Thomas Hobbes · Complete work
Religion, Chapter XVII, 3
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10 From hence, that our Saviour hath prescribed no distributive laws to the subjects of princes, and citizens of cities; that is to say, hath given no rules whereby a subject may know and discern what is his own, what another man’s, nor by what forms, words, or circumstances a thing must be given, delivered, invaded, possessed, that it may be known by right to belong to the receiver, invader, or possessor: we must necessarily understand that each single subject (not only with unbelievers, among whom Christ himself denied himself to be a judge and distributor, but even with Christians) must take those rules from his city, that is to say, from that man or council which hath the supreme power. It follows therefore, that by those laws; Thou shalt not kill, Thou shalt not commit adultery, Thou shalt not steal, Honour thy father and mother; nothing else was commanded, but that subjects, and citizens, should absolutely obey their princes in all questions concerning meum and tuum, their own and others’ right. For by that precept, Thou shalt not kill, all slaughter is not prohibited; for he that said, Thou shalt not kill, said also, (Exod. xxxv. 2): Whosoever doth work upon the sabbath, shall be put to death. No, nor yet all slaughter, the cause not being heard; for he said, (Exod. xxxii. 27): Slay every man his brother, and every man his companion, and every man his neighbour. (Verse 28): And there fell of the people about three thousand men. Nor yet all slaughter of an innocent person; for Jephtha vowed (Judges xi. 31): Whosoever cometh forth, &c. I will offer him up for a burnt offering unto the Lord; and his vow was accepted of God. What then is forbidden? Only this: that no man kill another, who hath not a right to kill him; that is to say, that no man kill, unless it belong to him to do so. The law of Christ therefore concerning killing, and consequently all manner of hurt done to any man, and what penalties are to be set, commands us to obey the city only. In like manner, by that precept, Thou shalt not commit adultery, all manner of copulation is not forbidden; but only that of lying with another man’s wife. But the judgment, which is another man’s wife, belongs to the city; and is to be determined by the rules which the city prescribes. This precept therefore commands both male and female to keep that faith entire, which they have mutually given according to the statutes of the city. So also by the precept, thou shalt not steal, all manner of invasion or secret surreption is not forbidden; but of another man’s only. The subject therefore is commanded this only, that he invade not nor take away aught which the city prohibits to be invaded or taken away; and universally, not to call anything murder, adultery, or theft, but what is done contrary to the civil laws. Lastly, seeing Christ hath commanded us to honour our parents, and hath not prescribed with what rites, what appellations, and what manner of obedience they are to be honoured; it is to be supposed that they are to be honoured with the will indeed, and inwardly, as kings and lords over their children, but outwardly, not beyond the city’s permission, which shall assign to every man, as all things else, so also his honour. But since the nature of justice consists in this, that every man have his own given him; it is manifest, that it also belongs to a Christian city to determine what is justice, what injustice, or a sin against justice. Now what belongs to a city, that must be judged to belong to him or them who have the sovereign power of the city.
It belongs to civil authority, to define what conduces to the peace and safety of the city.
11 Moreover, because our Saviour hath not showed subjects any other laws for the government of a city, beside those of nature, that is to say, beside the command of obedience; no subject can privately determine who is a public friend, who an enemy, when war, when peace, when truce is to be made, nor yet what subjects, what authority and of what men, are commodious or prejudicial to the safety of the commonweal. These and all like matters therefore are to be learned, if need be, from the city, that is to say, from the sovereign powers.
It belongs to the civil authority, to judge, when need requires, what definitions and what inferences are true.
