Part III, Chapter XLII, 9

The third text is John 21, verses 16,17: “Feed my sheep,” which conveys nothing more than a commission to teach. If we grant that the other Apostles are included among those sheep, then it conveys the supreme power of teaching; but only while there were no Christian Sovereigns already possessed of that supremacy. I have already proved, however, that Christian Sovereigns are the supreme pastors in their own dominions, appointed to that office by virtue of their baptism, even without any further laying on of hands. Such a laying on of hands is a ceremony for designating the person, and is needless when that person has already been designated, by his institution as absolute ruler of his subjects, to the power of teaching whatever doctrine he chooses. As I have proved before, Sovereigns are supreme teachers in general by virtue of their office, and therefore bind themselves by baptism to teach the doctrine of Christ. When they allow others to teach their people, they do so at the peril of their own souls: God will require an account of the instruction of children and servants from the heads of families. It is of Abraham himself, not of a hired servant, that God says (Gen. 18.19), “I know that he will command his children and his household after him to keep the way of the Lord, and to do justice and judgment.”

The fourth passage is Exod. 28.30: “You shall put in the breastplate of judgment the Urim and the Thummim.” He says the Septuagint interprets these as delosin kai aletheian, that is, Evidence and Truth, and concludes from this that God gave Evidence and Truth—almost infallibility—to the high priest. But whether Evidence and Truth themselves were given, or merely an admonition that the priest should strive to inform himself clearly and judge uprightly, what was given to the high priest was given to the civil Sovereign. For in the Common-wealth of Israel the high priest stood immediately below God. The passage therefore argues for Evidence and Truth, that is, for the ecclesiastical supremacy of civil Sovereigns over their own subjects, against the Pope’s alleged power. These are all the texts he offers for the infallibility of the Pope’s judgment in matters of faith.

For the infallibility of his judgment concerning conduct he offers one text, John 16.13: “When the Spirit of truth has come, he will lead you into all truth.” Here, he says, All Truth means at least All Truth Necessary to Salvation. But with this qualification he attributes no more infallibility to the Pope than to anyone who professes Christianity and is not to be damned. For if anyone errs on a point on which freedom from error is necessary to salvation, he cannot be saved: only that without which salvation is impossible is necessary to salvation. I shall set out from Scripture in the following chapter what these points are. Here I say only that even if we granted that the Pope could not possibly teach any error at all, that would give him no jurisdiction in another prince’s dominions, unless we also say that conscience obliges a man always to hire the best workman, even when he has already promised the job to someone else.

Besides citing texts, he argues from reason as follows: if the Pope could err in matters necessary to salvation, Christ would not have made sufficient provision for the Church’s salvation, since he has commanded her to follow the Pope’s directions. But this reasoning fails unless he shows when and where Christ gave such a command, or even took any notice of a Pope. Indeed, grant that whatever was given to St. Peter was given to the Pope: since Scripture commands no one to obey St. Peter, no one can act justly in obeying him when his commands conflict with those of his lawful Sovereign.

Finally, neither the Church nor the Pope himself has declared that he is the civil Sovereign of all Christians throughout the world; therefore all Christians are not bound to acknowledge his jurisdiction in matters of conduct. Civil sovereignty and supreme judgment in disputes about conduct are the same thing. The makers of civil laws not only declare but also establish which actions are just and unjust; nothing in human conduct makes actions righteous or unrighteous except their conformity to the Sovereign’s law. Thus, when the Pope claims supremacy in disputes about conduct, he teaches men to disobey the civil Sovereign—an erroneous doctrine contrary to the many precepts of our Savior and his Apostles delivered to us in Scripture.

To prove that the Pope has power to make laws, he cites many passages. First is Deut. 17.12: “The man who acts presumptuously and will not listen to the priest who stands there to minister before the Lord your God, or to the judge, that man shall die; and you shall put away evil from Israel.” In answer, we must remember that the high priest, immediately below God, was the civil Sovereign, and all judges were appointed by him. The cited words therefore mean: “The man who presumes to disobey the civil Sovereign of the time, or any of his officers in the exercise of their offices, shall die,” and so forth. This plainly supports civil sovereignty against the Pope’s universal power.

Second, he cites Matth. 16, “Whatever you shall bind,” and so forth, interpreting this as the sort of binding attributed to the scribes and Pharisees (Matth. 23.4): “They bind heavy burdens, grievous to bear, and lay them on men’s shoulders.” By this, he says, is meant making laws; hence he concludes that the Pope can make laws. But this too supports only the legislative power of civil Sovereigns. The scribes and Pharisees sat in Moses’ chair, and Moses, immediately below God, was Sovereign of the people of Israel. Thus our Savior commanded the people to do everything the scribes and Pharisees said, but not everything they did: to obey their laws, but not follow their example.

