movement is
not an adequate model for Catholic politics. Day was an
anarchist and a pacifist, deeply formed before her
conversion by revolutionary leftism. This helped her to see
certain kinds of injustice very clearly. And we have much to
learn from her denunciations of capitalist exploitation. But
it also prevented her from adequately understanding the
goods of hierarchy and obedience, and the legitimate uses of
coercion in fostering the common good. She tried to base
her movement on the Sermon on the Mount. But her
interpretation of those verses was incomplete, because she
did not see clearly enough how they are to be read in the
light of other parts of the New Testament.
To illustrate what I mean, let me recall an anecdote from
Day’s autobiography, The Long Loneliness:
William Gauchat who headed the house of hospitality,
furnished an apartment for single women in need, and a
married couple arriving first, were sheltered there. But
when Bill wanted to put a few single women into the empty
bedrooms, the couple announced that they had possession
and refused to allow them entrance. Our guests know that
we will not call upon the police to evict them, that we are
trying to follow the dear Lord’s teachings, “If anyone take
your coat, let go your cloak also to him.” When another
family came to Maryfarm, we explained that we were
trying to open a retreat house and that we did not have
room for them. It was the family of one of our own willful
leaders who “loved God and did as he pleased.” He did not
wish to remain on a farm belonging to his father, where he
was forced to work too hard. He and his wife refused to
listen and unpacked their things to stay with us. First they
took over the lower farmhouse. After a few conflicts due to
their possessing themselves of retreat house goods (as
common goods) they moved to the upper farm to join
Victor. For the following year they continued their
guerrilla tactics from the upper farm, coming down to
make raids on the retreat house food and furnishings,
explaining to retreatants that they were true Catholic
Workers and that the retreat house was a perversion of the
movement.
Contrast this description with the Rule of St. Benedict as
described above. Superficially, Day’s approach might seem
more faithful to Matthew 5:40. But one must read such
passages more carefully and in a wider context. When Jesus
himself was stuck on the face by the servant of the High
Priest, he did not turn the other cheek, but rebuked the
unjust action with sharp words (John 18:22-23). Much less
did he turn other people’s cheeks. In reality, the approach of
the Rule of St. Benedict is more faithful to the Gospel. To
allow thieves to thieve with impunity is good neither for
those whom they wrong, nor for the thieves themselves. A
moderate use of coercion against such injustices can help to
lead people to virtue and restoration of the beauty of
hierarchy in their souls.
Day was deeply influenced by her friend Peter Maurin.
Maurin had been a member of Le Sillon, the Catholic
democratic movement, condemned by Pope St. Pius X
in Notre charge apostolique. Pius X particularly
condemned Le Sillon’s liberal egalitarianism. He points out
that a community of persons needs authority to direct them
to the common good, and that in a world wounded by sin
this authority needs coercive power to oppose “the
selfishness of the wicked.” And he shows that obedience to
such authority does not degrade man but exalts him, since it
is “in the final analysis, obedience to God.”
We integralists seek true freedom and true equality in
obedience to God and obedience to our fellow creatures for
the sake of God. This is the logic of the cross: raised up
towards Heaven on the vertical trunk of that life-giving tree,
we open our arms wide in fraternal charity, allowing our
hands to be nailed in holy obedience to its horizontal
branches. We strive with confidence to conform human life
to the pattern of heavenly hierarchies. Convinced that,
however imperfectly, our common life can be suffused with
harmony and beauty—men, women, and children of every
degree submitting in joy and delight to the common good in
which they all share, raising by their common life a hymn of
praise to the triune God. And we are convinced that
however daunting the task, however violent the powers that
oppose us, nothing that we do will be in vain. Every
movement towards the freedom of obedience and the joy of
the common good will be taken up and perfected in the New
Jerusalem that is to come.

II. Traduçõ es
Documentais
Basilares da Igreja
que Fundamentam a
Doutrina do
Integralismo.







Tertullian on the Duty of Praying
for the Emperor
The following chapters from the Apology of the early Church
Father Tertullian (c. 155 – c. 240) defends Christians against the
charge that their refusing to offer pagan sacrifices for the well-
being of the emperor is treasonous. They are a testimony to the
continuity of Christian teaching on politics. Tertullian recognizes
the legitimacy of the Roman emperor— the kingdom of God does
not at once replace the rulers of the world. The political goods
that such rulers can achieve are really good, and therefore the
Christians pray for them: “We pray for life prolonged; for security
to the empire; for protection to the imperial house; for brave
armies, a faithful senate, a virtuous people, the world at rest,
whatever, as man or Cæsar, an emperor would wish.” The
authority of the emperor is in fact derived from God: “I might say
Cæsar is more ours than yours, for our God has appointed him.”
And yet, “my relation to him is one of freedom,” for there is a
higher authority than the emperor.

Sources: Latin: Intratext. English: New Advent.

Chapter 30
For we offer prayer for the safety of our princes to the eternal,
the true, the living God, whose favour, beyond all others, they
must themselves desire. They know from whom they have
obtained their power; they know, as they are men, from
whom they have received life itself; they are convinced that
He is God alone, on whose power alone they are entirely
dependent, to whom they are second, after whom they occupy
the highest places, before and above all the gods. Why not,
since they are above all living men, and the living, as living,
are superior to the dead? They reflect upon the extent of their
power, and so they come to understand the highest; they
acknowledge that they have all their might from Him against
whom their might is nought. Let the emperor make war on
heaven; let him lead heaven captive in his triumph; let him
put guards on heaven; let him impose taxes on heaven! He
cannot. Just because he is less than heaven, he is great. For he
himself is His to whom heaven and every creature appertains.

He gets his sceptre where he first got his humanity; his power
where he got the breath of life. Thither we lift our eyes, with
hands outstretched, because free from sin; with head
uncovered, for we have nothing whereof to be ashamed;
finally, without a monitor, because it is from the heart we
supplicate. Without ceasing, for all our emperors we offer
prayer. We pray for life prolonged; for security to the empire;
for protection to the imperial house; for brave armies, a
faithful senate, a virtuous people, the world at rest, whatever,
as man or Cæsar, an emperor would wish. These things I
cannot ask from any but the God from whom I know I shall
obtain them, both because He alone bestows them and
because I have claims upon Him for their gift, as being a
servant of His, rendering homage to Him alone,persecuted for
His doctrine, offering to Him, at His own requirement, that
costly and noble sacrifice of prayer dispatched from the
chaste body, an unstained soul, a sanctified spirit, not the few
grains of incense a farthing buys— tears of an Arabian tree—
not a few drops of wine,— not the blood of some worthless ox
to which death is a relief, and, in addition to other offensive
things, a polluted conscience, so that one wonders, when your
victims are examined by these vile priests, why the
examination is not rather of the sacrificers than the sacrifices.
With our hands thus stretched out and up to God, rend us
with your iron claws, hang us up on crosses, wrap us in
flames, take our heads from us with the sword, let loose the
wild beasts on us—the very attitude of a Christian praying is
one of preparation for all punishment. Let this, good rulers, be
your work: wring from us the soul, beseeching Godon the
emperor’s behalf. Upon the truth of God, and devotion to His
name, put the brand of crime.
Chapter 31
But we merely, you say, flatter the emperor, and feign these
prayers of ours to escape persecution. Thank you for your
mistake, for you give us the opportunity of proving our
allegations. Do you, then, who think that we care nothing for
the welfare of Cæsar, look into God’s revelations, examine our
sacred books, which we do not keep in hiding, and which
many accidents put into the hands of those who are not of us.
Learn from them that a large benevolence is enjoined upon us,
even so far as to supplicate God for our enemies, and to
beseech blessings on our persecutors. Matthew 5:44 Who,
then, are greater enemies and persecutors of Christians, than
the very parties with treason against whom we are charged?
Nay, even in terms, and most clearly, the Scripture says, Pray
for kings, and rulers, and powers, that all may be peace with
you. 1 Timothy 2:2 For when there is disturbance in the
empire, if the commotion is felt by its other members, surely
we too, though we are not thought to be given to disorder, are
to be found in some place or other which the calamity affects.

Chapter 32
There is also another and a greater necessity for our offering
prayer in behalf of the emperors, nay, for the complete
stability of the empire, and for Roman interests in general. For
we know that a mighty shock impending over the whole
earth— in fact, the very end of all things threatening dreadful
woes— is only retarded by the continued existence of the
Roman empire.

We have no desire, then, to be overtaken by these dire

events; and in praying that their coming may be delayed, we
are lending our aid to Rome’s duration. More than this, though
we decline to swear by the genii of the Cæsars, we swear by
their safety, which is worth far more than all your genii. Are
you ignorant that these genii are called Dæmones, and thence
the diminutive name Dæmonia is applied to them? We respect
in the emperors the ordinance of God, who has set them over
the nations. We know that there is that in them whichGod has
willed; and to what God has willed we desire all safety, and we
count an oath by it a great oath. But as for demons, that is,
your genii, we have been in the habit of exorcising them, not
of swearing by them, and thereby conferring on them divine
honour.