12 Furthermore, all these things, to build castles, houses, temples; to move, carry, take away mighty weights; to send securely over seas; to contrive engines, serving for all manner of uses; to be well acquainted with the face of the whole world, the courses of the stars, the seasons of the year, the accounts of the times, and the nature of all things; to understand perfectly all natural and civil rights; and all manner of sciences, which, comprehended under the title of philosophy, are necessary partly to live, partly to live well; I say, the understanding of these (because Christ hath not delivered it) is to be learnt from reasoning; that is to say, by making necessary consequences, having first taken the beginning from experience. But men’s reasonings are sometimes right, sometimes wrong; and consequently, that which is concluded and held for a truth, is sometimes truth, sometimes error. Now errors, even about these philosophical points, do sometimes public hurt, and give occasions of great seditions and injuries. It is needful therefore, as oft as any controversy ariseth in these matters contrary to public good and common peace, that there be somebody to judge of the reasoning, that is to say, whether that which is inferred, be rightly inferred or not; that so the controversy may be ended. But there are no rules given by Christ to this purpose, neither came he into the world to teach logic. It remains therefore that the judges of such controversies, be the same with those whom God by nature had instituted before, namely, those who in each city are constituted by the sovereign. Moreover, if a controversy be raised of the accurate and proper signification, that is, the definition of those names or appellations which are commonly used; insomuch as it is needful for the peace of the city, or the distribution of right, to be determined; the determination will belong to the city. For men, by reasoning, do search out such kind of definitions in their observation of diverse conceptions, for the signification whereof those appellations were used at diverse times and for diverse causes. But the decision of the question, whether a man do reason rightly, belongs to the city. For example, if a woman bring forth a child of an unwonted shape, and the law forbid to kill a man; the question is, whether the child be a man. It is demanded therefore, what a man is. No man doubts but the city shall judge it, and that without taking an account of Aristotle’s definition, that man is a rational creature. And these things, namely, right, policy, and natural sciences, are subjects concerning which Christ denies that it belongs to his office to give any precepts, or teach any thing beside this only; that in all controversies about them, every single subject should obey the laws and determinations of his city. Yet must we remember this, that the same Christ, as God, could not only have taught, but also commanded what he would.
It belongs to the office of Christ, to teach morality, not as a speculation, but as a law; to forgive sins, and to teach all things whereof there is no science properly so called.
13 The sum of our Saviour’s office was, to teach the way and all the means of salvation and eternal life. But justice and civil obedience, and observation of all the natural laws, is one of the means to salvation. Now these may be taught two ways; one, as theorems, by the way of natural reason, by drawing right and the natural laws from human principles and contracts; and this doctrine thus delivered, is subject to the censure of civil powers. The other, as laws, by divine authority, in showing the will of God to be such; and thus to teach, belongs only to him to whom the will of God is supernaturally known, that is to say, to Christ. Secondly, it belonged to the office of Christ to forgive sins to the penitent; for that was necessary for the salvation of men who had already sinned. Neither could it be done by any other. For remission of sins follows not repentance naturally, as a debt; but it depends, as a free gift, on the will of God supernaturally to be revealed. Thirdly, it belongs to the office of Christ to teach all those commandments of God, whether concerning his worship, or those points of faith which cannot be understood by natural reason, but only by revelation; of which nature are those, that he was the Christ; that his kingdom was not terrestrial, but celestial; that there are rewards and punishments after this life; that the soul is immortal; that there should be such, and so many sacraments; and the like.
A distinction of things temporal from spiritual.
14 From what hath been said in the foregoing chapter, it is not hard to distinguish between things spiritual and temporal. For since by spiritual, those things are understood, which have their foundation on the authority and office of Christ, and, unless Christ had taught them, could not have been known; and all other things are temporal; it follows, that the definition and determination of what is just and unjust, the cognizance of all controversies about the means of peace and public defence, and the examination of doctrines and books in all manner of rational science, depends upon the temporal right; but those which are mysteries of faith, depending on Christ’s word and authority only, their judgments belong to spiritual right. But it is reason’s inquisition, and pertains to temporal right to define what is spiritual, and what temporal; because our Saviour hath not made that distinction. For although St. Paul in many places distinguish between spiritual things and carnal things; and call (Rom. viii. 5: 1 Cor. xii. 8-10) those things spiritual, which are of the spirit, to wit, the word of wisdom, the word of knowledge, faith, the gift of healing, the working of miracles, prophecy, divers kind of tongues, interpretation of tongues; all supernaturally inspired by the Holy Ghost, and such as the carnal man understands not, but he only who hath known the mind of Christ (2 Cor. ii. 14-16); and those things carnal, which belong to worldly wealth (Rom. xv. 27); and the men carnal men (1 Cor. iii. 1-3): yet hath he not defined, nor given us any rules whereby we may know what proceeds from natural reason, what from supernatural inspiration.