The third passage is John 21.16, “Feed my sheep.” This gives no power to make laws, but commands one to teach. Making laws belongs to the head of the family, who at his own discretion chooses a chaplain, and likewise a schoolmaster to teach his children.

The fourth passage, John 20.21, goes against him. Its words are, “As my Father sent me, so I send you.” But our Savior was sent to redeem by his death those who would believe, and through his own preaching and that of his Apostles to prepare them to enter his Kingdom. He himself says that Kingdom is not of this world, and has taught us to pray for its coming hereafter, though he refused (Acts 1.6,7) to tell his Apostles when it would come. When it comes, the twelve Apostles will sit on twelve thrones—each perhaps as high as St. Peter’s—to judge the twelve tribes of Israel. Since God the Father did not send our Savior to make laws in this present world, we may conclude from the text that our Savior did not send St. Peter to make laws here either, but to persuade men to await his second coming with steadfast faith; meanwhile, if they are subjects, to obey their princes, and if princes, both to believe this themselves and to do their best to bring their subjects to the same belief. This is a bishop’s office. The passage therefore argues most strongly for uniting ecclesiastical supremacy with civil sovereignty, the opposite of what Cardinal Bellarmine cites it to prove.

The fifth passage is Acts 15.28: “It seemed good to the Holy Spirit and to us to lay upon you no greater burden than these necessary things: that you abstain from food offered to idols, from blood, from things strangled, and from fornication.” He takes the phrase laying burdens to indicate legislative power. But who, reading this text, can say that the Apostles’ manner of speaking is not as fitting for giving counsel as for making laws? A law says, We command; We think it good is the ordinary language of those who merely advise. Those who give advice do lay a burden, though a conditional one: it applies if those they advise want to attain their ends. Such is the burden of abstaining from things strangled and from blood: not absolute, but conditional upon their wishing to avoid error. I have shown before (chap. 25) that law differs from counsel in this: a law derives its reason from the purpose and benefit of the one who prescribes it, while counsel derives its reason from the purpose and benefit of the one who receives it. Here the Apostles seek only the benefit of the converted Gentiles, namely their salvation, not their own benefit; for once they have done their best, they will have their reward whether or not they are obeyed. Thus the acts of this council were not laws but counsels.

The sixth passage is Rom. 13: “Let every soul be subject to the higher powers, for there is no power but of God.” He says this means not only secular but also ecclesiastical princes. I answer first that there are no ecclesiastical princes except those who are also civil Sovereigns, and their principalities extend no farther than their civil sovereignty. Beyond those bounds they may be received as teachers, but cannot be acknowledged as princes. If the Apostle had meant that we should be subject both to our own princes and to the Pope, he would have taught a doctrine Christ himself has told us is impossible: “to serve two masters.” And though the Apostle says elsewhere, “I write these things while absent, lest when present I should use severity, according to the power the Lord has given me,” he was not claiming power to put any of them to death, imprison, banish, whip, or fine them—all of which are punishments—but only to excommunicate. Without civil power, excommunication is no more than leaving their company and having no more to do with them than with a heathen or a tax collector; on many occasions this might hurt the one who excommunicates more than the one excommunicated.

The seventh passage is 1 Cor. 4.21: “Shall I come to you with a rod, or with love and a spirit of gentleness?” Again, the rod means not a magistrate’s power to punish offenders, but only the power of excommunication. This is not in itself a punishment, but a pronouncement of the punishment Christ will inflict when he takes possession of his Kingdom on the day of judgment. Even then it will not properly be punishment inflicted on a subject who has broken the law, but vengeance on an enemy or rebel who denies our Savior’s right to the Kingdom. Therefore this passage does not prove the legislative power of any bishop who lacks civil power.

The eighth passage is Timothy 3.2: “A bishop must be the husband of one wife, vigilant, sober,” and so forth; he says this was a law. I had thought no one but St. Peter, monarch of the Church, could make a law in the Church. But suppose this precept was issued on St. Peter’s authority. I still see no reason to call it a law rather than advice: Timothy was not St. Paul’s subject but his disciple, and the flock in Timothy’s charge were not his subjects in a kingdom but his pupils in the school of Christ. If all the precepts Paul gives Timothy are laws, why is this not a law as well: “No longer drink water, but use a little wine for your health”? And why are the precepts of good physicians not also so many laws? It is not an imperative manner of speaking that makes a precept a law, but absolute subjection to the person who gives it.