Chapter 33
But why dwell longer on the reverence and sacred respect of
Christians to the emperor, whom we cannot but look up to as
called by our Lord to his office? So that on valid grounds I
might say Cæsar is more ours than yours, for ourGod has
appointed him. Therefore, as having this propriety in him, I do
more than you for his welfare, not merely because I ask it of
Him who can give it, or because I ask it as one who deserves
to get it, but also because, in keeping the majesty of Cæsar
within due limits, and putting it under the Most High, and
making it less than divine, I commend him the more to the
favour of Deity, to whom I make him alone inferior. But I place
him in subjection to one I regard as more glorious than
himself. Never will I call the emperor God, and that either
because it is not in me to be guilty of falsehood; or that I dare
not turn him into ridicule; or that not even himself will desire
to have that high name applied to him. If he is but a man, it is
his interest as man to give God His higher place. Let him think
it enough to bear the name of emperor. That, too, is a great
name of God’s giving. To call him God, is to rob him of his title.
If he is not a man, emperor he cannot be. Even when, amid the
honours of a triumph, he sits on that lofty chariot, he is
reminded that he is only human. A voice at his back keeps
whispering in his ear, Look behind you; remember you are
but a man. And it only adds to his exultation, that he shines
with a glory so surpassing as to require an admonitory
reference to his condition. It adds to his greatness that he
needs such a reminiscence, lest he should think himself
divine.
Chapter 34
Augustus, the founder of the empire, would not even have the
title Lord; for that, too, is a name of Deity. For my part, I am
willing to give the emperor this designation, but in the
common acceptation of the word, and when I am not forced to
call him Lord as in God’s place. But my relation to him is one
of freedom; for I have but one true Lord, the God omnipotent
and eternal, who is Lord of the emperor as well. How can he,
who is truly father of his country, be its lord? The name of
piety is more grateful than the name of power; so the heads of
families are called fathers rather than lords. Far less should
the emperor have the name of God. We can only profess our
belief that he is that by the most unworthy, nay, a fatal
flattery; it is just as if, having an emperor, you call another by
the name, in which case will you not give great and
unappeasable offense to him who actually reigns?— an
offense he, too, needs to fear on whom you have bestowed the
title. Give all reverence to God, if you wish Him to be
propitious to the emperor. Give up all worship of, and belief
in, any other being as divine. Cease also to give the sacred
name to him who has need of God himself. If such adulation is
not ashamed of its lie, in addressing a man as divine, let it
have some dread at least of the evil omen which it bears. It is
the invocation of a curse, to give Cæsar the name of god
before his apotheosis.

FAMULI VESTRÆ PIETATIS
by Pope St. Gelasius I
Introduction
by Edmund Waldstein, O.Cist.

Pope St. Gelasius I’s letter to the Emperor Anastasius I Famuli

vestrae pietatis, better known as Duo Sunt,[1] written in 494, is
the classical statement of the Church’s teaching on the relation
of the authority of pontiffs to the power of worldly rulers. It
was to be quoted and paraphrased again and again by later
popes. The key passage has been translated numerous times,
but until now there have been only two complete translations
into English, neither of which is in the public domain.[2] As the
context of the letter is particularly important for
understanding the meaning of the key passage correctly, we
are pleased to offer the following collaborative translation of
the whole letter on The Josias.[3]

St. Gelasius’s Life and Times

St. Gelasius reigned from 492-496, when the Roman Empire
had collapsed in the West, and Italy was ruled by barbarians,
who stood in an ambiguous relationship to the Byzantine
emperor—at times recognizing his authority, at other times
styling themselves “kings” of Italy. In 476 (conventionally seen
as the end of the Empire) Odoacer, who was already in power,
had forced Romulus Augustulus to abdicate. In 493, the year
after St. Gelasius’s accession to the See of Peter, the Arian
Ostrogoth Theodoric the Great killed Odoacer and established
his rule in Italy.[4] In the unsettled situation of Italy, the pope
was an important source of order for the city of Rome and
beyond. Bronwen Neil and Pauline Allen have shown how St.
Gelasius was a “micro-manager” of the ecclesiastical, social,
and political affairs of Rome in a manner reminiscent of St.
Gregory the Great a century later.[5]
Gelasius was “a Roman born,” as he himself testifies (§1 below),
and the Liber pontificalis notes that he was “of African
nationality.”[6] In “The African Gelasius,” writes Hugo Rahner,
in the slightly histrionic tone of his book on the liberty of the
Church, “the ideals of Augustine and the devotion of Leo for the
Roman See were combined with a will of steel and eloquence
of style.”[7] Not everyone has been so admiring of Gelasius’s
style.[8] Nor has everyone credited him with a will of steel.[9]But
it is certainly true that Gelasius was formed in the traditions of
St. Augustine and of St. Leo the Great. Dionysius Exiguus, who
probably did not know Gelasius personally, but knew many
others who had known him, writes of him in glowing terms as
an exemplary pastor and scholar.[10]

The Acacian Schism

Although Gelasius was pope for less than five years, a large
number of documents from his pontificate have come down to
us,[11] as well as several letters thought to have been drafted by
him as a deacon under his predecessor Pope Felix II/III
(reigned 483-492).[12] Famulae vestrae pietatis is by far the
most famous of his letters. It was written in the context of the
Acacian Schism, the first major schism between Rome and
Constantinople.

The schism had originated in the Emperor Zeno’s attempt to

reestablish ecclesial unity with the many Egyptian Christians
who had rejected the Council of Chalcedon (451). Chalcedon
had condemned the monophysite heresiarch Eutyches, and
deposed the Alexandrian patriarch Dioscurus, appointing
Proterius in his stead.[13] In 457 the Alexandrian mob elected
Timothy the Cat patriarch, and murdered
Proterius. Timothy died in 477, and his followers elected his
[14]

ardent disciple Peter the Hoarse to succeed him.[15]

In 482 Zeno sent out a formula of faith, the Henotikon, to the

Egyptians.[16] The document was not heterodox in its
Christological statements. But it was unacceptable to Rome
from an ecclesiological point of view. Its underlying
assumption was that the emperor could define the faith
(“Caesaropapism”). Moreover, it was “political theology” in the
derogatory sense, seeing the unity of faith as being ordered to
the unity of the empire, “the origin and composition, the power
and irresistible shield of our empire.”[17] But what was least
acceptable to Rome was its cavalier dismissal of Chalcedon, the
great triumph of the teaching of Pope Leo. After emphasizing
that the only creed is the one defined at Nicea I and
Constantinople I, Zeno writes, “But we anathematize anyone
who has thought, or thinks, any other opinion, either now or at
any time, whether at Chalcedon or at any Synod
whatsoever.”[18]

Peter the Hoarse accepted the Henotikon, and Acacius,

Patriarch of Constantinople accepted him into communion, and
was therefore excommunicated by Pope Felix II/III in
484.[19] This was the beginning of the Acacian Schism, which
was to last till 519. Acacius himself died in 489.[20] His
successor, Fravitta tried to assure both Pope Felix and Peter
the Hoarse that he was in communion with them.[21] In 491 the
Emperor Zeno was succeeded by Emperor Anastasius I (491-
518), who had monophysite sympathies and continued Zeno’s
policy.[22]

Famuli vestræ pietatis

When Gelasius was elected to the See of Peter in 492 he did not
write to the Emperor Anastasius to announce his election, as
was customary. But two Romans, Faustus and Irenaeus, having
been in Constantinople as part of a legation from Theodoric the
Great, brought word to him that the Emperor was offended by
his failure to write. This was the occasion of Famuli vestræ
pietatis.
Gelasius begins the letter by excusing himself for not having
written before and addresses the Emperor patriotically as the
Roman princeps. He hints that his desire to supply “something
(however little) lacking from the fullness of the Catholic Faith”
in Constantinople, by which he means that he wants to bring
the schism to an end (§1). He then clarifies his right to do this
by explaining the relation of his “sacred authority” to the “royal
power” of the Emperor— this is the celebrated locus
classicus for the relation of lay and clerical authority (§2). He
further explicates this by laying out the primacy of the
Apostolic See—the “firm foundation” laid by God (§3). He then
tries to persuade the Emperor to end the schism, by having
Acacius’s name deleted from the diptychs, the lists of names
prayed for in the Divine Liturgy (a sign of ecclesial
communion). Acacius was in Communion with heretics and
should be condemned with them. (§§4-9). He rebuffs the
objection that removing Acacius from the diptychs would
cause a rebellion at Constantinople, and urges the emperor that
he is even more bound to combat heresy than he would be
bound to combat offenses against temporal laws (§§10-11).
Finally, he defends himself against the charge of arrogance, by
turning the accusation against those who, contrary to the
tradition of the Fathers, refuse to submit to the Apostolic See
(§12).

