Part III, Chapter XLII, 10

And they cite 2 Thess. 3.14: “If anyone does not obey our word in this letter, mark that man and have no company with him, so that he may be ashamed.” From the word obey he would infer that this letter was a law to the Thessalonians. The emperors’ letters were indeed laws; if St. Paul’s letter was also a law, the Thessalonians had two masters to obey. But the Greek word for obey, upakouei, means to heed or put into practice not only what is commanded by someone entitled to punish, but also what is offered as counsel for our good. Accordingly, St. Paul does not tell them to kill, beat, imprison, or fine the disobedient man, as legislators may do, but to avoid his company so that he may be ashamed. Evidently what Christians stood in awe of was not an Apostle’s dominion but his reputation among the faithful.

The last passage is Heb. 13.17: “Obey your leaders and submit yourselves to them, for they watch over your souls as those who must give account.” Here too obedience means following their counsel. The reason for our obedience is drawn not from our pastors’ will and command but from our own benefit: they watch over the salvation of our souls, not the increase of their own power and authority. If this meant that everything they teach is law, not just the Pope but every pastor in his parish would have legislative power. Moreover, those bound to obey their pastors would have no power to examine their commands. What then shall we say to St. John, who bids us (1 Epist., chap. 4, verse 1), “Do not believe every spirit, but test the spirits to see whether they are of God, because many false prophets have gone out into the world”? It is therefore evident that we may dispute the doctrine of our pastors, though no one can dispute a law. The commands of civil Sovereigns are universally acknowledged to be laws. If anyone besides the Sovereign can make a law, all Common-wealth, and consequently all peace and justice, must cease, contrary to all laws, divine and human. Nothing in these or any other passages of Scripture, therefore, can prove that the Pope’s decrees are laws where he does not also hold civil sovereignty.

On the Pope’s Temporal Power

The Question of Superiority Between the Pope and Other Bishops. The last point he seeks to prove is “that our Savior Christ has committed ecclesiastical jurisdiction immediately to none but the Pope.” Here he treats not the question of supremacy between the Pope and Christian kings, but that between the Pope and other bishops. First he says it is agreed that bishops’ jurisdiction is at least, in general, de jure divino, that is, by divine right. In support he cites St. Paul, Ephes. 4.11, who says that Christ, after his ascension into heaven, “gave gifts to men, some apostles, some prophets, some evangelists, some pastors, and some teachers.” He infers that bishops do indeed hold their jurisdiction by God’s right, but refuses to grant that they receive it immediately from God, claiming instead that it comes through the Pope. But if someone can be said to hold jurisdiction de jure divino without receiving it immediately, what lawful jurisdiction, even civil jurisdiction, in a Christian Common-wealth is not likewise de jure divino? Christian kings have their civil power immediately from God, while the magistrates below them exercise their several offices by the king’s commission. What these magistrates do is no less de jure divino mediato than what bishops do under the Pope’s ordination. All lawful power comes from God, immediately to the supreme governor and mediately to those authorized under him. Bellarmine must therefore either concede that every constable in the state holds office by divine right, or deny that any bishop besides the Pope himself holds office by that right.

But this whole dispute over whether Christ left jurisdiction solely to the Pope or also to other bishops, if considered outside the places where the Pope holds civil sovereignty, is a quarrel over goat’s wool: none of them has any jurisdiction at all where they are not Sovereigns. Jurisdiction is the power to hear and determine disputes between people; it can belong only to one who has power to prescribe rules of right and wrong, that is, to make laws, and with the sword of justice to compel obedience to decisions pronounced by himself or by judges he appoints. No one but the civil Sovereign can lawfully do this.

Thus when Bellarmine cites Luke 6, where our Savior called his disciples together and chose twelve of them to name Apostles, he proves that Christ chose them—all except Matthias, Paul, and Barnabas—and gave them power and a command to preach, but not to judge disputes between people. Christ himself refused to assume that power, saying, “Who made me a judge or an arbitrator among you?” and elsewhere, “My Kingdom is not of this world.” Whoever has no power to hear and decide disputes between people cannot be said to possess jurisdiction. Yet this does not prevent our Savior from having given them power to preach and baptize throughout the world, provided their own lawful Sovereigns did not forbid them: Christ himself and his Apostles have expressly commanded us in various places to obey our own Sovereigns in all things.

His arguments purporting to prove that bishops receive their jurisdiction from the Pope are all in vain, since the Pope himself has no jurisdiction in the dominions of other princes. Yet I will recount them, because they prove instead that bishops, when they have jurisdiction, receive it from their civil Sovereigns.