The word of God many ways taken.
15 Seeing therefore it is plain that our Saviour hath committed to, or rather not taken away from princes, and those who in each city have obtained the sovereignty, the supreme authority of judging and determining all manner of controversies about temporal matters; we must see henceforth to whom he hath left the same authority in matters spiritual. Which because it cannot be known, except it be out of the word of God and the tradition of the Church, we must enquire in the next place what the word of God is, what to interpret it, what a Church is, and what the will and command of the Church. To omit that the word of God is in Scripture taken sometimes for the Son of God, it is used three manner of ways. First, most properly for that which God hath spoken. Thus, whatsoever God spake unto Abraham, the patriarchs, Moses, and the prophets, our Saviour to his disciples, or any others; is the word of God. Secondly, whatsoever hath been uttered by men on the motion or by command of the Holy Ghost; in which sense we acknowledge the Scriptures to be the word of God. Thirdly, in the New Testament indeed, the word of God most frequently signifies the doctrine of the gospel, or the word concerning God, or the word of the kingdom of God by Christ. As where it is said (Matth. iv. 23) that Christ preached the gospel of the kingdom: where the apostles are said to preach the word of God (Acts xiii. 46): where the word of God is called the word of life (Acts v. 20): of the word of the gospel (Acts xv. 7): the word ofword of faith (Rom. x. 8): the word of truth, that is to say, (adding an interpretation) the gospel of salvation, (Eph. i. 13): and where it is called the word of the apostles; for St. Paul says (2 Thess. iii. 14): If any man obey not our word, &c. Which places cannot be otherwise meant than of the doctrine evangelical. In like manner, where the word of God is said to be sown, to increase, and to be multiplied (Acts xii. 24: and xiii. 49): it is very hard to conceive this to be spoken of the voice of God or of his apostles; but of their doctrine, easy. And in this third acception is all that doctrine of the Christian faith, which at this day is preached in pulpits and contained in the books of divines, the word of God.
All things contained in the Scripture, belong not to the canon of Christian faith.
16 Now the sacred Scripture is entirely the word of God in this second acception, as being that which we acknowledge to be inspired from God; and innumerable places of it, in the first. And seeing the greatest part of it is conversant either in the prediction of the kingdom of heaven, or in prefigurations before the incarnation of Christ, or in evangelization and explication after; the sacred Scripture is also the word of God, and therefore the canon and rule of all evangelical doctrine, in this third signification; where the word of God is taken for the word concerning God, that is to say, for the gospel. But because in the same Scriptures we read many things political, historical, moral, physical, and others which nothing at all concern the mysteries of our faith; those places, although they contain true doctrine, and are the canon of such kind of doctrines, yet can they not be the canon of the mysteries of Christian religion.
Musean translation
Mouseia’s complete machine-assisted Musean translation, made directly from Hobbes’s own 1651 English version of De Cive, complete (epistle, preface, eighteen chapters with annotations; Molesworth’s 1841 text) for fidelity, the author’s force and cadence, and modern clarity. Molesworth’s index is omitted.