Auctoritas and Potestas

“For there are two, O emperor Augustus, by which the world is
principally ruled: the sacred authority (auctoritas) of pontiffs
and the royal power (potestas).” This famous line was to be
cited in favor of rival medieval theories of the relation of the
two: curialists cited it in favor of papal supremacy while their
opponents cited it to prove imperial or royal
autonomy.[23] More recently, it has been cited by Whig
Thomists in favor of American-style “religious freedom.”[24] Its
meaning continues to be debated among historians.
The modern debate has tended to focus on the meaning of the
terms auctoritas and potestas. Erich Caspar argued
that auctoritas meant something like moral influence,
whereas potestas meant coercive power:

In Roman constitutional law there was a clear distinction

between the conceptually and morally
superior auctoritas, founded on tradition and social standing,
which the senate, for example, enjoyed, and
a potestas equipped with executive power, which in republican
times belonged only to the people and was delegated to their
officials only for a set period of office.[25]

Caspar approached things from a typically modern

understanding of power dynamics, but a similar reading of
the auctoritas and potestas distinction has been given by
authors less in thrall to Realpolitik. Allan Cotrell notes that
some see potestas as “the mere ability to use force without
legitimate authority.’”[26] Michael Hanby has recently argued
for such a view.[27] According to Hanby auctoritas “possesses
no extrinsic force,” but compels “by its own self-
evidence.”[28] To the extent that it is not bound and guided
by auctoritas, potestas is “an indeterminate force, the brute
strength to realize arbitrary possibilities.”[29]

Readings such as Hanby’s cannot, however, be sustained. As

Walter Ullmann showed, the popes of the fifth century saw
themselves as having the authority to enact laws backed up by
sanctions.[30] That is, their auctoritas did possess an
extrinsic as well as an intrinsic force. But it is clear also that
Gelasius does not see the emperor’s potestas as mere brute
force—he sees it also as a moral authority that binds the
consciences of subjects: “inasmuch as it pertains to the order
of public discipline, even the bishops themselves obey your
laws, knowing that rule [imperium] has been bestowed to you
from on high” (§2). Auctoritas and potestas are more similar
than such authors think. Caspar himself seems to admit as
much, when he goes on to argue that Gelasius’s letter was
meant to bring the two concepts closer together:

What was new and important was that Gelasius I now defined
the state’s potestas and papal auctoritas (which functioned
as potestas ligandi et solvendi) as ‘the two things… through
which this world is ruled,’ and thereby put them on the same
level as commensurable magnitudes in the same conceptual
category.[31]

Ullmann argued for a different interpretation of the auctoritas-

potestas distinction. According to him, auctoritas meant
sovereign authority, whereas potestas meant delegated
authority:

Auctoritas is the faculty of shaping things creatively and in a

binding manner, whilst potestas is the power to execute what
the auctoritas has laid down. The Roman senate had auctoritas,
the Roman magistrate had potestas. The antithesis
between auctoritas and potestas stated already by Augustus
himself, shows the ‘outstanding charismatic political authority’
which his auctoritas contained. It was sacred, since everything
connected with Roman emperorship was sacred emanating as
it did from his divinity. It was therefore all the easier to transfer
these characteristically Roman ideas to the function of the
Pope and to his auctoritas.[32]

While Ullmann is essentially right about how Gelasius saw his

relation the emperor, he is wrong to put so much weight on the
semantic distinction between auctoritas and potestas. Ernst
Stein and Aloysius K. Ziegler showed convincingly that Gelasius
did not mean to make any semantic distinction
between auctoritas and potestas at all. For reasons of style he
did not wish to use the same word twice in the same sentence,
and therefore he used synonyms. In his damning review essay
on Caspar, Stein points out that in Tractate IV, written only two
years after Famuli vestræ pietatis, Gelasius writes of “both
powers” (potestas utraque), showing that he was quite willing
to use potestas to refer to the pontifical auctoritas.[33] Ziegler,
for his part, looks at the letters of Felix II/III, drafted by
Gelasius as a deacon, and finds conclusive evidence for Stein’s
thesis in Felix’s Epistle XV:

These things, most reverent Emperor, I do not wrest from you

as vicar of the blessed Peter, by the authority of the apostolic
power as it were [auctoritate velut apostolicae potestatis], but I
confidently implore you as an anxious father desiring that the
welfare and prosperity of my most clement son endure long.[34]

Perhaps Epistle XV is using the two terms in slightly different

senses, but it is clear that it sees both as belonging to the
Apostolic See.[35]

Gelasius’s Integralism
George Demacopoulos has recently argued that the scholarly
focus on the semantic distinction
between auctoritas and potestas is regrettable, since with “that
singular focus, scholars have failed to acknowledge many of the
other significant moves that Gelasius makes in the
letter.”[36] On that I think he is right. He is wrong, however, to
fault Caspar and Ullmann (especially the later) for reading
Gelasius too much in the light of the subsequent development
of the papacy.[37]Demacopoulos argues on historical-critical
grounds, but it is hard not to see his approach as being
motivated by Greek Orthodox suspicion of Catholic teaching on
the papacy. Even from a purely historical perspective, it is
helpful to look at the developments to which a teaching gives
rise to understand it better. As St. John Henry Newman put it,
the principle that “the stream is clearest near the spring” does
not apply to the development of a teaching or belief, “which on
the contrary is more equable, and purer, and stronger, when its
bed has become deep, and broad, and full.”[38] And, of course,
this is all the more true if it is a question of interpreting the
authoritative teachings of the Church. Since the bishops of
Rome teach under the guidance of the Holy Spirit, their
pronouncements can only be adequately understood in the
light of later developments. Thus Gelasius ought to be read in
the light of the authoritative teachings of St. Gregory VII,
Innocent III, and Boniface VIII.

It is, therefore, all the more significant that, despite his

methodological shortcomings, Demacopoulos ultimately
comes to a reading of Gelasius very close to Ullmann’s. He
argues, namely, that Gelasius is indeed teaching a certain
subordination of the imperial under the pontifical power:

Among Gelasius’ impressive rhetorical demonstrations is his

transformation of the argument for the divine derivation of
imperial authority into an argument for the subordination of
the emperor to the priesthood. […] Noting that imperial
governance is a beneficium from God for which the emperor
will be accountable, Gelasius quickly notes that he too will
personally be required to render an account before God for
whether or not Anastasius properly administers the
imperial beneficium. In other words, Gelasius boldly inserts
himself into the ruling/responsibility paradigm to imply that
his own responsibility (and, therefore, his own authority) was
superior to that of the emperor. The emperor, of course, retains
a certain responsibility for the Roman population, but above
that hierarchical paradigm exists another, more exalted layer,
placing the pope between the emperor and God.[39]

The “hierarchical paradigm” to which Demacopoulos refers is

founded on a teleological understanding of society and
authority. No one grasped this more firmly than Walter
Ullmann. That is why, despite his exaggeration of
the auctoritas-potestas distinction, I still think Ullmann the
best reader of Gelasius.
“Gelasius,” Ullman argues, “bequeathed to all Papal generations
a set of ideas based upon an interpretation of history in the
light of Christian teleology.”[40] This Christian teleology sees
the Church as a body with many members who have distinct
functions related to the single spiritual end of communion with
God. The members of this body belong to it with all that they
are: “Christianity seizes the whole of man and cannot, by its
very nature, be confined to certain departmental
limits.”[41] The Christian Body therefore “is not merely a
pneumatic or sacramental or spiritual body, but also an
organic, concrete and earthy society.”[42] In this visible society
there are certain functions which are immediately directed to
its end, what Gelasius calls “the distribution of the venerable
mysteries,” (infra §2) and there are others which are mediately
directed to its end—everything, for example, that serves the
preservation of bodily life. It is essential that those “temporal”
functions remain mediately ordered to the final end: “in the
Christian corpus the administration of the temporal things
should be undertaken, in order to bring about the realization
of the purpose of the corpus.”[43] In other words, “in a Christian
society all human actions have an essentially religious
ingredient.”[44] What Gelasius is doing therefore, is not
clarifying the relation of church and state (as Whig Thomists
suppose), but rather the relation of clerical and lay
power within the one Christian body. In the Henotikon Zeno
had implicitly presented himself as the head of the whole
Christian mundus, but Gelasius is teaching his successor that he
is not qualified for headship:

[Since] in a Christian society, of which the emperor through

baptism is a member, every human action has a definite
purpose and in so far has an essential religious ingredient, the
emperors should submit their governmental actions to the
ecclesiastical superiors.[45]

Turning to Tractate IV, Ullmann shows that Gelasius saw the

purpose of the royal power in the Christian world as the care
of temporal matters, so that clerics “are not distracted by the
pursuit of these carnal matters.”[46] Thus, Ullmann concludes,

The direction of [the] royal power by those who are, within the
corporate union of Christians, qualified to do so, is as necessary
as the direction of the whole body corporate. In this way this
body will fulfil the purpose for which it was founded. The
material or corporeal or temporal element in this body
demands the guidance, that is orientation and government, by
the spiritual or sacramental element of this self-same body.[47]

R.W. Dyson has shown in detail how this Gelasian teaching on

the relation of the temporal to the spiritual was based on
premises which he found in his North African tradition: in St.
Augustine’s proportioning of spiritual and carnal needs onto
the offices of bishops and Roman officials. Augustine had not
followed those principles through to their ultimate
conclusions, but it was an easy step for Gelasius to take, since
it is obvious that spiritual goods exceed bodily ones.[48]

