Part III, Chapter XLII, 1

OF ECCLESIASTICAL POWER

To understand ecclesiastical power—what it is, and who possesses it—we must divide the period since our Savior's ascension into two parts: one before the conversion of Kings and others endowed with sovereign civil power, and the other after their conversion. For a long time passed after the ascension before any King or civil sovereign embraced and publicly authorized the teaching of the Christian religion.

During the intervening time, ecclesiastical power clearly belonged to the Apostles, and after them to those whom they ordained to preach the Gospel, convert people to Christianity, and direct the converts along the way to salvation. These in turn handed the power to others whom they ordained, laying hands upon them as a sign that they gave the Holy Spirit, or Spirit of God, to those they appointed ministers of God to advance his Kingdom. The laying on of hands, then, was nothing other than the seal of their commission to preach Christ and teach his doctrine; and giving the Holy Spirit by this ceremony imitated what Moses had done. For Moses used the same ceremony for his minister Joshua, as we read in Deuteronomy 34. ver. 9.: “And Joshua the son of Nun was full of the Spirit of wisdom, for Moses had laid his hands upon him.” Between his resurrection and ascension, our Savior gave his Spirit to the Apostles, first by “breathing on them and saying” (John 20.22.), “Receive the Holy Spirit”; and after his ascension (Acts 2.2, 3.) by sending upon them a “mighty wind and divided tongues of fire”; not by laying on of hands, any more than God laid his hands on Moses. His Apostles afterward passed on the same Spirit by laying on of hands, as Moses did to Joshua. Thus it is evident in whom ecclesiastical power continually resided in those earliest times, when there was no Christian Common-wealth: in those who received it from the Apostles through successive laying on of hands.

Here we have the Person of God borne for a third time. Moses and the High Priests were God's representatives in the Old Testament, and our Savior himself as man during his life on earth; so the Holy Spirit—that is, the Apostles and their successors in the office of preaching and teaching, who had received the Holy Spirit—have represented him ever since. But a Person, as I have shown before [chapt. 16.], is the one represented whenever he is represented. Therefore God, who has been represented (that is, personated) three times, may properly be said to be three Persons, though neither Person nor Trinity is attributed to him in the Bible. St. John indeed says (1 Epist. 5.7.), “There are three who bear witness in heaven, the Father, the Word, and the Holy Spirit; and these three are one.” But this does not disagree with the existence of three Persons in the proper sense of Persons—one who is represented by another—and fits it well. God the Father as represented by Moses is one Person; as represented by his Son, another Person; and as represented by the Apostles and the teachers who taught with authority derived from them, a third Person; yet each Person here is the Person of one and the same God. Someone may ask what it was to which these three bore witness. St. John tells us (verse 11.) that their testimony is that “God has given us eternal life in his Son.” If we ask how that testimony appears, the answer is easy: God testified to it through the miracles he worked first through Moses, second through his Son himself, and last through his Apostles who had received the Holy Spirit. All of these in their own times represented God's Person and either prophesied or preached Jesus Christ. For the twelve first and great Apostles, bearing witness to his resurrection was the defining mark of apostleship. This appears expressly in Acts 1. ver. 21,22., where St. Peter, when a new Apostle was to be chosen in the place of Judas Iscariot, says: “Of these men who have accompanied us all the time the Lord Jesus went in and out among us, beginning with the baptism of John until the day he was taken up from us, one must be appointed to witness with us to his resurrection.” These words explain the bearing witness mentioned by St. John. The same passage mentions another trinity of witnesses on earth. For (ver. 8.) he says, “There are three who bear witness on earth, the Spirit, and the water, and the blood; and these three agree in one”: that is, the graces of God's Spirit and the two sacraments, baptism and the Lord's Supper, which agree in a single testimony assuring the consciences of believers of eternal life. Of this testimony he says (verse 10.), “He who believes in the Son of man has the witness in himself.” In this earthly trinity, the unity is not of the thing itself, since the Spirit, the water, and the blood are not the same substance, though they give the same testimony. In the heavenly Trinity, however, the Persons are the persons of one and the same God, though represented at three different times and on different occasions. In short, as far as it may be gathered directly from Scripture, the doctrine of the Trinity amounts to this: God, always one and the same, was the Person represented by Moses, the Person represented by his incarnate Son, and the Person represented by the Apostles. Represented by the Apostles, the Holy Spirit by which they spoke is God; represented by his Son, who was God and man, the Son is that God; represented by Moses and the High Priests, the Father—that is, the Father of our Lord Jesus Christ—is that God. From this we can gather why the names Father, Son, and Holy Spirit, signifying the Godhead, are never used in the Old Testament: they are Persons, and so take their names from representation, which could not happen until different men had represented God's Person in ruling or directing under him.