10 Our Savior prescribed no distributive laws to the subjects of rulers or the citizens of cities: no rules by which a subject may distinguish his own property from another’s, nor by which forms, words, or circumstances a thing must be given, handed over, seized, or possessed for it to belong by right to its recipient, claimant, or possessor. Consequently, each individual subject must obtain those rules from his city—that is, from the person or council holding supreme power—not only among unbelievers, among whom Christ himself disclaimed the role of judge and arbiter, but also among Christians. It follows that the laws “You shall not kill,” “You shall not commit adultery,” “You shall not steal,” and “Honor your father and mother” command nothing other than absolute obedience by subjects and citizens to their rulers in all questions of mine and yours, of their own rights and others’. For “You shall not kill” does not forbid every killing: the same one who said “You shall not kill” also said (Exod. xxxv. 2), “Whoever works on the sabbath shall be put to death.” Nor does it forbid every killing without a hearing, for he said (Exod. xxxii. 27): “Let each man slay his brother, his companion, and his neighbor.” (Verse 28): “And about three thousand men of the people fell.” Nor does it forbid every killing of an innocent person, for Jephtha vowed (Judges xi. 31), “Whoever comes out,” and so forth, “I will offer him as a burnt offering to the Lord”; and God accepted his vow. What, then, is forbidden? Only that no one kill another without having the right to do so: no one may kill unless it is his right. Christ’s law concerning killing, and consequently concerning every sort of injury done to a person and the penalties attached to it, commands us only to obey the city. Likewise, “You shall not commit adultery” forbids not every act of intercourse, but only intercourse with another man’s wife. Yet judging who is another man’s wife belongs to the city and must follow the rules the city prescribes. Thus this precept commands men and women alike to keep intact the pledge they have mutually given under the city’s statutes. So too “You shall not steal” forbids not every seizure or secret removal, but only that of another’s property. The subject, then, is commanded only not to seize or take anything the city prohibits one from seizing or taking; and, in general, not to call anything murder, adultery, or theft unless it is done contrary to civil law. Finally, Christ commanded us to honor our parents without prescribing the ceremonies, forms of address, or kinds of obedience by which we must honor them. We must therefore assume that they are to be honored inwardly and sincerely as kings and lords over their children, but outwardly only so far as the city permits, since the city assigns to each person his honor as it assigns everything else. Since justice by nature consists in giving everyone what is his, determining what is justice and what is injustice, or a sin against justice, plainly belongs to a Christian city as well. And whatever belongs to a city must be held to belong to whoever possesses its sovereign power.
Defining what promotes the city’s peace and safety belongs to the civil authority.
11 Moreover, because our Savior has shown subjects no laws for governing a city other than the laws of nature—that is, other than the command to obey—no subject can determine privately who is a public friend or enemy, when war, peace, or a truce should be made, or which subjects, which authorities, and which people are helpful or harmful to the safety of the commonwealth. These and all similar matters must therefore, when necessary, be learned from the city, that is, from its sovereign powers.
Judging, when necessary, which definitions and inferences are true belongs to the civil authority.
12 Consider further all these things: building fortresses, houses, and temples; moving, carrying, and removing immense weights; traveling safely across seas; designing machines for every sort of use; gaining thorough knowledge of the earth’s surface, the courses of the stars, the seasons, the reckoning of time, and the nature of all things; fully understanding all natural and civil rights; and mastering every branch of knowledge included under the name of philosophy, necessary in part for living and in part for living well. The understanding of these things, since Christ has not supplied it, must be gained through reasoning: drawing necessary conclusions from starting points first taken from experience. But people sometimes reason correctly and sometimes incorrectly; what they conclude and accept as true is consequently sometimes truth and sometimes error. Errors even in these philosophical subjects sometimes cause public harm and give rise to great seditions and injuries. Thus whenever controversy about such matters threatens the public good and common peace, someone must judge the reasoning—whether the conclusion has been properly inferred—so the controversy may be resolved. Christ gave no rules for this purpose, nor did he come into the world to teach logic. The judges of such controversies must therefore be those whom God had previously appointed by nature: those whom the sovereign has appointed in each city. Moreover, if a dispute arises over the exact and proper meaning—that is, the definition—of commonly used names or terms, and settling it is necessary for the city’s peace or the distribution of rights, the decision belongs to the city. For people seek out such definitions by reasoning from their observation of the diverse ideas for which those terms have been used at different times and for different reasons. But deciding whether a person reasons correctly belongs to the city. For example, if a woman gives birth to a child of unusual shape, and the law forbids killing a human being, the question is whether that child is human. We must therefore ask what a human being is. No one doubts that the city will decide, without recourse to Aristotle’s definition of a human being as a rational creature. In these matters, then—rights, policy, and natural sciences—Christ denies that his office is to give any precepts or teach anything beyond this alone: in all controversies concerning them, every individual subject must obey his city’s laws and decisions. Yet we must remember that this same Christ, as God, could not only have taught but also commanded whatever he wished.