The same point was made earlier by Hugo Rahner:

What Augustine regarded as a lofty ideal, Gelasius made

tangible: the ideal of the state as the Church’s helper, of two
powers in peaceful collaboration “ruling the world”. Gelasius’
genius lay in the fact that he did not declare that the two
powers deriving directly from God, Creator and Savior, should
exist side by side, an impossible situation and one repugnant
to God’s will, but rather that they should be hierarchically
ordered, like soul and body, the spiritual superior to the
material, because only in subordination is the material power’s
true worth maintained.[49]

The functional division of the two powers is not a division into

separate spheres that never overlap. While Gelasius sees the
purpose of the emperor as being primarily the regulation of
temporal affairs, he is also emphatic that the emperor must use
imperial force to help the Church more directly in the
preservation of the faith from charity. In Famuli vestræ
pietatis he argues that, because Anastasius curbs popular
tumults arising from secular causes, so much more should he
restrain heretics and thereby “lead them back into the Catholic
and Apostolic communion” (§10). He is essentially calling for
the emperor to act as the bracchium sæculare of the Church:

If anyone perhaps were to attempt something against public

laws (perish the thought!), for no reason would you have been
able to suffer it. Do you not reckon it to concern your
conscience that the people subject to you should be driven back
from the pure and sincere devotion of Divinity? (§10)

Far from being a Whig avant la lettre, Gelasius was in fact what
we would now call an integralist.

FAMULI VESTRÆ PIETATIS

Translated by HHG et al.

Pope Gelasius to the Emperor Anastasius.

§ 1 Your Piety’s servants, my sons, the master Faustus and

Irenaeus, illustrious men, and their companions who exercise
the public office of legate, when they returned to the City, said
that Your Clemency asked why I did not send my greeting to
you in written form. Not, I confess, by my design; but since
those who had been dispatched a little while ago from the
regions of the East had spread [word] throughout the whole
City that they had been denied permission of seeing me by
your commands, I thought that I ought to refrain from
[writing] letters, lest I be judged burdensome rather than
dutiful. You see, therefore, that it came not from my
dissembling, but rather from proper caution, lest I inflict
annoyance on one minded to reject me. But when I learned
that the benevolence of Your Serenity had, as indicated above,
expected a word from my humility, then I truly recognized
that I would not unjustly be blamed if I remained silent. For,
glorious son, I as a Roman born love, honor, and accept you as
the Roman Prince. And as a Christian I desire to have
knowledge according to the truth with one who has zeal for
God. And as the Vicar of the Apostolic See (of whatever
quality), whenever I see something (however little) lacking
from the fullness of the Catholic Faith, I attempt to supply it
by moderate and timely suggestions. For the dispensing of the
divine word has been enjoined on me: «woe is unto me if I
preach not the gospel» (1 Cor 9:16). Because, if the vessel of
election, blessed Paul the Apostle, is afraid and cries out, how
much more urgently must I fear if in my preaching I omit
anything from the ministry of preaching which has been
divinely inspired and handed down by the piety of the fathers.

§ 2 I pray your Piety not to judge [my] duty toward the divine
plan as arrogance. Far be it from the Roman Prince, I beg, that
he judge the truth that he senses in his heart to be an injury.
For there are two, O emperor Augustus, by which the world is
principally ruled: the sacred authority of pontiffs and the
royal power. Among which how much heavier is the burden of
priests, such that they will have to render an account to the
Lord at the time of judgment even for those very kings. For
you know, O most merciful son, that although by dignity you
preside over the human race, nevertheless you devoutly bow
your neck to the leaders of divine matters, and from them you
await the causes of your salvation, and you recognize that, in
partaking of the celestial sacraments, and being disposed to
them (as is appropriate), you must be submitted to the order
of religion rather than rule over it. Therefore you know that in
these matters you depend on their judgement, not willing to
force them to your will. For if, inasmuch as it pertains to the
order of public discipline, even the bishops themselves obey
your laws, knowing that rule [imperium] has been bestowed
to you from on high, lest they seem in mundane things to
oppose the eminent sentence; with what passion, I ask, does it
become you to obey those, who have been assigned for the
distribution of the venerable mysteries? Just as the danger
does not fall upon pontiffs lightly, to have been silent on
behalf of the cult of the Divinity, which is fitting; thus there is
no slight peril to those who (perish the thought!) when they
ought to obey, look askance. And if it is settled that the faithful
submit their hearts to all the priests in general who pass on
divine things rightly, how much more must they submit to the
prelate of that See, whom the highest Divinity willed also to be
preëminent above all priests, and which the piety of the
universal Church subsequently celebrated.

§ 3 Clearly, wherever Your Piety turns, no one at all has been

able to raise himself to the privilege or confession of that one,
whom the voice of Christ has put over all, who has been
always confessed and venerated by the Church, and has the
first devotion. Those things which have been constituted by
divine judgement can be attacked by human presumption, but
they cannot be conquered by any power. And if only boldness
would not be so pernicious against those struggling, as those
things which have been fixed by the very founder of sacred
religion cannot be dislodged by any force: the foundation of
God stands firm (2 Tim 2:19). For is religion, when it is
infested by some [persons], able to be overcome by novelties?
Does it not rather remain unconquered by the thing supposed
to be able to defeat it? And I ask you therefore, may they
desist, who under your aegis run about headlong seeking the
disruption of the church, which is not permitted: or at least
that these should in no way achieve those things which they
wickedly desire, and not keep their measure before God and
men.

§ 4 For this reason, before God, I beg, adjure, and exhort your
piety purely and earnestly that you not receive my request
disdainfully: I say again: I ask that you hear me beseeching
you now in this life rather than (later) accusing you—perish
the thought!—before the divine tribunal. Nor is it hidden from
me, O Emperor Augustus, what the devotion of Your Piety has
been in private life. You always chose to be a participator of
the eternal promise. Wherefore, I pray you, be not angry with
me, if I love you so much that I want you to have that reign,
which you have temporarily, forever, and that you who rule
the age, might be able to rule with Christ. Certainly, by your
laws, Emperor, you do not allow anything to perish, nor do
you allow any damage to be done to the Roman name. Surely
then it is not true, Excellent Prince, who desires not only the
present benefits of Christ but also the future ones, that you
would suffer anyone under your aegis to bring loss to religion,
to truth, to the sincerity of the Catholic Communion, and to
the Faith? By what faith (I ask you) will you ask reward of him
there, whose loss you do not prohibit here?

§ 5 Be they not heavy, I pray thee, those things that are said
for your eternal salvation. You have read it written: «the
wounds of a friend are better than the kisses of an enemy»
(Prov. 27:8). I ask your piety to receive what I say into your
mind in the same sentiment in which I say it. No one should
deceive Your Piety. What the Scriptures witness figuratively
through the prophet is true: «One is my dove, one is my
perfect one» (Cant. 6:8), one is the Christian faith, which is
Catholic. But that faith is truly Catholic, which is divided by a
sincere, pure, and unspotted communion from all the
perfidious and their successors and associates. Otherwise
there would not be the divinely commanded distinction, but a
deplorable muddle. Nor would there be any reason left, if we
allow this contagion in anyone, not to open wide the gate to
all the heresies. For who in one thing offends, is guilty of all
(James 2:10); and: who despises little things shall little by
little fall (Sirach 19:1)

§ 6 This is what the Apostolic See vigorously guards against,

that since the pure root is the glorious confession of the
Apostle, it might not be soiled by any fissure of perversity, nor
by any direct contagion. For if something like that were to
happen (which God forbid, and which we trust is impossible),
how could we dare to resist any error, or from whence could
we request the correction to those in error? Moreover, if Your
Piety denies that the people of a single city can be brought
together in peace, what would we do with the whole world, if
(God forbid) it were to be deceived by our prevarication? If
the whole world has been set right, despising the profane
traditions of its fathers, how could the people of a single city
not be converted if the preaching of the faith persevere.
Therefore, glorious Emperor, do I not will the peace, I who
would embrace it even if it came at the price of my blood? But,
I prithee, let us hold in our mind of what sort the peace ought
to be; not any kind, but a truly Christian peace. For how can
there be a true peace where chaste charity is lacking? But how
charity ought to be, the Apostle evidently preaches for us, who
says, Charity is from a pure heart, and a good conscience, and
an unfeigned faith (1 Tim. 1:5). How, I pray thee, shall it be
from a pure heart, if it is poisoned by an external contagion?
How shall it be from a good conscience, if it is commingled
with depraved and evil things? How shall it be from an
unfeigned faith if it remains united with the perfidious? While
these things have often been said by us, it is nevertheless
necessary to repeat them incessantly, and not to be silent as
long as the name of “peace” continues to be put forward as an
excuse; it is not for us (as the is enviously asserted) to make
“peace”, but we nevertheless teach that we want that true
peace, which is the only peace, apart from which none other
can be shown.