Thus we see how our Savior left ecclesiastical power to the Apostles and how they were endowed with the Holy Spirit to exercise it more effectively. In the New Testament this Spirit is sometimes called Paracletus, meaning a helper, or one called upon for help, though it is commonly translated Comforter. Let us now consider the power itself, what it was and over whom it extended.

Cardinal Bellarmine, in his third general Controversy, has addressed many questions concerning the ecclesiastical power of the Pope of Rome, beginning with whether it ought to be monarchical, aristocratic, or democratic. Each of these forms of power is sovereign and coercive. But suppose it should appear that our Savior left them no coercive power, only the power to proclaim Christ's Kingdom and persuade people to submit to it, and by precept and good counsel to teach those who have submitted what they must do to be received into the Kingdom of God when it comes; and that the Apostles and other ministers of the Gospel are our schoolmasters, not our commanders, and their precepts are not laws but sound counsel. Then all such disputants argue in vain.

I have already shown in the preceding chapter that Christ's Kingdom is not of this world; neither, therefore, can his ministers require obedience in his name, unless they are Kings. For if the supreme King does not exercise his royal power in this world, by what authority can his officers demand obedience? “As my Father sent me,” says our Savior, “so I send you.” But our Savior was sent to persuade the Jews to return to his Father's Kingdom and invite the Gentiles to receive it, not to reign in majesty, not even as his Father's lieutenant, until the day of Judgment.

The period between the ascension and the general Resurrection is called not a reign but a Regeneration: the preparation of people for Christ's second, glorious coming on the day of Judgment. This appears in our Savior's words, Mat. 19.28.: “You who have followed me in the Regeneration, when the Son of man shall sit upon the throne of his glory, you shall also sit upon twelve thrones”; and in St. Paul's (Ephes. 6.15.): “Having your feet shod with the preparation of the Gospel of peace.”

Our Savior also compares it to fishing: winning people to obedience not by coercion and punishment, but by persuasion. Therefore he did not tell his Apostles he would make them so many Nimrods, hunters of men, but fishers of men. It is also compared to leaven, the sowing of seed, and the growth of a mustard seed. All these exclude compulsion, and consequently there can be no actual reign during that time. The work of Christ's ministers is evangelization: the proclamation of Christ and preparation for his second coming, as the evangelization of John the Baptist prepared for his first.

Again, the office of Christ's ministers in this world is to bring people to belief and faith in Christ. But faith has no relation to, and no dependence upon, compulsion or command; it depends only on the certainty or probability of arguments drawn from reason or from something people already believe. Therefore Christ's ministers in this world have no power by virtue of that title to punish anyone for not believing or for contradicting what they say. As Christ's ministers, I say, they have no power to punish such people; but if by political institution they have sovereign civil power, they may indeed lawfully punish any contradiction of their laws whatsoever. And St. Paul says expressly of himself and the other preachers of the Gospel at that time (2 Cor. 1.24.), “We have no dominion over your faith, but are helpers of your joy.”

Another argument that Christ's ministers in this present world have no right to command may be drawn from the lawful authority Christ has left to all princes, Christian and unbeliever alike. St. Paul says (Col. 3.20.), “Children, obey your parents in all things, for this is pleasing to the Lord.” And ver. 22.: “Servants, obey in all things your masters according to the flesh, not with service performed only under their eyes, as people-pleasers, but with sincerity of heart, fearing the Lord.” This is addressed to people whose masters were unbelievers, and yet they are commanded to obey them in all things. Concerning obedience to princes, again (Rom. 13. the first 6. verses), exhorting us “to be subject to the higher powers,” he says “that all power is ordained by God,” and “that we ought to be subject to them, not only for” fear of their “wrath, but also for conscience's sake.” And St. Peter says (1 Epist. chap. 2e ver. 13, 14, 15.), “Submit yourselves to every ordinance of man for the Lord's sake, whether to the King as supreme or to governors, as those sent by him to punish evildoers and praise those who do well; for this is the will of God.” St. Paul says again (Tit. 3.1.), “Remind people to be subject to principalities and powers, and to obey magistrates.” The princes and powers of whom St. Peter and St. Paul speak here were all unbelievers; how much more, then, must we obey Christians whom God has ordained to hold sovereign power over us. How can we, therefore, be obliged to do anything contrary to the command of the King, or other sovereign representative of the Common-wealth to which we belong and from whom we expect protection? Plainly, Christ has left his ministers in this world no authority to command others, unless they also possess civil authority.