The first comes from Numbers 11. Moses, unable to bear alone the whole burden of administering the affairs of the people of Israel, was commanded by God to choose Seventy elders; God took a portion of Moses’ spirit and placed it upon those Seventy elders. This does not mean that God weakened Moses’ spirit, which would not have eased his burden at all, but that all the elders derived their authority from him. Bellarmine interprets the passage truly and candidly here. Yet since Moses held the entire sovereignty of the Jewish Common-wealth, the passage clearly signifies that the elders received authority from the civil Sovereign. It therefore proves that bishops in every Christian Common-wealth derive their authority from the civil Sovereign, and from the Pope only in his own territories, not in those of any other state.

The second argument comes from the nature of monarchy, in which all authority rests in one man and others derive theirs from him; Bellarmine says the government of the Church is monarchical. This too favors Christian monarchs: they are truly monarchs over their own people, that is, their own Church, since a Church is the same thing as a Christian people. The Pope’s power, even were he St. Peter, is neither monarchy nor anything else involving rule or coercion; it is only teaching. For God accepts willing obedience, not forced obedience.

The third comes from St. Cyprian’s description of the See of St. Peter as the Head, Source, Root, and Sun from which bishops’ authority derives. But by the Law of Nature, which is a better principle of right and wrong than the word of any teacher who is only human, the civil Sovereign in every Common-wealth is the Head, Source, Root, and Sun from which all jurisdiction derives. Bishops’ jurisdiction therefore derives from the civil Sovereign.

The fourth is taken from the inequality of bishops’ jurisdictions. If God, Bellarmine says, had conferred jurisdiction immediately on them, he would have given them equality of jurisdiction as well as equality of order. Yet we see some are bishops of only one town, others of a hundred towns, and still others of many entire provinces. These differences were not fixed by God’s command; their jurisdiction therefore comes not from God but from man, and one has more while another has less, as the prince of the Church pleases. Had Bellarmine first proved that the Pope possessed universal jurisdiction over all Christians, this argument would serve his purpose. But since he has not proved that, and it is notoriously known that the Pope’s extensive jurisdiction was given to him by those who possessed it, namely the Roman emperors—the Patriarch of Constantinople claimed equality with him on the same grounds, as bishop of the empire’s capital and seat of the emperor—it follows that all other bishops receive jurisdiction from the Sovereigns of the places where they exercise it. And just as their authority is not de jure divino for this reason, neither is the Pope’s, except where he is also the civil Sovereign.

His fifth argument is this: “If bishops receive their jurisdiction immediately from God, the Pope cannot take it away, for he can do nothing contrary to God’s ordinance.” This consequence is sound and well established. “But,” he says, “the Pope can do this and has done it.” This too is granted, provided he does it in his own dominions, or in those of another prince who has granted him that power; not universally, by right of the papacy. The power belongs to every Christian Sovereign within his empire and is inseparable from sovereignty. Before the people of Israel, at God’s command to Samuel, set a king over themselves after the manner of other nations, the high priest held civil government; no one else could appoint or depose a lesser priest. Afterward that power belonged to the king, as this same argument of Bellarmine’s can prove. For if a priest, whether high priest or another, held jurisdiction immediately from God, the king could not take it from him, “for he could do nothing contrary to God’s ordinance.” Yet King Solomon (1 Kings 2.26) certainly removed Abiathar the high priest from office and installed Zadok in his place (verse 35). Kings may therefore likewise appoint and remove bishops as they think fit for the good government of their subjects.

His sixth argument is this: if bishops hold jurisdiction de jure divino, that is, immediately from God, those who maintain this claim should offer some word of God to prove it; but they can offer none. This is a sound argument, and I have nothing to say against it. Yet it is just as sound an argument that the Pope himself has no jurisdiction in the dominions of another prince.

Lastly he offers as evidence the testimony of two Popes, Innocent and Leo. I do not doubt that he could have cited with equal reason almost every Pope since St. Peter. Given the love of power naturally implanted in mankind, whoever became Pope would be tempted to maintain that opinion. But then they would only be doing what Innocent and Leo did: bearing witness on their own behalf, and their testimony would therefore be invalid.

In his fifth book he reaches four conclusions. The first is “that the Pope is not lord of all the world”; the second, “that the Pope is not lord of all the Christian world”; the third, “that the Pope, outside his own territory, has no temporal jurisdiction directly.” These three are readily granted. The fourth is “that the Pope has, in the dominions of other princes, supreme temporal power indirectly.” This is denied, unless indirectly means that he acquired it by indirect means; in that case it too is granted. But I understand him to mean that this temporal jurisdiction belongs to the Pope by right, though the right follows from his pastoral authority, which he could not exercise without temporal jurisdiction. Supreme civil power is therefore, he claims, necessarily attached to the pastoral power he calls spiritual; by it the Pope has a right to transfer kingdoms, granting them to one person and taking them from another, whenever he believes this serves the salvation of souls.