§ 7 Certainly if the dogma of Eutyches, against which the

caution of the Apostolic See vigilantly watches, is believed to
be consistent with the saving Catholic faith, then it ought to be
brought forward plainly and asserted and supported with as
much force as possible, for then it will be possible to show not
only how inimical it is to the Christian faith itself, but also how
many and how deadly are the heresies it contains in its dregs.
But if rather (as we are confident you will) you judge that this
dogma should be excluded from Catholic minds, I ask you why
you do not also suppress the contagion of those who have
been shown to be contaminated by it? As the Apostle says: Are
only those who do things that ought not to be done guilty, and
not also they that consent to them that do them? (cf. Rom
1:32). Accordingly, just as one cannot accept a participant in
perversity without equally approving of the perversity, so too,
one cannot refute perversity while admitting an accomplice
and partisan of perversity.

§ 8 Certainly, by your laws, accomplices of crimes and

harbourers of thieves are judged to be bound equally by the
same punishment; nor is he considered to have no part in a
crime, who, though he did not do it himself, nevertheless
accepts the familiarity and the alliance of the doer.
Accordingly, when the Council of Chalcedon, celebrated for
the Catholic and Apostolic faith and the true communion,
condemned Eutyches, the progenitor of those detestable
ravings, it did not leave it at that, but likewise also struck
down his consort Dioscorus and the rest. In this way,
therefore, just as in the case of every heresy there is no
ambiguity about what has always been done or what is being
done: their successors Timothy [the Cat], Peter [the Hoarse],
and the other Peter, the Antiochian, have been cut out— not
individually by councils called again to deal with them singly,
but once and for all as a consequence of the regular acts of the
synod. Therefore, as it has not been clear that even those who
were their correspondents and accomplices are all bound
with a similar strictness, and are by right wholly separated
from the Catholic and Apostolic communion, We hereby
declare that Acacius, too, is to be removed from communion
with Us, since he preferred to cast in his lot with perfidy
rather than to remain in the authentic Catholic and Apostolic
communion (though for almost three years he has been
authoritatively advised by letters of the Apostolic See, lest it
should come to this). But after he went over to another
communion, nothing was possible except that he should be at
once cut off from association with the Apostolic See, lest on
his account, if We delayed even a little, We also should seem
to have come into contact with the perfidious. But when he
was struck with such a blow, did he come to his senses, did he
promise correction, did he emend his error? Would he have
been coerced by more lenient treatment, when even harsh
blows left no impression? While he tarries in his perfidy and
damnation, it is both impossible to use his name in the liturgy
of the church, and unnecessary to tolerate any external
contact with him. Wherefore he will be led in good faith away
from the heretical communion into which he has mixed
himself, or there will be no choice but to drive him away with
them.

§ 9 But if the bishops of the East murmur, that the Apostolic

See did not apply such judgments to them, as if they had
either convinced the Apostolic See that Peter [the Hoarse]
was to be accepted as legitimate, or had not yet been fully
complicit in this unheard-of acceptation: just as they cannot
demonstrate that he was free of heretical depravity, neither
can they in anyway excuse themselves, being in communion
with heretics. If perhaps they should add that they all with
one voice reported the reception of Peter [the Hoarse] by
Acacius to the Apostolic See, then by the same token they
know how he responded to them. But the authority of the
Apostolic See— that in all Christian ages it has been set over
the universal Church— is confirmed both by a series of
canons of the Fathers, and by manifold tradition. But even
hence, whether anyone should prevail to usurp anything for
himself against the ordinances of the Synod of Nicaea, this can
be shown to the college of the one communion, not to the
opinion of external society. If anyone has confidence amongst
them, let him go out into the midst, and disprove and instruct
the Apostolic See concerning each part. Therefore let his name
[Acacius] be removed from our midst, which works the
separation of churches far from Catholic communion, in order
that sincere peace of faith and of communion should be
repaired, and unity: and then let it competently and
legitimately be investigated which of us either has risen up or
struggles to rise up against venerable antiquity. And then
shall appear who by modest intention guards the form and
tradition of the elders, and who irreverently leaping beyond
these, reckons himself able to become equal by robbery.

§ 10 But if it is proposed to me that the character [persona] of

the Constantinopolitan people makes it impossible (it is said)
that the name of scandal, that is Acacius, be removed; I am
silent, because with both the heretic Macedonius formerly
having been driven out, and Nestorius recently having been
thrown out, the Constantinopolitan people have elected to
remain Catholic rather than be retained by affection for their
condemned greater prelates. I am silent, because those who
had been baptized by these very same condemned prelates,
remaining in the Catholic faith, are disturbed by no agitation. I
am silent, because for ludicrous things the authority of Your
Piety now restrains popular tumults; and thus much more for
the necessary salvation of their souls the multitude of the
Constantinopolitan city obeys you, if you princes should lead
them back unto the Catholic and Apostolic communion. For,
Emperor Augustus, if anyone perhaps were to attempt
something against public laws (perish the thought!), for no
reason would you have been able to suffer it. Do you not
reckon it to concern your conscience that the people subject
to you should be driven back from the pure and sincere
devotion of Divinity? Finally, if the mind of the people of one
city is not reckoned to be offended if divine things (as the
matter demands) are corrected— how much more does it
hold that, lest divine things should be offended, we ought not
(nor can we) strike the pious faith of all those of the Catholic
name?

§ 11 And nevertheless these same ones demand that they

should be healed by our will. Therefore they allow that they
can be cured by competent remedies: otherwise (Heaven
forfend!) by crossing over into their ruin, we can perish with
them, whereas we cannot save them. Now here I leave to your
conscience under divine judgement what must rather be
done: whether, as We desire, we should return all at once
unto certain life; or, as those demand, we should tend unto
manifest death.

§ 12 But still they strain to call the Apostolic See proud and
arrogant for furnishing them with medicines. The quality of
the languishing often has this: that they should accuse rather
the medics calling them back to healthful things by fitting
observations, than that they themselves should consent to
depose or reprove their noxious appetites. If we are proud,
because we minister fitting remedies of souls, what are those
to be called who resist? If we are proud who say that
obedience must be given to paternal decrees, by what name
should those be called who oppose them? If we are puffed up,
who desire that the divine cult should be served with pure
and unblemished tenor; let them say how those who think
even against divinity should be named. Thus also do the rest,
who are in error, reckon us, because we do not consent to
their insanity. Nevertheless, truth herself indicates where the
spirit of pride really stands and fights.
[1] Sometimes also as Ad Anastasium, Epistle XII (Thiel), or Epistle VIII (Migne).

[2] Matthew Briel, trans. in: George E. Demacopoulos, The Invention of Peter: Apostolic
Discourse and Papal Authority in Late Antiquity (Philadelphia: University of Pennsylvania
Press, 2013), pp. 173-180; Bronwen Neil and Pauline Allen, trans., The Letters of Gelasius I
(492-496) (Turnhout: Brepols, 2014), pp. 73-80.

[3] The translation was made by numerous online friends of The Josias in a shared google

spreadsheet. The style is therefore uneven. For technical reasons we used Migne’s edition
in PL 59, col. 41-47, but we have corrected it in some places with reference to Thiel’s critical
edition: Andreas Thiel, ed., Epistolae Romanorum pontificum genuinae et quae ad eos
scriptae sunt: a S. Hilaro usque ad Pelagium II., vol. 1 (Braunsberg: E. Peter, 1867), pp. 349-
358. For the paragraph numbering we have followed Thiel.

[4] For an account of the period, see: Guy Halsall, Barbarian Migrations and the Roman West,

376–568 (Cambridge: Cambridge University Press, 2007), chs. 9-10.

[5] Neil and Allen, trans., The Letters of Gelasius I, Introduction.

[6] Neil and Allen, trans., The Letters of Gelasius I, p. 71.

[7] Hugo Rahner, S.J., Church and State in Early Christianity, trans. Leo Donald Davis, S.J. (San

Francisco: Ignatius Press, 1961), p. 151. As Rahner notes, his book was originally written at
a time “when the struggle between Church and state in Nazi Germany was at its height” (p.
xi), which goes someway in explaining its tone.

[8] Bronwen Neil and Pauline Allen call it “sententious and pompous” and complain that it is

repetitive and overburdens subordinate clauses: The Letters of Gelasius I, p. 67.

[9] George Demacopoulos portrays him as an ineffectual blusterer The Invention of Peter, ch.

3.

[10] See: Aloysius K. Ziegler, “Pope Gelasius I and His Teaching on the Relation of Church and

State,” in: The Catholic Historical Review 27.4 (1942), pp. 412-437, at pp. 416-417.

[11] Thiel’s edition contains 43 letters, 49 fragments, and six tractates, filling over 300 pages:

Thiel, Epistolae, vol. 1, pp. 285-618.

[12] See: Mario Spinelli, s.v. “Gelasius I,” in: Lexikon für Theologie und Kirche, 3rd ed., vol. IV,

eds. Walter Kasper, et al. (Freiburg: Herder, 1995), col. 401-402.

[13] Dioscurus had (verbally) agreed with Eutyches that there was only one nature in Christ.