Christ’s office is to teach morality not as speculation but as law, to forgive sins, and to teach everything of which there is no science properly so called.
13 The whole of our Savior’s office was to teach the way to salvation and eternal life, and all the means of reaching them. Justice, civil obedience, and observance of all the natural laws are among those means. These can be taught in two ways. One is as theorems, by natural reasoning, deriving rights and natural laws from human principles and contracts; doctrine taught this way is subject to the judgment of civil powers. The other is as laws, on divine authority, by showing that such is God’s will; and teaching in this way belongs only to the one to whom God’s will is supernaturally known, namely Christ. Secondly, Christ’s office included forgiving the sins of the penitent, since this was necessary to the salvation of those who had already sinned. Nor could anyone else do it: forgiveness of sins does not follow repentance naturally, as a debt, but depends as a free gift on God’s will, which must be revealed supernaturally. Thirdly, Christ’s office is to teach all God’s commandments concerning either his worship or those points of faith that cannot be understood by natural reason but only by revelation. Such points include that he was the Christ; that his kingdom was heavenly rather than earthly; that rewards and punishments await us after this life; that the soul is immortal; that there should be sacraments of a certain kind and number; and the like.
A distinction between temporal and spiritual things.
14 From what was said in the preceding chapter, it is not hard to distinguish spiritual from temporal things. Spiritual things are those founded on Christ’s authority and office, things that could not have been known had Christ not taught them; all other things are temporal. It follows that defining and deciding what is just or unjust, hearing every controversy over the means of peace and public defense, and examining doctrines and books in every rational science depend on temporal authority; but judgments on the mysteries of faith, which depend solely on Christ’s word and authority, belong to spiritual authority. Yet determining what is spiritual and what temporal is an inquiry of reason and belongs to temporal authority, since our Savior made no such distinction. St. Paul does distinguish spiritual from carnal things in many places. He calls spiritual (Rom. viii. 5: 1 Cor. xii. 8-10) the things of the spirit: the word of wisdom, the word of knowledge, faith, gifts of healing, the working of miracles, prophecy, diverse kinds of tongues, and the interpretation of tongues. All are supernaturally inspired by the Holy Ghost; the carnal person cannot understand them, but only one who has known the mind of Christ can (2 Cor. ii. 14-16). He calls carnal those things that concern worldly wealth (Rom. xv. 27), and calls certain people carnal people (1 Cor. iii. 1-3). Yet he has neither defined nor given us rules by which to tell what proceeds from natural reason and what from supernatural inspiration.
The several senses of “the word of God.”