Before I consider the arguments with which he seeks to prove this doctrine, it will be useful to lay bare its consequences, so that the princes and states holding civil sovereignty in their respective Common-wealths may consider whether admitting it is convenient for them and benefits their subjects, for whom they must give account on the day of judgment.

When it is said that the Pope has no supreme civil power directly in other states’ territories, we must understand that he does not claim it, as other civil Sovereigns do, from the original submission of those to be governed. For it is evident, and has been sufficiently demonstrated already in this treatise, that the right of all Sovereigns originally derives from the consent of each person to be governed. This holds whether those who choose a Sovereign do so for common defense against an enemy, agreeing among themselves to appoint one man or an assembly to protect them, or do so to save their lives by submitting to a conquering enemy. Thus, in disclaiming supreme civil power directly over other states, the Pope denies only that his right comes to him in this way. He still claims it in another way: without the consent of those to be governed, through a right given him by God upon his accession to the papacy, which he calls indirectly. But however he claims it, the power is the same. If granted as his right, it enables him to depose princes and states whenever the salvation of souls calls for it—that is, whenever he wishes, since he also claims the sole power to judge whether something serves men’s salvation. This doctrine is taught not only by Bellarmine here and by many other teachers in their sermons and books, but has also been decreed by certain councils and Popes, and put into practice by Popes when occasion favored them. The fourth Council of Lateran, held under Pope Innocent the third, has this canon in its third chapter, De Haereticis: “If a king, after the Pope’s admonition, does not purge his kingdom of heretics, and, being excommunicated for this, fails to make satisfaction within a year, his subjects are released from their obedience.” Its practice has been seen on various occasions: the deposition of Chilperic, King of France; the transfer of the Roman Empire to Charlemagne; the oppression of John, King of England; the transfer of the Kingdom of Navarre; and, in recent years, the league against Henry the third of France, among many others. I think few princes fail to see this as unjust and dangerous, but I wish they would all resolve to be either kings or subjects. Men cannot serve two masters. They should therefore ease the minds of those willing to obey, either by keeping the reins of government wholly in their own hands or by surrendering them wholly to the Pope, so that obedience may enjoy protection. The distinction between temporal and spiritual power is merely words. Sharing power with another who possesses indirect power divides it just as truly, and with just as much danger in every respect, as sharing it with one who possesses direct power. But now to his arguments.

Another passage is 2 Thessalonians 3.14: “If anyone does not obey what we say in this letter, take note of that person and do not associate with him, so that he may be ashamed.” From “obey,” he wants to conclude that this letter was a law for the Thessalonians. The emperors’ letters were indeed laws. If St. Paul’s letter was also law, they had two masters to obey. But the Greek word for “obey,” upakouei, means “listen to” or “put into practice.” It applies not only to commands from someone with the right to punish, but also to advice offered for our good. Paul does not tell them to kill, beat, imprison, or fine the disobedient person, as lawmakers may do. He tells them to avoid his company so that he feels ashamed. Clearly the Christians feared not an Apostle’s ruling power but his reputation among the faithful.

The last passage is Hebrews 13.17: “Obey your leaders and submit to them, for they watch over your souls as people who must give an account.” Here too “obey” means follow their advice. The reason for obedience is not our pastors’ wishes or commands, but our own benefit. They care for the salvation of our souls, not the increase of their own power and authority. If everything they taught counted as law, not just the Pope but every pastor in his parish would have the power to make laws. Also, people required to obey their pastors would have no right to examine their commands. What, then, should we make of St. John’s instruction in 1 John 4.1: “Do not believe every spirit, but test the spirits to see whether they come from God, for many false prophets have gone out into the world”? Clearly we may question our pastors’ teaching, but no one may question a law. Everyone agrees that civil Sovereigns’ commands are laws. If someone else can also make laws, every Commonwealth, and therefore all peace and justice, must come to an end. That would conflict with every law, divine and human. Neither these nor any other scriptural passages can therefore show that the Pope’s decrees are laws where he is not also the civil Sovereign.