But what if, someone may object, a King, Senate, or other sovereign Person forbids us to believe in Christ? Such a prohibition has no effect, I answer, because belief and unbelief never follow human commands. Faith is God's gift, which no human being can give or take away by promises of reward or threats of torture. And if someone asks further, What if our lawful prince commands us to say aloud that we do not believe—must we obey? Spoken profession is merely an outward thing, no more than any other gesture by which we signify obedience. A Christian who firmly holds faith in Christ within his heart has in this respect the same liberty that the prophet Elisha allowed Naaman the Syrian. Naaman was converted in his heart to the God of Israel, for he says (2 Kings 5.17.), “Your servant will henceforth offer neither burnt offering nor sacrifice to other gods, but to the Lord. In this matter may the Lord pardon your servant: when my master goes into the house of Rimmon to worship there and leans upon my hand, and I bow myself in the house of Rimmon, may the Lord pardon your servant when I bow myself in the house of Rimmon.” The prophet approved this and told him, “Go in peace.” Naaman believed in his heart, yet by bowing before the idol Rimmon he denied the true God in deed as fully as if he had done so with his lips. What, then, shall we answer to our Savior's saying, “Whoever denies me before men, I will deny him before my Father who is in Heaven”? We may say that whatever a subject such as Naaman is compelled to do in obedience to his sovereign, and does not by his own judgment but by the laws of his country, is an action not of the subject but of the sovereign. In this case it is not the subject who denies Christ before men but his governor and the law of his country. If anyone condemns this doctrine as contrary to true and sincere Christianity, I ask him this: suppose a subject in a Christian Common-wealth were inwardly, in his heart, of the Muslim religion, and his sovereign commanded him, on pain of death, to attend divine service in the Christian Church. Does he think that Muslim obliged in conscience to suffer death for that reason rather than obey his lawful prince? If he says the man ought to suffer death, he authorizes all private persons to disobey their princes in defense of their religion, true or false. If he says the man ought to obey, he grants himself what he denies another, contrary to our Savior's words, “Whatever you would have people do to you, do that to them,” and contrary to the Law of Nature, the unquestionable eternal Law of God: “Do not do to another what you would not have him do to you.”

On Ecclesiastical Power

To understand what ecclesiastical power is and who holds it, we need to divide the time since our Savior's ascension into two periods. One came before kings and others holding supreme civil power converted. The other came afterward. For a long time after the ascension, no king or civil sovereign embraced Christian teaching and publicly permitted it.

During the first period, ecclesiastical power clearly belonged to the apostles. After them it belonged to people they appointed to preach the Gospel, convert others to Christianity, and guide converts toward salvation. Those people in turn passed the power on to others they appointed. They did this by laying hands on them, a sign of giving the Holy Spirit, or Spirit of God, to those appointed as God's ministers to advance his kingdom. Laying on hands was simply the seal of their commission to preach Christ and teach his doctrine. Giving the Holy Spirit through this ceremony imitated Moses. Moses used the same ceremony for his minister Joshua, as we read in Deuteronomy 34. ver. 9.: “Joshua son of Nun was full of the Spirit of Wisdom, for Moses had laid his hands on him.” Between his resurrection and ascension, our Savior gave his Spirit to the apostles, first by “breathing on them and saying” (John 20.22.), “Receive the Holy Spirit.” After ascending (Acts 2.2, 3.), he sent down on them “a mighty wind and divided tongues of fire.” He did not lay hands on them, just as God did not lay hands on Moses. Later his apostles passed on the same Spirit by laying on hands, as Moses did to Joshua. This shows who continuously held ecclesiastical power in those early days, when there was no Christian commonwealth: those who received it from the apostles through successive laying on of hands.