15 It is clear, then, that our Savior left to rulers and to those who have obtained sovereignty in each city—or, rather, did not take away from them—the supreme authority to judge and decide every kind of controversy concerning temporal matters. We must now see to whom he left that authority in spiritual matters. Since this can be learned only from God’s word and the church’s tradition, we must next inquire what God’s word is, what it means to interpret it, what a church is, and what constitutes the church’s will and command. Leaving aside the scriptural use of “the word of God” to mean the Son of God, the term is used in three ways. First, and most properly, it means what God has spoken. Thus everything God spoke to Abraham, the patriarchs, Moses, and the prophets, and everything our Savior spoke to his disciples or to anyone else, is the word of God. Secondly, it means everything uttered by people at the prompting or command of the Holy Ghost; in this sense we acknowledge the Scriptures as God’s word. Thirdly, in the New Testament “the word of God” most often means the teaching of the gospel, the word concerning God, or the word concerning God’s kingdom through Christ. Thus Christ is said to have preached the gospel of the kingdom (Matth. iv. 23); the apostles are said to preach the word of God (Acts xiii. 46); God’s word is called the word of life (Acts v. 20), the word of the gospel (Acts xv. 7), the word of faith (Rom. x. 8), and the word of truth—that is, by way of explanation, the gospel of salvation (Eph. i. 13). It is also called the apostles’ word, for St. Paul says (2 Thess. iii. 14): “If anyone does not obey our word,” and so forth. These passages can mean nothing other than evangelical doctrine. Likewise, when God’s word is said to be sown, to grow, and to multiply (Acts xii. 24: and xiii. 49), it is very hard to understand this as referring to the voice of God or of his apostles, but easy to understand it as their teaching. In this third sense, all the teaching of the Christian faith now preached from pulpits and contained in theologians’ books is the word of God.
Not everything in Scripture belongs to the canon of Christian faith.
16 Sacred Scripture in its entirety is the word of God in this second sense, as we acknowledge it to be divinely inspired; and innumerable passages of it are God’s word in the first sense. Since most of it concerns the prediction of the kingdom of heaven, its prefigurations before Christ’s incarnation, or its proclamation and explanation afterward, sacred Scripture is also God’s word in the third sense—and therefore the canon and rule of all evangelical doctrine—where “the word of God” means the word concerning God, that is, the gospel. But the same Scriptures contain many things political, historical, moral, and physical, and others wholly unrelated to the mysteries of our faith. Although these passages teach truth and provide the canon for doctrines of their own kinds, they cannot be the canon of the mysteries of the Christian religion.
Plain English translation
Mouseia’s complete Plain English edition, made independently and directly from Hobbes’s own 1651 English version of De Cive, complete (epistle, preface, eighteen chapters with annotations; Molesworth’s 1841 text). Molesworth’s index is omitted.
10 Our Savior gave no rules for distributing property to the subjects of princes and the citizens of cities. That is, he gave them no rules for distinguishing their own property from someone else’s, or for deciding which forms, words, and circumstances make something rightly belong to a recipient, an occupier, or a possessor when it is given, handed over, occupied, or possessed. We must therefore understand that every subject, among Christians as well as unbelievers, must get these rules from their city: from the person or council with supreme power. Christ himself said he was not a judge or distributor among unbelievers. It follows that commands such as “Do not kill,” “Do not commit adultery,” “Do not steal,” and “Honor your father and mother” require subjects and citizens to obey their princes completely in all questions about what is mine and yours, about their own rights and others’ rights. For “Do not kill” does not forbid every killing. The same speaker also said (Exod. xxxv. 2): “Whoever works on the sabbath must be put to death.” Nor does it forbid every killing without a hearing. He said (Exod. xxxii. 27): “Let each man kill his brother, each man his companion, and each man his neighbor.” And (verse 28): “About three thousand of the people fell.” Nor does it forbid every killing of an innocent person. Jephtha vowed (Judges xi. 31): “Whoever comes out,” and so forth, “I will offer as a burnt offering to the Lord”; and God accepted his vow. What, then, is forbidden? Only killing someone when one has no right to do so. No one may kill unless it is their right. Thus Christ’s law about killing, and consequently about any injury to anyone and the penalties for it, commands us only to obey the city. Likewise, “Do not commit adultery” does not forbid all sexual intercourse, only intercourse with another man’s wife. But it belongs to the city to judge who is another man’s wife, under rules the city prescribes. So this command requires men and women to honor fully the mutual pledge they made according to the city’s statutes. In the same way, “Do not steal” does not forbid taking or secretly carrying off everything, only what belongs to another person. So a subject is commanded not to take or seize anything the city prohibits people from taking or seizing. In general, subjects must not call anything murder, adultery, or theft unless it violates civil law. Finally, Christ commanded us to honor our parents but did not specify the ceremonies, forms of address, or kinds of obedience involved. We should therefore assume that children must honor their parents in their hearts and intentions as their kings and lords. Their outward expressions of honor, however, must not exceed what the city permits. The city assigns each person their honor just as it assigns everything else. Justice, by its nature, means giving everyone what belongs to them. It clearly follows that a Christian city must decide what counts as justice, injustice, or a sin against justice. And whatever belongs to a city must be understood to belong to whoever has sovereign power in it.