Likewise, the ninth passage, 1 Tim. 5.19, “Do not receive an accusation against an elder except before two or three witnesses,” is a wise precept, but not a law.

The tenth passage is Luke 10.16: “Whoever hears you hears me, and whoever despises you despises me.” Certainly whoever despises the counsel of those sent by Christ despises Christ’s own counsel. But who now are sent by Christ except those ordained as pastors by lawful authority? And who is lawfully ordained except one ordained by the supreme pastor? And in a Christian Common-wealth, who is ordained by the supreme pastor except by the authority of its Sovereign? It follows from this passage that whoever hears his Christian Sovereign hears Christ, and whoever despises the doctrine authorized by his Christian king despises the doctrine of Christ. This is not what Bellarmine intends to prove here, but the opposite. Yet none of this amounts to a law. Indeed, a Christian king, as pastor and teacher of his subjects, does not thereby make his doctrines laws. He cannot compel men to believe, though as civil Sovereign he can make laws consistent with his doctrine, obliging men to certain actions, sometimes even actions they would not otherwise perform and which he ought not to command. Nevertheless, once commanded, they are laws; and the outward actions performed in obedience to them, without inward approval, are the Sovereign’s actions and not the subject’s. In that case the subject is merely an instrument without any motion of his own, because God has commanded obedience to Sovereigns.

The eleventh consists of every passage where the Apostle, while giving counsel, uses a word by which people commonly signify a command, or calls the following of his counsel obedience. Thus they cite 1 Cor. 11.2: “I commend you for keeping my precepts as I delivered them to you.” The Greek says, “I commend you for keeping the things I delivered to you as I delivered them.” That is far from implying that these were laws, or anything other than good counsel. They cite also 1 Thess. 4.2: “You know what commandments we gave you.” Here the Greek phrase paraggelias edokamen is equivalent to paredokamen, “what we delivered to you,” as in the preceding passage; it does not prove that the Apostles’ traditions were anything more than counsels. This holds even though, as the 8th verse says, “whoever despises them despises not man, but God.” Our Savior himself came not to judge—that is, to be king in this world—but to sacrifice himself for sinners and leave teachers in his Church to lead men, not drive them, to Christ. Christ never accepts forced actions, which are all that law produces, but seeks the inward conversion of the heart, which is the work not of laws but of counsel and doctrine.

The third text is John 21, verses 16, 17: “Feed my sheep.” This gives only a commission to teach. If we grant that the name “sheep” includes the other Apostles, it gives the highest authority to teach. But that applied only when no Christian Sovereigns already held that authority. I have already proved that Christian Sovereigns are the supreme pastors within their own dominions. They are appointed to that role by being baptized, without any further laying on of hands. Laying on hands is a ceremony for appointing someone. It is unnecessary when the Sovereign has already been appointed, through his absolute authority over his subjects, to decide what doctrine to teach. As I have shown, Sovereigns are supreme teachers in general by virtue of their office. By baptism, they also commit themselves to teaching Christ’s doctrine. When they allow others to teach their people, they do so at risk to their own souls. God will demand an account of how children and servants were taught from the heads of their households. God says of Abraham himself, not of a hired worker, in Genesis 18.19: “I know that he will command his children and his household after him to follow the Lord’s way and act with justice and sound judgment.”

The fourth passage is Exodus 28.30: “Put the Urim and the Thummin in the breastplate of judgment.” He says the Septuagint translates these as delosin kai aletheian, meaning evidence and truth. From this he concludes that God gave the high priest evidence and truth, which amount almost to infallibility. Perhaps he was given evidence and truth themselves. Or perhaps he was simply reminded to inform himself clearly and judge fairly. Either way, they were given to the high priest, and therefore to the civil Sovereign. In the Commonwealth of Israel the high priest ranked immediately below God. So the passage supports the evidence and truth, or ecclesiastical supremacy, of civil Sovereigns over their own subjects, against the Pope’s claimed authority. These are all the texts he offers to show that the Pope cannot err in judging questions of faith.

To show that the Pope cannot err in judgments about conduct, he gives one text, John 16.13: “When the Spirit of truth comes, he will guide you into all truth.” By “all truth,” he says, this means at least all truth necessary for salvation. But once he adds that qualification, he grants the Pope no more freedom from error than any Christian who will be saved. If anyone is mistaken on a point where avoiding error is necessary for salvation, that person cannot be saved. For something is necessary for salvation only if salvation without it is impossible. I will identify those points from Scripture in the following chapter. Here I will say only this: even if we granted that the Pope could never teach any error, that would give him no jurisdiction within another prince’s dominions. To claim otherwise would be like saying that conscience always requires a person to hire the best worker, even after promising the job to someone else.