In Alexandria this was held to be the orthodox position, since St. Cyril of Alexandria had
used the formula μία φύσις τοῦ θεοῦ λόγου σεσαρκωμένη (“one incarnate nature of God the
Logos”). Chalcedon, however, defined that Christ was in two natures (ἐν δύο φύσεσιν). It is
now generally held that the disagreement is based on an equivocal use of the
word φύσις (nature). See: Theresia Hainthaler, s.v. “Monophysitismus,” in: Lexikon für
Theologie und Kirche, vol. VII, (1998), col. 418-421; W. H. C. Frend, The Rise of the
Monophysite Movement: Chapters in the History of the Church in the Fifth and Sixth
Centuries (Cambridge: Cambridge University Press, 1972).

[14] Frend, The Rise of the Monophysite Movement, p. 155.

[15] Frend, The Rise of the Monophysite Movement,, p. 174.

[16] For the story of the Henotikon see: Ibid., pp. 174-183.

[17] Zeno, Henotikon, in: The

Ecclesiastical History of Evagrius Scholasticus, trans. Michael
Whitby (Liverpool: Liverpool University Press, 2000), III,14; pp. 147-149, at p. 147.

[18] Zeno, Henotikon, p. 149.

[19] One of the orthodox “Sleepless Monks” was able to pin the pope’s excommunication to

Acacius’s vestments during the celebration of the Divine Liturgy: Frend, The Rise of the
Monophysite Movement, pp. 182-183.
[20] Frend, The Rise of the Monophysite Movement,, p. 190.

[21] Neil and Allen, trans., The Letters of Gelasius I, pp. 37-38.

[22] Rahner, Church and State, pp. 154-155.

[23] See: Brian Tierney, The Crisis of Church and State (Toronto: University of Toronto Press,

1988), p. 10; Robert Louis Benson, “The Gelasian Doctrine: Uses And Transformations,” in:
George Makdisi, et al., eds., La notion d’autorité au Moyen Age: Islam, Byzance, Occident:
Colloques internationaux de La Napoule, session des 23-26 octobre 1978 (Paris: Presses
Universitaires de France, 1982), pp. 13-44.

[24] See:
John Courtney Murray, S.J., We Hold These Truths: Catholic Reflections on the
American Proposition (New York: Sheed and Ward, 1960), especially pp. 202-203; George
Weigel, “Catholicism and Democracy: Parsing the Other Twentieth-Century Revolution,” in:
Michael Novak, William Brailsford, and Cornelis Heesters, eds. A Free Society Reader:
Principles for the New Millennium (Lanham: Lexington Books, 2000), pp. 141-165, at pp.
150-151. Cf. my critique of the Whig Thomists: “Integralism and Gelasian Dyarchy,” in: The
Josias, March 3, 2016: https://thejosias.com/2016/03/03/integralism-and-gelasian-
dyarchy (accessed March 28, 2020), part 4.

[25] Erich
Caspar, Geschichte des Papsttums von den Anfängen bis zur Höhe der
Weltherrschaft, vol. 2 (Tübingen: Mohr-Siebeck, 1933), p. 67 (translation my own).

[26] Alan Cottrell, “Auctoritas and Potestas: A Reevaluation of the Correspondence of Gelasius

I on Papal-Imperial Relations,” in: Medieval Studies 55 (1993), pp. 95-109, at p. 96. (This is
not Cottrell’s own view).

[27] Michael Hanby, “For and Against Integralism,” in: First Things 301.4 (2020), pp. 43-50.

Hanby does not explicitly mention Gelasius, but it is clear that the Gelasian teaching is in the
background of his discussion of auctoritas and potestas, especially since he quotes Walter
Ullmann’s interpretation of Gelasius (p. 45).

[28] Hanby, “For and Against Integralism,” p. 45.

[29] Hanby, “For and Against Integralism,” p. 45.

[30] Walter Ullmann, The Growth of Papal Government in the Middle Ages: A Study in the

Ideological Relation of Clerical to Lay Power, 2nd ed. (London: Methuen, 1962), pp. 12-13,
note 5.

[31] Caspar, Geschichte des Papsttums, p. 66.

[32] Ullmann, The Growth of Papal Government, p. 21.

[33] Ernst Stein, “La Période Byzantine de la Papauté,” in: The Catholic Historical Review 21.2

(1935), pp. 129-163, at p. 135. Hanby complains about me: “Waldstein does not think
philosophically about the distinction between auctoritas and potestas, which he treats more
or less synonymously” (Hanby, “For and Against Integralism,” p. 47). I wonder if he would
make the same complaint about St. Gelasius in Tractate IV.

[34] Ziegler, “Pope Gelasius I and His Teaching,” p. 432, note 66; the quotation from Felix can

be found in: Thiel, Epistolae, vol. 1, p. 272; translation in: Jeffrey Richards, The Popes and the
Papacy in the Early Middle Ages, 476-752 (London: Routledge and Kegan Paul, 1979), p. 62.

[35] In the light of the subsequent development of Church teaching one could save something

like Erich Caspar’s interpretation as follows: The relationship between the spiritual and
temporal powers in temporal matters would be modeled on the relationship between the
senate and the magistrates in the Republic. Auctoritas would mean moral
authority. Potestas would be coercive force, prescinding from whether it is united to moral
authority or not. So it would be wrong to see potestas as mere violence but violence would
be included as well as rightly ordered force. The pope would have
both auctoritas and potestas in the spiritual order. In the temporal order he would
exercise auctorias, and his auctoritas would guarantee the right order of the potestas of
temporal rulers. See: Thomas Crean and Alan Fimister, Integralism: A Manual of Political
Philosophy (Neunkirchen-Seelscheid: Editiones Scholasticae, 2020), p. 72.

[36] Demacopoulos, The Invention of Peter, p. 90.

[37] Demacopoulos, The Invention of Peter, pp. 8-9.

[38] John Henry Newman, An Essay on the Development of Christian Doctrine, 8th ed. (London:

Longmans, Green, and co., 1891), p. 40.

[39] Demacopoulos, The Invention of Peter, pp. 90-91; cf. Ullmann’s similar argument in The

Growth of Papal Government, pp. 23-26.

[40] Ullmann, The Growth of Papal Government, p. 28.

[41] Ullmann, The Growth of Papal Government, p. 11.

[42] Ullmann, The Growth of Papal Government, p. 3.

[43] Ullmann, The Growth of Papal Government, p. 12.

[44] Ullmann, The Growth of Papal Government, p. 20.

[45] Ullmann, The Growth of Papal Government, p. 22.

[46] Ullmann, The Growth of Papal Government, p. 24.

[47] Ullmann, The Growth of Papal Government, p. 28.

[48] Robert
W. Dyson, St. Augustine of Hippo: The Christian Transformation of Political
Philosophy (London: Continuum, 2005), ch. 5.
[49] Rahner, Church and State, p. 157.

Pope Gregory VII. Dictatus Papae.

The Dictatus Papae was included in Pope's register in the year 1075. Some argue that it was written by
Pope Gregory VII (r. 1073-1085) himself, others argues that it had a much later different origin. In 1087
Cardinal Deusdedit published a collection of the laws of the Church which he drew from any sources. The
Dictatus agrees so clearly and closely with this collection that some have argued the Dictatus must have
been based on it; and so must be of a later date of compilation than 1087. There is little doubt that the
principals below do express the pope's principals.

1. That the Roman church was founded by God alone.

2. That the Roman pontiff alone can with right be called universal.
3. That he alone can depose or reinstate bishops.
4. That, in a council his legate, even if a lower grade, is above all bishops, and can pass
sentence of deposition against them.
5. That the pope may depose the absent.
6. That, among other things, we ought not to remain in the same house with those
excommunicated by him.
7. That for him alone is it lawful, according to the needs of the time, to make new laws,
to assemble together new congregations, to make an abbey of a canonry; and, on the
other hand, to divide a rich bishopric and unite the poor ones.
8. That he alone may use the imperial insignia.
9. That of the pope alone all princes shall kiss the feet.
10. That his name alone shall be spoken in the churches.
11. That this is the only name in the world.
12. That it may be permitted to him to depose emperors.
13. That he may be permitted to transfer bishops if need be.
14. That he has power to ordain a clerk of any church he may wish.
15. That he who is ordained by him may preside over another church, but may not hold a
subordinate position; and that such a one may not receive a higher grade from any
bishop.
16. That no synod shall be called a general one without his order.
17. That no chapter and no book shall be considered canonical without his authority.
18. That a sentence passed by him may be retracted by no one; and that he himself,
alone of all, may retract it.
19. That he himself may be judged by no one.
20. That no one shall dare to condemn one who appeals to the apostolic chair.
 21. That to the latter should be referred the more important cases of every church.
22. That the Roman church has never erred; nor will it err to all eternity, the Scripture
bearing witness.
23. That the Roman pontiff, if he have been canonically ordained, is undoubtedly made a
saint by the merits of St. Peter; St. Ennodius, bishop of Pavia, bearing witness, and
many holy fathers agreeing with him. As is contained in the decrees of St.
Symmachus the pope.
24. That, by his command and consent, it may be lawful for subordinates to bring
accusations.
25. That he may depose and reinstate bishops without assembling a synod.
26. That he who is not at peace with the Roman church shall not be considered catholic.
27. That he may absolve subjects from their fealty to wicked men.