Here the Person of God appears for a third time. Moses and the high priests represented God in the Old Testament, and our Savior himself represented God as a man during his time on earth. Likewise the Holy Spirit—that is, the apostles and their successors who received the Holy Spirit and worked as preachers and teachers—has represented God ever since. But as I showed earlier ([chapt. 16.].), a Person is whoever is represented, each time that representation occurs. God, who has been represented, or personated, three times can therefore properly be called three Persons, although the Bible does not apply the word Person or Trinity to him. St. John does say (1 Epist. 5.7.), “Three bear witness in heaven: the Father, the Word, and the Holy Spirit; and these three are one.” This fits the proper meaning of three Persons: one who is represented by another. God the Father, represented by Moses, is one Person; represented by his Son, another; represented by the apostles and teachers whose authority came from them, a third. Yet each Person is the Person of the same God. Someone might ask what these three bore witness to. St. John says (verse 11.) that their testimony is that “God has given us eternal life in his Son.” If asked how that testimony is shown, the answer is easy: through the miracles God worked first through Moses, then through his Son himself, and finally through his apostles who had received the Holy Spirit. Each represented God's Person in their own time, prophesying or preaching Jesus Christ. For the original twelve leading apostles, the distinguishing mark of being an apostle was witnessing his resurrection. This appears explicitly (Acts 1. ver. 21,22.) when St. Peter says, as a replacement for Judas Iscariot is being chosen, “One of these men who accompanied us throughout the time the Lord Jesus moved among us, from John's baptism until the day he was taken from us, must be appointed to witness his resurrection with us.” These words explain the witnessing St. John mentions. The same passage mentions another Trinity of witnesses on earth: “Three bear witness on earth, the Spirit, the water, and the blood; and these three agree as one” (ver. 8.). They are the gifts of God's Spirit and the two sacraments, baptism and the Lord's Supper. All testify alike, assuring believers' consciences of eternal life. St. John says of this testimony (verse 10.), “Whoever believes in the Son of man has the witness within himself.” In this earthly Trinity, the things themselves are not one: Spirit, water, and blood are not one substance, though their testimony agrees. In the heavenly Trinity, the Persons are Persons of the same God, represented at three different times and in three different situations. In short, so far as we can learn directly from Scripture, the doctrine of the Trinity comes to this. God, who is always one and the same, was the Person represented by Moses, by his Son in human flesh, and by the apostles. Represented by the apostles, God is the Holy Spirit through which they spoke. Represented by his Son, who was God and man, that God is the Son. Represented by Moses and the high priests, that God is the Father, the Father of our Lord Jesus Christ. This explains why the names Father, Son, and Holy Spirit, meaning God, never occur in the Old Testament. They are names of Persons, arising from representation. Those names could not exist until different men had represented God's Person by ruling or directing others under him.

We have now seen how our Savior left ecclesiastical power to the apostles. We have also seen how he equipped them with the Holy Spirit to exercise that power better. The New Testament sometimes calls this Spirit Paracletus, meaning a helper or someone called on for help, though it is usually translated “Comforter.” Let us now consider what the power itself was and whom it applied to.

Cardinal Bellarmine, in his third general Controversy, discusses many questions about the pope of Rome's ecclesiastical power. He begins by asking whether it should be monarchical, aristocratic, or democratic. Every one of those forms of power is sovereign and can compel obedience. But suppose our Savior left his ministers no power of compulsion. Suppose he gave them only power to announce Christ's kingdom and persuade people to submit to it. They can teach those who have submitted, through instructions and good advice, how to gain entry when the Kingdome of God comes. Suppose the apostles and other Gospel ministers are our schoolteachers, not our commanders, and their instructions are helpful advice, not laws. Then all those debates are pointless.

I have already shown in the last chapter that Christ's kingdom is not of this world. So his ministers cannot demand obedience in his name unless they are kings themselves. If the supreme king has no royal power in this world, by what authority can his officers demand obedience? Our Savior says, “As my Father sent me, so I send you.” But he was sent to persuade the Jews to return to his Father's kingdom and to invite the Gentiles into it. He was not sent to reign in majesty, even as his Father's deputy, before the day of judgment.

The period between the ascension and the general resurrection is called not a reign but a regeneration: a preparation of people for Christ's second, glorious coming on judgment day. Our Savior says (Mat. 19.28.), “You who have followed me in the regeneration, when the Son of man sits on his glorious throne, you too shall sit on twelve thrones.” And St. Paul says (Ephes. 6.15.), “Have your feet fitted with the preparation of the Gospel of peace.”