Besides quoting Scripture, he argues as follows. If the Pope could make a mistake on what is necessary for salvation, Christ would not have made adequate provision for the Church’s salvation, since Christ commanded the Church to follow the Pope’s directions. But the argument fails unless he shows when and where Christ gave that command, or even mentioned a Pope. Indeed, suppose we grant that everything given to St. Peter was given to the Pope. Scripture still commands no one to obey St. Peter. No one can act justly by obeying him when his commands conflict with those of that person’s lawful Sovereign.

Finally, neither the Church nor the Pope himself has declared him the civil Sovereign of all Christians in the world. So Christians everywhere are not required to accept his jurisdiction over conduct. Civil sovereignty and final authority to judge disputes over conduct are the same thing. Those who make civil laws not only state which actions are just or unjust; they also determine it. The only thing that makes people’s conduct right or wrong is whether it follows the Sovereign’s law. So when the Pope claims the highest authority over disputes about conduct, he teaches people to disobey the civil Sovereign. That teaching is mistaken. It conflicts with the many commands of our Savior and his Apostles in Scripture.

To prove that the Pope can make laws, he cites many passages. First comes Deuteronomy 17.12: “The person who acts presumptuously and will not listen to the priest who serves there before the Lord your God, or to the judge, must die; so you shall remove evil from Israel.” In reply, we should remember that the high priest was the civil Sovereign immediately below God, and that he appointed all the judges. So the quoted words mean: “Anyone who presumes to disobey the current civil Sovereign, or any of his officials acting in their offices, must die,” and so forth. That clearly supports civil sovereignty against the Pope’s claim to universal authority.

Second, he cites Matthew 16, “Whatever you bind,” and so forth. He takes “binding” here to mean the kind attributed to the scribes and Pharisees in Matthew 23.4: “They tie up heavy burdens, hard to bear, and lay them on people’s shoulders.” He says this means making laws, and concludes that the Pope can make laws. But this passage, too, supports only the lawmaking power of civil Sovereigns. The scribes and Pharisees sat in Moses’ seat, and Moses was Sovereign of the people of Israel under God. Our Savior therefore commanded people to do everything they said, but not everything they did. That means obey their laws, but do not imitate their conduct.

The third passage is John 21.16, “Feed my sheep.” That is not authority to make laws; it is a command to teach. Making laws belongs to the head of the household, who chooses at his own discretion both his chaplain and a teacher for his children.

The fourth passage, John 20.21, works against him. It says, “As my Father sent me, so I send you.” But our Savior was sent to redeem through his death those who would believe. Through his preaching and that of his Apostles, he was to prepare them to enter his Kingdom. He himself says this Kingdom is not of this world, and he taught us to pray that it will come later. He refused, in Acts 1.6,7, to tell his Apostles when it would come. When it does come, the twelve Apostles will sit on twelve thrones, perhaps each as high as St. Peter’s, to judge the twelve tribes of Israel. Since God the Father did not send our Savior to make laws in the present world, the text gives us reason to conclude that our Savior did not send St. Peter to make laws here either. He sent him to persuade people to await Christ’s second coming with steady faith. Meanwhile, subjects should obey their princes. Princes should believe in that coming themselves and do their best to bring their subjects to the same belief. That is a bishop’s duty. This passage therefore strongly supports joining supreme ecclesiastical authority to civil sovereignty, the opposite of what Cardinal Bellarmine cites it to prove.

The fifth passage is Acts 15.28: “The Holy Spirit and we have thought it good to lay no greater burden on you than these necessary things: abstain from food offered to idols, from blood, from strangled animals, and from sexual immorality.” He points to “lay a burden” as evidence of lawmaking power. But who could read the passage and say that the Apostles could not use this wording to give advice just as easily as to make laws? A law says, “We command.” People offering advice normally say, “We think it good.” Advice can also place a burden on someone, though a conditional one: the person must follow it if they want to reach their goal. That is the kind of burden involved in abstaining from strangled animals and blood. It is not an absolute command, but advice for those who do not wish to go wrong. I showed in chapter 25 that law and advice differ in this respect: a law is based on the aims and interests of the person prescribing it, whereas advice is based on the aims and interests of the person receiving it. Here the Apostles aim solely at the converted Gentiles’ benefit, namely their salvation, not at their own benefit. After making their best effort, the Apostles will receive their reward whether people obey them or not. The council’s decisions were therefore advice, not laws.