Exsurge Domine
Condemning the Errors of Martin Luther

Pope Leo X - 1520

Arise, O Lord, and judge your own cause. Remember your reproaches to those
who are filled with foolishness all through the day. Listen to our prayers, for
foxes have arisen seeking to destroy the vineyard whose winepress you alone
have trod. When you were about to ascend to your Father, you committed the
care, rule, and administration of the vineyard, an image of the triumphant
church, to Peter, as the head and your vicar and his successors. The wild boar
from the forest seeks to destroy it and every wild beast feeds upon it.

Rise, Peter, and fulfill this pastoral office divinely entrusted to you as mentioned
above. Give heed to the cause of the holy Roman Church, mother of all
churches and teacher of the faith, whom you by the order of God, have
consecrated by your blood. Against the Roman Church, you warned, lying
teachers are rising, introducing ruinous sects, and drawing upon themselves
speedy doom. Their tongues are fire, a restless evil, full of deadly poison. They
have bitter zeal, contention in their hearts, and boast and lie against the truth.

We beseech you also, Paul, to arise. It was you that enlightened and
illuminated the Church by your doctrine and by a martyrdom like Peter’s. For
now a new Porphyry rises who, as the old once wrongfully assailed the holy
apostles, now assails the holy pontiffs, our predecessors.

Rebuking them, in violation of your teaching, instead of imploring them, he is

not ashamed to assail them, to tear at them, and when he despairs of his
cause, to stoop to insults. He is like the heretics “whose last defense,” as
Jerome says, “is to start spewing out a serpent’s venom with their tongue when
they see that their causes are about to be condemned, and spring to insults
when they see they are vanquished.” For although you have said that there
must be heresies to test the faithful, still they must be destroyed at their very
birth by your intercession and help, so they do not grow or wax strong like your
wolves. Finally, let the whole church of the saints and the rest of the universal
church arise. Some, putting aside her true interpretation of Sacred Scripture,
are blinded in mind by the father of lies. Wise in their own eyes, according to the
ancient practice of heretics, they interpret these same Scriptures otherwise than
the Holy Spirit demands, inspired only by their own sense of ambition, and for
the sake of popular acclaim, as the Apostle declares. In fact, they twist and
adulterate the Scriptures. As a result, according to Jerome, “It is no longer the
Gospel of Christ, but a man’s, or what is worse, the devil’s.”

Let all this holy Church of God, I say, arise, and with the blessed apostles
intercede with almighty God to purge the errors of His sheep, to banish all
heresies from the lands of the faithful, and be pleased to maintain the peace
and unity of His holy Church.

For we can scarcely express, from distress and grief of mind, what has reached
our ears for some time by the report of reliable men and general rumor; alas, we
have even seen with our eyes and read the many diverse errors. Some of these
have already been condemned by councils and the constitutions of our
predecessors, and expressly contain even the heresy of the Greeks and
Bohemians. Other errors are either heretical, false, scandalous, or offensive to
pious ears, as seductive of simple minds, originating with false exponents of the
faith who in their proud curiosity yearn for the world’s glory, and contrary to the
Apostle’s teaching, wish to be wiser than they should be. Their talkativeness,
unsupported by the authority of the Scriptures, as Jerome says, would not win
credence unless they appeared to support their perverse doctrine even with
divine testimonies however badly interpreted. From their sight fear of God has
now passed.

These errors have, at the suggestion of the human race, been revived and
recently propagated among the more frivolous and the illustrious German
nation. We grieve the more that this happened there because we and our
predecessors have always held this nation in the bosom of our affection. For
after the empire had been transferred by the Roman Church from the Greeks to
these same Germans, our predecessors and we always took the Church’s
advocates and defenders from among them. Indeed it is certain that these
Germans, truly germane to the Catholic faith, have always been the bitterest
opponents of heresies, as witnessed by those commendable constitutions of
the German emperors in behalf of the Church’s independence, freedom, and
the expulsion and extermination of all heretics from Germany. Those
constitutions formerly issued, and then confirmed by our predecessors, were
issued under the greatest penalties even of loss of lands and dominions against
anyone sheltering or not expelling them. If they were observed today both we
and they would obviously be free of this disturbance. Witness to this is the
condemnation and punishment in the Council of Constance of the infidelity of
the Hussites and Wyclifites as well as Jerome of Prague. Witness to this is the
blood of Germans shed so often in wars against the Bohemians. A final witness
is the refutation, rejection, and condemnation no less learned than true and holy
of the above errors, or many of them, by the universities of Cologne and
Louvain, most devoted and religious cultivators of the Lord’s field. We could
allege many other facts too, which we have decided to omit, lest we appear to
be composing a history.

In virtue of our pastoral office committed to us by the divine favor we can under
no circumstances tolerate or overlook any longer the pernicious poison of the
above errors without disgrace to the Christian religion and injury to orthodox
faith. Some of these errors we have decided to include in the present
document; their substance is as follows:

1. It is a heretical opinion, but a common one, that the sacraments of the New
Law give pardoning grace to those who do not set up an obstacle.

2. To deny that in a child after baptism sin remains is to treat with contempt both
Paul and Christ.

3. The inflammable sources of sin, even if there be no actual sin, delay a soul
departing from the body from entrance into heaven.

4. To one on the point of death imperfect charity necessarily brings with it great
fear, which in itself alone is enough to produce the punishment of purgatory,
and impedes entrance into the kingdom.

5. That there are three parts to penance: contrition, confession, and

satisfaction, has no foundation in Sacred Scripture nor in the ancient sacred
Christian doctors.

6. Contrition, which is acquired through discussion, collection, and detestation

of sins, by which one reflects upon his years in the bitterness of his soul, by
pondering over the gravity of sins, their number, their baseness, the loss of
eternal beatitude, and the acquisition of eternal damnation, this contrition
makes him a hypocrite, indeed more a sinner.

7. It is a most truthful proverb and the doctrine concerning the contritions given
thus far is the more remarkable: “Not to do so in the future is the highest
penance; the best penance, a new life.”

8. By no means may you presume to confess venial sins, nor even all mortal
sins, because it is impossible that you know all mortal sins. Hence in the
primitive Church only manifest mortal sins were confessed.

9. As long as we wish to confess all sins without exception, we are doing

nothing else than to wish to leave nothing to God’s mercy for pardon.

10. Sins are not forgiven to anyone, unless when the priest forgives them he
believes they are forgiven; on the contrary the sin would remain unless he
believed it was forgiven; for indeed the remission of sin and the granting of
grace does not suffice, but it is necessary also to believe that there has been
forgiveness.

11. By no means can you have reassurance of being absolved because of your
contrition, but because of the word of Christ: “Whatsoever you shall loose, etc.”
Hence, I say, trust confidently, if you have obtained the absolution of the priest,
and firmly believe yourself to have been absolved, and you will truly be
absolved, whatever there may be of contrition.

12. If through an impossibility he who confessed was not contrite, or the priest
did not absolve seriously, but in a jocose manner, if nevertheless he believes
that he has been absolved, he is most truly absolved.

13. In the sacrament of penance and the remission of sin the pope or the
bishop does no more than the lowest priest; indeed, where there is no priest,
any Christian, even if a woman or child, may equally do as much.

14. No one ought to answer a priest that he is contrite, nor should the priest
inquire.

15. Great is the error of those who approach the sacrament of the Eucharist
relying on this, that they have confessed, that they are not conscious of any
mortal sin, that they have sent their prayers on ahead and made preparations;
all these eat and drink judgment to themselves. But if they believe and trust that
they will attain grace, then this faith alone makes them pure and worthy.

16. It seems to have been decided that the Church in common Council
established that the laity should communicate under both species; the
Bohemians who communicate under both species are not heretics, but
schismatics.

17. The treasures of the Church, from which the pope grants indulgences, are
not the merits of Christ and of the saints.

18. Indulgences are pious frauds of the faithful, and remissions of good works;
and they are among the number of those things which are allowed, and not of
the number of those which are advantageous.

19. Indulgences are of no avail to those who truly gain them, for the remission
of the penalty due to actual sin in the sight of divine justice.

20. They are seduced who believe that indulgences are salutary and useful for
the fruit of the spirit.

21. Indulgences are necessary only for public crimes, and are properly
conceded only to the harsh and impatient.

22. For six kinds of men indulgences are neither necessary nor useful; namely,
for the dead and those about to die, the infirm, those legitimately hindered, and
those who have not committed crimes, and those who have committed crimes,
but not public ones, and those who devote themselves to better things.

23. Excommunications are only external penalties and they do not deprive man
of the common spiritual prayers of the Church.

24. Christians must be taught to cherish excommunications rather than to fear

them.

25. The Roman Pontiff, the successor of Peter, is not the vicar of Christ over all
the churches of the entire world, instituted by Christ Himself in blessed Peter.