On the Pope’s Temporal Power

The question of whether the Pope is above other bishops. The last proposition he wants to prove is this: “Our Savior Christ has given ecclesiastical jurisdiction directly to no one but the Pope.” Here he discusses not whether the Pope is above Christian kings, but whether he is above other bishops. First he says that everyone agrees bishops’ jurisdiction is at least, in general, de jure divino, meaning “by divine right.” As evidence he cites St. Paul in Ephesians 4.11, who says that after ascending to heaven Christ “gave gifts to people: some to be Apostles, some prophets, some evangelists, some pastors, and some teachers.” From this he concludes that bishops indeed hold their jurisdiction by divine right. He will not, however, admit that they receive it directly from God. He says it passes through the Pope. But if someone can hold jurisdiction by divine right without receiving it directly from God, what lawful jurisdiction in a Christian Commonwealth, even civil jurisdiction, is not also held by divine right? Christian kings receive their civil authority directly from God. Their subordinate magistrates exercise their offices on the kings’ commissions. In doing so, their actions are as much de jure divino mediato, or “by divine right through another,” as a bishop’s actions under the Pope’s appointment. Every lawful authority comes from God: directly in the highest ruler, indirectly in those who serve under him. He must therefore admit that every constable in the state holds office by divine right, or deny that any bishop but the Pope does.

But outside those places where the Pope is civil Sovereign, the entire dispute about whether Christ left jurisdiction only to the Pope or also to other bishops is an argument over nothing. Neither Pope nor bishops have any jurisdiction where they are not Sovereigns. Jurisdiction means the power to hear and settle disputes between people. It belongs only to someone who can set the rules of right and wrong—that is, make laws—and use the sword of justice to compel obedience to decisions, whether he gives them himself or through his appointed judges. Only the civil Sovereign can lawfully do that.

He therefore cites Luke 6, where our Savior called his disciples together, chose twelve of them, and named them Apostles. This proves that Christ chose them, apart from Matthias, Paul, and Barnabas, and gave them the authority and command to preach. It does not prove that he authorized them to judge disputes between people. He himself refused that authority, saying, “Who made me a judge or arbitrator between you?” Elsewhere he says, “My Kingdom is not of this world.” Someone without the power to hear and settle disputes between people cannot be said to have jurisdiction at all. Still, our Savior did give the Apostles authority to preach and baptize throughout the world, provided their lawful Sovereigns did not forbid them. Christ and his Apostles explicitly command us in several places to obey our own Sovereigns in all things.

His arguments for bishops receiving jurisdiction from the Pope are all useless, since the Pope has no jurisdiction in other princes’ dominions. But they actually prove the opposite: whenever bishops do have jurisdiction, they receive it from their civil Sovereigns. So I will list the arguments.

The first comes from Numbers 11. Moses could not carry alone the whole burden of administering the affairs of Israel. God told him to choose seventy elders and took some of Moses’ spirit to place on them. This does not mean that God weakened Moses’ spirit, which would not have lightened his burden. It means that the elders all received their authority from Moses. On this point Bellarmine interprets the passage honestly and correctly. But Moses held full sovereignty in the Jewish Commonwealth. So the passage clearly means that the elders’ authority came from the civil Sovereign. It therefore supports the conclusion that bishops in each Christian Commonwealth receive authority from their civil Sovereign. They receive it from the Pope only in his own territories, not in any other state.

The second argument comes from the nature of monarchy. In a monarchy all authority belongs to one person, and others receive it through him. Bellarmine says the Church is governed as a monarchy. This too supports Christian monarchs. They really are monarchs over their own people, who form their own Church, since a Church is the same as a Christian people. The Pope’s power, even if he were St. Peter, is neither monarchy nor any other kind of ruling or coercive power. It consists only of teaching. God accepts willing obedience, not forced obedience.

The third argument is that St. Cyprian calls the see of St. Peter the head, source, root, and sun from which bishops’ authority comes. But the Law of Nature is a better guide to right and wrong than any merely human teacher’s words. Under that law, the civil Sovereign in every Commonwealth is the head, source, root, and sun from which all jurisdiction comes. Bishops’ jurisdiction therefore comes from the civil Sovereign.

The fourth argument rests on differences in the extent of bishops’ jurisdiction. If God had given it to them directly, Bellarmine says, he would have given them equal jurisdiction as well as equal rank. Yet some bishops oversee just one town, others a hundred towns, and still others many whole provinces. God did not command these differences. Their jurisdiction therefore comes from a person, not from God. Some have more and others less, as the Church’s prince wishes. This would help his case if he had first proved that the Pope had universal jurisdiction over all Christians. But he has not. Moreover, it is common knowledge that the Pope’s extensive jurisdiction was granted by those who possessed it: the Roman emperors. The patriarch of Constantinople claimed equality with the Pope on the same grounds, because he was bishop of the empire’s capital, where the emperor sat. So all other bishops receive jurisdiction from the Sovereigns of the places where they exercise it. Because of this, they do not have authority de jure divino. Nor does the Pope, except where he is also civil Sovereign.