The sixth passage is Romans 13: “Let everyone be subject to the higher powers, for no power exists except from God.” He says this refers to ecclesiastical as well as secular princes. I answer, first, that there are no ecclesiastical princes except those who are also civil Sovereigns. Their rule extends no further than their civil sovereignty. Outside those borders they may be accepted as teachers, but not recognized as princes. If the Apostle had meant that we should be subject both to our own princes and to the Pope, he would have taught something Christ himself called impossible: “to serve two masters.” Elsewhere the Apostle says, “I write these things while absent so that, when present, I need not be severe in using the authority the Lord has given me.” But he was not claiming power to execute, imprison, banish, whip, or fine anyone. Those are punishments. He claimed only the power to excommunicate. Without civil authority, that amounts only to leaving someone’s company and dealing with them no more than with a nonbeliever or a tax collector. On many occasions this could hurt the person who excommunicates more than the person excommunicated.

The seventh passage is 1 Corinthians 4.21: “Shall I come to you with a rod, or with love and a gentle spirit?” Again, the rod does not mean a magistrate’s power to punish offenders. It means only the power to excommunicate. By its nature excommunication is not a punishment, but an announcement of punishment Christ will impose when he possesses his Kingdom on Judgment Day. Even then it will not strictly be punishment of a subject for breaking the law. It will be retaliation against an enemy or rebel who denies our Savior’s right to the Kingdom. So this does not prove that a bishop without civil authority has lawmaking power.

The eighth passage is 1 Timothy 3.2: “A bishop must have only one wife, be watchful, sober,” and so forth. He calls that a law. I had thought no one but St. Peter, the Church’s monarch, could make a law in the Church. But suppose Peter’s authority lay behind this instruction. I still see no reason to call it a law rather than advice. Timothy was Paul’s student, not his subject, and Timothy’s flock were his students in Christ’s school, not his subjects in a Kingdom. If all Paul’s instructions to Timothy are laws, why is this not also a law: “Do not drink water alone any longer; take a little wine for your health”? Why would good doctors’ instructions not also be laws? An instruction becomes a law not because it is phrased as a command, but because the person receiving it is absolutely subject to the person giving it.

Likewise the ninth passage, 1 Timothy 5.19, “Do not accept an accusation against an elder except on the testimony of two or three witnesses,” is wise advice, not a law.

The tenth passage is Luke 10.16: “Whoever hears you hears me, and whoever rejects you rejects me.” Certainly anyone who rejects the advice of those sent by Christ rejects Christ’s own advice. But who now is sent by Christ except pastors appointed by lawful authority? Who is lawfully appointed without appointment by the supreme pastor? And who is appointed by the supreme pastor of a Christian Commonwealth without the authority of its Sovereign? It follows that whoever hears his Christian Sovereign hears Christ. Whoever rejects the doctrine authorized by his Christian king rejects Christ’s doctrine. That is the opposite of Bellarmine’s intended conclusion. Yet none of this concerns law. Indeed, a Christian king does not turn his doctrines into laws merely by teaching his subjects as their pastor. He cannot force people to believe. As civil Sovereign, however, he can make laws that accord with his doctrine. Such laws can require particular actions, sometimes actions people would not otherwise perform and which he should not command. But once he commands them, they are laws. When subjects outwardly obey without inward approval, those actions belong to the Sovereign, not to the subject. In that case the subject is merely an instrument, making no independent move, because God has commanded obedience to Sovereigns.

The eleventh category includes every passage where the Apostle uses a word commonly used for a command when he is offering advice, or calls following his advice “obedience.” One example cited is 1 Corinthians 11.2: “I praise you for keeping my instructions as I delivered them to you.” The Greek says, “I praise you for holding to the things I passed on to you, as I passed them on.” That is far from saying they were laws, rather than good advice. Another is 1 Thessalonians 4.2: “You know what commands we gave you.” The Greek expression paraggelias edokamen is equivalent to paredokamen, “what we passed on to you,” as in the preceding quotation. It does not show that the Apostles’ teachings were anything more than advice, although verse 8 says, “Whoever rejects them rejects not a human being but God.” Our Savior himself did not come to judge, that is, to reign as king in this world. He came to sacrifice himself for sinners and leave teachers in his Church to guide people to Christ, not drive them. Christ never accepts forced actions, which are all that law can produce. He accepts the inward conversion of the heart, which comes from advice and teaching, not from laws.