Our Savior also compares this period to fishing. That means winning people over to obedience by persuasion, not by force or punishment. He did not say that he would make the apostles into so many Nimrods, hunters of men, but into fishers of men. He also compares it to yeast, sowing seed, and the growth of a mustard seed. Each image rules out compulsion, so there can be no actual reign in this period. Christ's ministers' work is evangelization: proclaiming Christ and preparing for his return, just as John the Baptist's preaching prepared for his first coming.

Another part of Christ's ministers' work in this world is helping people believe and have faith in Christ. But faith does not arise from, or depend on, force or commands. It comes only from arguments that seem certain or likely, based on reason or on things people already believe. Therefore, as Christ's ministers, they have no power to punish anyone for disbelieving or contradicting them. I mean they have no such power by virtue of being Christ's ministers. If they also hold supreme civil power by political appointment, they may lawfully punish any violation of their laws. St. Paul says plainly of himself and other Gospel preachers of his time (2 Cor. 1.24.), “We do not rule over your faith, but help your joy.”

Another reason Christ's ministers cannot command in this world is the lawful authority Christ left all rulers, Christian and non-Christian alike. St. Paul says (Col. 3.20.), “Children, obey your parents in everything, for this pleases the Lord”; and (ver. 22.), “Servants, obey your earthly masters in everything, not only when they watch you, to please people, but sincerely, out of fear of the Lord.” Their masters were nonbelievers, yet the servants were told to obey them in everything. As to obedience to rulers, Paul urges people “to submit to the higher powers” (Rom. 13. the first 6. verses). He says “all power is ordained by God,” and we must submit not only from fear of their “anger” but for conscience's sake. St. Peter says (1 Epist. chap. 2e ver. 13, 14, 15.), “Submit to every human institution for the Lord's sake, whether to the king as supreme ruler or to governors sent by him to punish wrongdoers and praise those who do well; for that is God's will.” St. Paul also says (Tit. 3.1.), “Remind people to submit to principalities and powers and obey magistrates.” All the rulers and powers Peter and Paul mention were nonbelievers. We must therefore be even more obedient to Christians whom God has appointed to hold supreme power over us. How could we be obliged to do anything against the commands of the king or other sovereign representative of our commonwealth, whose members we are and from whom we expect protection? Clearly Christ has given his ministers no power to command other people in this world unless they also hold civil authority.

But someone may object: what if a king, senate, or other sovereign person forbids us to believe in Christ? My answer is that this prohibition cannot work. Belief and disbelief do not follow people's orders. Faith is God's gift. Human beings cannot give it or take it away by promising rewards or threatening torture. But what if our lawful ruler orders us to say aloud that we do not believe? Must we obey? Speaking is an outward act, no different from another gesture showing our obedience. A Christian whose faith in Christ remains firm at heart has the same freedom in this matter that the prophet Elisha allowed Naaman the Syrian. Naaman had turned in his heart to Israel's God, saying (2 Kings 5.17.), “From now on your servant will offer no burnt offering or sacrifice to any gods but the Lord. May the Lord pardon your servant this one thing: when my master goes into the house of Rimmon to worship, leaning on my arm, and I bow in the house of Rimmon—may the Lord pardon your servant when I bow there.” The prophet approved and told him, “Go in peace.” Naaman believed in his heart, but by bowing before the idol Rimmon he outwardly denied the true God as fully as he would have by saying it. What, then, do we say about our Savior's words, “Whoever denies me before others, I will deny before my Father in heaven”? We can say this: when a subject like Naaman is compelled to act in obedience to his sovereign, following the laws of his country rather than his own intention, the act belongs to the sovereign, not to the subject. It is the ruler and the country's law that deny Christ before others, not the subject. If someone calls this doctrine incompatible with sincere Christianity, I ask them to consider a Muslim subject in a Christian commonwealth who is inwardly committed to his religion. Suppose his sovereign orders him to attend a Christian church service on pain of death. Must he, in good conscience, die rather than obey his lawful ruler? If my critic says yes, he allows all individuals to disobey their rulers in defense of their religion, whether true or false. If he says no, he grants himself a freedom he denies others. That contradicts our Savior's words, “Do to others whatever you would have them do to you,” and the Law of Nature, God's unquestionably eternal law: “Do not do to another what you would not have another do to you.”