Defining what promotes the city’s peace and safety belongs to the civil authority.
11 Moreover, our Savior gave subjects no laws for governing a city beyond the laws of nature, that is, the command to obey. So no subject may decide privately who is a public friend or enemy, when to make war, peace, or a truce, or which subjects and which people’s authority help or harm the commonwealth’s safety. If necessary, the city must provide answers on these and all similar matters. That means its sovereign powers provide them.
Judging, when necessary, which definitions and conclusions are true belongs to the civil authority.
12 Think of building castles, houses, and temples; moving, carrying, and removing huge weights; traveling safely across seas; and designing machines for every purpose. Think also of knowing the whole earth’s geography, the paths of the stars, the seasons, the reckoning of time, and the nature of everything; of understanding all natural and civil rights thoroughly; and of mastering all the sciences called philosophy, which we need partly for life and partly for living well. Christ did not give us this knowledge. We must learn it by reasoning: drawing necessary conclusions from experience as our starting point. But people’s reasoning is sometimes correct and sometimes wrong. So what they conclude and accept as true is sometimes true and sometimes an error. Errors on even these philosophical subjects can sometimes hurt the public and cause major unrest and injuries. Whenever a dispute over them threatens the public good and common peace, someone must judge the reasoning: whether the conclusion follows properly. That will settle the dispute. Christ gave no rules for doing this, nor did he come into the world to teach logic. So the judges of these disputes remain those whom God had already established through nature: the people appointed by the sovereign in each city. Another kind of dispute concerns the exact and proper meaning, or definition, of commonly used names and terms. When public peace or the allocation of rights requires a decision, that decision belongs to the city. People arrive at definitions by reasoning from their observations of the different ideas those terms have expressed at different times for different reasons. But deciding whether someone’s reasoning is right belongs to the city. For example, suppose a woman gives birth to a child of an unusual shape and the law forbids killing a human being. The question is whether the child is a human being. We must therefore ask what a human being is. No one doubts that the city decides, without having to accept Aristotle’s definition of a human being as a rational creature. Thus rights, government, and natural sciences are subjects on which Christ denies that his office is to issue instructions or teach anything except that each subject must obey the laws and decisions of their city in all disputes about them. But we must remember that this same Christ, as God, could not only teach anything he wanted but command it as well.
Christ’s office is to teach moral conduct as law rather than speculation, to forgive sins, and to teach everything about which there is no science in the strict sense.
13 Our Savior’s office, in brief, was to teach the way to salvation and eternal life and all the means of reaching them. Justice, civil obedience, and observance of every natural law are among those means. These can be taught in two ways. The first presents them as propositions proved by natural reason, deriving rights and natural laws from human principles and contracts. When presented this way, the teaching is subject to judgment by the civil powers. The second presents them as laws on divine authority, showing that they express God’s will. Only a person who knows God’s will by supernatural means can teach in that way: Christ. Second, Christ’s office included forgiving repentant people’s sins. That was necessary for the salvation of people who had already sinned, and no one else could do it. Forgiveness does not follow naturally from repentance as a debt owed. It is a free gift depending on God’s will, which must be revealed supernaturally. Third, Christ’s office includes teaching all God’s commandments about worship and all matters of faith that natural reason cannot discover and that require revelation. These include that he was the Christ, that his kingdom was heavenly rather than earthly, that rewards and punishments follow this life, that the soul is immortal, that there should be these sacraments and this number of them, and similar matters.