26. The word of Christ to Peter: “Whatsoever you shall loose on earth,” etc., is
extended merely to those things bound by Peter himself.

27. It is certain that it is not in the power of the Church or the pope to decide
upon the articles of faith, and much less concerning the laws for morals or for
good works.

28. If the pope with a great part of the Church thought so and so, he would not
err; still it is not a sin or heresy to think the contrary, especially in a matter not
necessary for salvation, until one alternative is condemned and another
approved by a general Council.

29. A way has been made for us for weakening the authority of councils, and for
freely contradicting their actions, and judging their decrees, and boldly
confessing whatever seems true, whether it has been approved or disapproved
by any council whatsoever.

30. Some articles of John Hus, condemned in the Council of Constance, are
most Christian, wholly true and evangelical; these the universal Church could
not condemn.

31. In every good work the just man sins.

32. A good work done very well is a venial sin.

33. That heretics be burned is against the will of the Spirit.

34. To go to war against the Turks is to resist God who punishes our iniquities
through them.

35. No one is certain that he is not always sinning mortally, because of the most
hidden vice of pride.

36. Free will after sin is a matter of title only; and as long as one does what is in
him, one sins mortally.

37. Purgatory cannot be proved from Sacred Scripture which is in the canon.
38. The souls in purgatory are not sure of their salvation, at least not all; nor is it
proved by any arguments or by the Scriptures that they are beyond the state of
meriting or of increasing in charity.

39. The souls in purgatory sin without intermission, as long as they seek rest
and abhor punishment.

40. The souls freed from purgatory by the suffrages of the living are less happy
than if they had made satisfactions by themselves.

41. Ecclesiastical prelates and secular princes would not act badly if they
destroyed all of the money bags of beggary.

No one of sound mind is ignorant how destructive, pernicious, scandalous, and

seductive to pious and simple minds these various errors are, how opposed
they are to all charity and reverence for the holy Roman Church who is the
mother of all the faithful and teacher of the faith; how destructive they are of the
vigor of ecclesiastical discipline, namely obedience. This virtue is the font and
origin of all virtues and without it anyone is readily convicted of being unfaithful.

Therefore we, in this above enumeration, important as it is, wish to proceed with
great care as is proper, and to cut off the advance of this plague and cancerous
disease so it will not spread any further in the Lord’s field as harmful
thornbushes. We have therefore held a careful inquiry, scrutiny, discussion,
strict examination, and mature deliberation with each of the brothers, the
eminent cardinals of the holy Roman Church, as well as the priors and ministers
general of the religious orders, besides many other professors and masters
skilled in sacred theology and in civil and canon law. We have found that these
errors or theses are not Catholic, as mentioned above, and are not to be taught,
as such; but rather are against the doctrine and tradition of the Catholic Church,
and against the true interpretation of the sacred Scriptures received from the
Church. Now Augustine maintained that her authority had to be accepted so
completely that he stated he would not have believed the Gospel unless the
authority of the Catholic Church had vouched for it. For, according to these
errors, or any one or several of them, it clearly follows that the Church which is
guided by the Holy Spirit is in error and has always erred. This is against what
Christ at his ascension promised to his disciples (as is read in the holy Gospel
of Matthew): “I will be with you to the consummation of the world”; it is against
the determinations of the holy Fathers, or the express ordinances and canons
of the councils and the supreme pontiffs. Failure to comply with these canons,
according to the testimony of Cyprian, will be the fuel and cause of all heresy
and schism.

With the advice and consent of these our venerable brothers, with mature
deliberation on each and every one of the above theses, and by the authority of
almighty God, the blessed Apostles Peter and Paul, and our own authority, we
condemn, reprobate, and reject completely each of these theses or errors as
either heretical, scandalous, false, offensive to pious ears or seductive of simple
minds, and against Catholic truth. By listing them, we decree and declare that
all the faithful of both sexes must regard them as condemned, reprobated, and
rejected . . . We restrain all in the virtue of holy obedience and under the
penalty of an automatic major excommunication….

Moreover, because the preceding errors and many others are contained in the
books or writings of Martin Luther, we likewise condemn, reprobate, and reject
completely the books and all the writings and sermons of the said Martin,
whether in Latin or any other language, containing the said errors or any one of
them; and we wish them to be regarded as utterly condemned, reprobated, and
rejected. We forbid each and every one of the faithful of either sex, in virtue of
holy obedience and under the above penalties to be incurred automatically, to
read, assert, preach, praise, print, publish, or defend them. They will incur these
penalties if they presume to uphold them in any way, personally or through
another or others, directly or indirectly, tacitly or explicitly, publicly or occultly,
either in their own homes or in other public or private places. Indeed
immediately after the publication of this letter these works, wherever they may
be, shall be sought out carefully by the ordinaries and others [ecclesiastics and
regulars], and under each and every one of the above penalties shall be burned
publicly and solemnly in the presence of the clerics and people.

As far as Martin himself is concerned, O good God, what have we overlooked or

not done? What fatherly charity have we omitted that we might call him back
from such errors? For after we had cited him, wishing to deal more kindly with
him, we urged him through various conferences with our legate and through our
personal letters to abandon these errors. We have even offered him safe
conduct and the money necessary for the journey urging him to come without
fear or any misgivings, which perfect charity should cast out, and to talk not
secretly but openly and face to face after the example of our Savior and the
Apostle Paul. If he had done this, we are certain he would have changed in
heart, and he would have recognized his errors. He would not have found all
these errors in the Roman Curia which he attacks so viciously, ascribing to it
more than he should because of the empty rumors of wicked men. We would
have shown him clearer than the light of day that the Roman pontiffs, our
predecessors, whom he injuriously attacks beyond all decency, never erred in
their canons or constitutions which he tries to assail. For, according to the
prophet, neither is healing oil nor the doctor lacking in Galaad.

But he always refused to listen and, despising the previous citation and each
and every one of the above overtures, disdained to come. To the present day
he has been contumacious. With a hardened spirit he has continued under
censure over a year. What is worse, adding evil to evil, and on learning of the
citation, he broke forth in a rash appeal to a future council. This to be sure was
contrary to the constitution of Pius II and Julius II our predecessors that all
appealing in this way are to be punished with the penalties of heretics. In vain
does he implore the help of a council, since he openly admits that he does not
believe in a council.

Therefore we can, without any further citation or delay, proceed against him to
his condemnation and damnation as one whose faith is notoriously suspect and
in fact a true heretic with the full severity of each and all of the above penalties
and censures. Yet, with the advice of our brothers, imitating the mercy of
almighty God who does not wish the death of a sinner but rather that he be
converted and live, and forgetting all the injuries inflicted on us and the
Apostolic See, we have decided to use all the compassion we are capable of. It
is our hope, so far as in us lies, that he will experience a change of heart by
taking the road of mildness we have proposed, return, and turn away from his
errors. We will receive him kindly as the prodigal son returning to the embrace
of the Church.

Therefore let Martin himself and all those adhering to him, and those who
shelter and support him, through the merciful heart of our God and the
sprinkling of the blood of our Lord Jesus Christ by which and through whom the
redemption of the human race and the upbuilding of holy mother Church was
accomplished, know that from our heart we exhort and beseech that he cease
to disturb the peace, unity, and truth of the Church for which the Savior prayed
so earnestly to the Father. Let him abstain from his pernicious errors that he
may come back to us. If they really will obey, and certify to us by legal
documents that they have obeyed, they will find in us the affection of a father’s
love, the opening of the font of the effects of paternal charity, and opening of
the font of mercy and clemency.

We enjoin, however, on Martin that in the meantime he cease from all preaching
or the office of preacher.

{And even though the love of righteousness and virtue did not take him away from sin
and the hope of forgiveness did not lead him to penance, perhaps the terror of the pain
of punishment may move him. Thus we beseech and remind this Martin, his supporters
and accomplices of his holy orders and the described punishment. We ask him earnestly
that he and his supporters, adherents and accomplices desist within sixty days (which
we wish to have divided into three times twenty days, counting from the publication of
this bull at the places mentioned below) from preaching, both expounding their views
and denouncing others, from publishing books and pamphlets concerning some or all of
their errors. Furthermore, all writings which contain some or all of his errors are to be
burned. Furthermore, this Martin is to recant perpetually such errors and views. He is
to inform us of such recantation through an open document, sealed by two prelates,
which we should receive within another sixty days. Or he should personally, with safe
conduct, inform us of his recantation by coming to Rome. We would prefer this latter
way in order that no doubt remain of his sincere obedience.

If, however, this Martin, his supporters, adherents and accomplices, much to our regret,
should stubbornly not comply with the mentioned stipulations within the mentioned
period, we shall, following the teaching of the holy Apostle Paul, who teaches us to
avoid a heretic after having admonished him for a first and a second time, condemn this
Martin, his supporters, adherents and accomplices as barren vines which are not in
Christ, preaching an offensive doctrine contrary to the Christian faith and offend the
divine majesty, to the damage and shame of the entire Christian Church, and diminish
the keys of the Church as stubborn and public heretics.}* . . .