His fifth argument is: “If bishops receive their jurisdiction directly from God, the Pope could not take it away, for he cannot act against God’s appointment.” This conclusion is sound and well supported. “But,” he says, “the Pope can take it away and has done so.” I grant that too, if he does it in his own dominions or in another prince’s dominions with that prince’s permission. He cannot do it everywhere simply as Pope. That authority belongs to each Christian Sovereign inside his own realm, and cannot be separated from sovereignty. Before the Israelites appointed a king over themselves like other nations, at God’s command to Samuel, the high priest held civil authority. Only he could appoint or remove a lesser priest. Afterward that authority passed to the king, as Bellarmine’s own argument can show. If priests, high priests or others, received jurisdiction directly from God, a king could not take it from them, “for he cannot act against God’s appointment.” Yet King Solomon clearly removed the high priest Abiathar from office in 1 Kings 2.26 and installed Zadok in his place in verse 35. Kings may likewise appoint and remove bishops as they think best for governing their subjects.

His sixth argument is this: if bishops hold jurisdiction de jure divino, meaning directly from God, their supporters should produce a passage from God’s word proving it. But they can produce none. That is a good argument, and I have nothing to say against it. It is equally good, however, as an argument that the Pope has no jurisdiction in any other prince’s dominions.

Lastly, he cites two Popes, Innocent and Leo, as witnesses. I am sure he could just as reasonably have cited almost every Pope since St. Peter. People naturally love power, so anyone who became Pope would be tempted to defend that opinion. Still, those Popes would only be testifying for themselves, as Innocent and Leo did. Their testimony would therefore be no good.

In his fifth book he draws four conclusions. The first is “the Pope is not lord of the whole world.” The second is “the Pope is not lord of the whole Christian world.” The third is “outside his own territory, the Pope has no temporal jurisdiction DIRECTLY.” I readily grant all three. The fourth is “in the dominions of other princes, the Pope has supreme temporal power INDIRECTLY.” I deny this, unless “indirectly” means he acquired it by dishonest means; then I grant it too. But as I understand him, he means that he has a right to this temporal jurisdiction as a consequence of his authority as pastor, because he could not exercise that authority without temporal power. So he claims that supreme civil power must accompany pastoral power, which he calls spiritual. On this basis the Pope claims the right to replace rulers, giving kingdoms to some and taking them from others whenever he thinks it will save souls.

Before examining his arguments for this doctrine, I should spell out its consequences. Then princes and states holding civil sovereignty in their several Commonwealths can consider whether accepting it is good for them and their subjects, for whom they must give an account on Judgment Day.

To say that the Pope does not have supreme civil power directly in other states’ territories means that he does not claim it as other civil Sovereigns do, through the original submission of those they govern. As I have already shown sufficiently in this treatise, every Sovereign’s right comes originally from the consent of every person to be governed. People may choose a ruler for their common defense against an enemy, agreeing to appoint a person or assembly to protect them. Or they may submit to a conquering enemy to save their lives. When the Pope disclaims direct supreme civil power over other states, he merely denies that he obtains his right in this way. He still claims it by another means: without the governed people’s consent, through a right God supposedly gives him when he becomes Pope. He calls this “indirect” power. Yet whatever basis he claims, the power is the same. If we grant his right, he can depose princes and governments whenever salvation of souls requires it. That means whenever he wants to, since he also claims sole authority to decide what will save souls. Bellarmine and many other teachers preach and write this doctrine. Some councils have decreed it; Popes have decreed it and put it into practice when opportunities arose. For example, the fourth Lateran Council, held under Pope Innocent the third, states in chapter three, De Haereticis: “If a king, after the Pope warns him, does not remove heretics from his kingdom, and after excommunication fails to make amends within a year, his subjects are released from their duty to obey him.” It has been put into practice on several occasions: the removal of Chilperique, king of France; the transfer of the Roman Empire to Charlemaine; the oppression of John, king of England; the transfer of the Kingdom of Navarre; more recently, the League against Henry the third of France; and many other cases. I think few princes fail to see that this is unjust and harmful. I wish all of them would decide whether to be kings or subjects. No one can serve two masters. They should therefore make things easier for those willing to obey by either keeping all the reins of government in their own hands or turning them all over to the Pope. Such people would then be protected in their obedience. Distinguishing temporal from spiritual power is only a matter of words. Sharing authority with another indirect power divides power just as really, and is just as dangerous in every respect, as sharing it with a direct power. Now I will turn to his arguments.