The distinction between temporal and spiritual things.
14 What was said in the preceding chapter makes it easy to distinguish spiritual things from temporal things. Spiritual things are grounded in Christ’s authority and office and could not have been known unless Christ taught them. Everything else is temporal. So temporal right governs the definition and determination of justice and injustice; the consideration of all disputes about the means of peace and public defense; and the examination of books and teachings in every rational science. Spiritual right governs judgments about mysteries of faith, which depend on Christ’s word and authority alone. Yet defining what is spiritual and what is temporal is a matter for rational investigation and belongs to temporal right, because our Savior did not draw that distinction. St. Paul often distinguishes spiritual from carnal things. He calls these things spiritual (Rom. viii. 5: 1 Cor. xii. 8-10): the word of wisdom, the word of knowledge, faith, the gift of healing, the power to work miracles, prophecy, different kinds of tongues, and interpretation of tongues. All are supernaturally inspired by the Holy Ghost. The carnal person does not understand them; only someone who knows Christ’s mind does (2 Cor. ii. 14-16). Paul calls things carnal when they concern worldly wealth (Rom. xv. 27), and calls people carnal people (1 Cor. iii. 1-3). But he has not defined these categories or given us rules for recognizing what comes from natural reason and what comes from supernatural inspiration.
The different meanings of “the word of God.”
15 It is now clear that our Savior has left the supreme authority to judge and decide every kind of dispute about temporal matters with princes and others holding sovereignty in each city. Or rather, he has not taken that authority from them. We must next find out to whom he left the same authority in spiritual matters. We can learn this only from the word of God and the tradition of the Church. So we must first ask what the word of God is, what it means to interpret it, what a church is, and what the church wills and commands. Scripture sometimes uses “the word of God” for the Son of God; leaving that use aside, it has three meanings. First, and most strictly, it means what God has spoken. Everything God said to Abraham, the patriarchs, Moses, and the prophets, and everything our Savior said to his disciples or anyone else, is the word of God. Second, it means whatever people have spoken at the Holy Ghost’s prompting or command. In this sense we acknowledge the Scriptures as God’s word. Third, especially in the New Testament, “the word of God” usually means the teaching of the gospel, the word about God, or the word about God’s kingdom through Christ. Christ, for example, is said to preach the gospel of the kingdom (Matth. iv. 23). The apostles are said to preach the word of God (Acts xiii. 46). It is called the word of life (Acts v. 20), the word of the gospel (Acts xv. 7), the word of faith (Rom. x. 8), and the word of truth—that is, to add an explanation, the gospel of salvation (Eph. i. 13). It is also called the word of the apostles, since St. Paul says (2 Thess. iii. 14): “If anyone does not obey our word,” and so forth. These passages can only mean the teaching of the gospel. Likewise, when the word of God is said to be sown, grow, and multiply (Acts xii. 24: and xiii. 49), it is very difficult to take this as referring to the voice of God or his apostles. It readily describes their teaching. In this third sense, all teaching of the Christian faith preached today from pulpits and found in theologians’ books is the word of God.
Not everything in Scripture belongs to the canon of Christian faith.
16 All of Holy Scripture is the word of God in the second sense: we acknowledge it as inspired by God. Innumerable passages are his word in the first sense too. Most of Scripture deals with predictions of heaven’s kingdom, figures anticipating it before Christ’s incarnation, or its announcement and explanation afterward. Thus Scripture is also the word of God in the third sense, and so it is the canon and rule for all gospel teaching. In that sense “the word of God” means the word about God, or the gospel. But Scripture also contains many passages about government, history, morality, nature, and other matters wholly unrelated to the mysteries of our faith. Those passages contain true teaching and serve as the canon for teaching on those subjects, but they cannot be the canon for the mysteries of the Christian religion.