§ 1. The Chaldean text of Daniel says: “He will think to change times.” The Greek has ὑπονοήσει, “he will suppose,” for he will not be able to do it. Thus the Greek scholiast: προσδοκήσει, οὐ μὴν ὅλως ἰσχύσει, “he will expect to do it, but will by no means succeed at all.” What ἀλλοιῶσαι τοὺς καιρούς, “to alter the times,” means is understood from what is joined to it, because it says καὶ νόμον, “and the law.” Saint Jerome: “He will be raised to such pride that he will attempt to change the laws of God and the ceremonies, and will be lifted above everything that is called God, subjecting all religion to his own power.” Theodorus: “He will suppose that he can overthrow from its foundations the piety which will then flourish.” They therefore understood “times” to mean an alteration of the Church. Those who interpreted the passage concerning Antiochus understand by the name “times” the solemnities of the Jews: Sabbaths, Passovers, Pentecost, the Feast of Tabernacles, days of expiation, new moons, sabbatical years, Jubilee years, and similar observances.
But because we are speaking of Antichrist, he will change times and laws; he will take care that feast days are instituted in his honor. Mohammed has already given some indications, then the Lutherans, but more effectively the Calvinists, so that it appears that the mystery is already beginning in its forerunners. And this is the sense of Scripture.
They borrowed their calumnies from Powell and others: because the Pontiff is said to be released from the laws, to transfer empires, and so forth.
§ 2. I answer that by these matters no more is conceded to the Pontiff than, in a certain proportion, they themselves permit to their Bishops and kings. First, indeed, we deny that the Pontiff can change any divine laws. Anathema if anyone asserts that the Pontiff is released from the divine laws. The canonists who are said to assert it are cited partly falsely, as I proved above, and partly in a sense foreign to them. This is certainly established for me: if anyone says that the Pope can remove one iota from the law of God, he will first be struck by a spiritual thunderbolt from the Pope.
He is bound to ecclesiastical and civil laws, where the Pope also holds temporal government, in the manner that a prince is bound to his own laws—a prince whom some wholly, others partly, exempt from the laws. It is sometimes useful for those laws to be changed, and therefore they can be abolished and exchanged for better ones. Those who deny that a prince is subject to the laws as regards coercive power also deny that he can be judged by another; for he who has another as judge must receive and undergo the judge’s sentence. From this I make an invincible argument for the Pontiff:
The Roman Pontiff denies that he can change the law of God; he teaches that death must be met a thousand times rather than that he should call himself exempt from God’s law; by his own sentence he condemns all who affirm it. Therefore the Pope is not Antichrist. This is the opinion of all of us who acknowledge the Pope as shepherd of the Church: that the Pope is subject to the divine laws; that if he violates them, he sins most gravely; and that unless he repents of his sin, he will perish eternally. The universality of Catholics, and indeed the Roman Curia itself, subscribes to this opinion of mine. But what the Pontiff thinks concerning the laws of God is expounded in distinction 8, canon 2:
“Crimes which are contrary to human customs must be avoided according to the diversity of customs, so that what has been confirmed by the custom or law of a city or nation as a compact among themselves may be violated by no citizen’s or foreigner’s lust. For every part which does not agree with its whole is base. But when God commands something contrary to the custom or compact of any people, even if it was never done there, it must be done; and if it was omitted, it must be restored; and if it was not instituted, it must be instituted. For if a king is permitted in the city over which he reigns to command something which neither anyone before him nor he himself ever commanded, and obedience to it is not contrary to the fellowship of his city—indeed, disobedience to it is contrary to that fellowship, for it is a general compact of human fellowship to obey its kings—how much more must God, the ruler of his whole creation, be served without doubt in those things which he has commanded? For just as in the powers of human society the greater power is set above the lesser so as to be obeyed, so God is set above all.”
And in distinction 9, canon 2, it commands princes to obey their own laws. These are the words of the canon:
“It is just that a prince obey his own laws. For then let him think that his laws must be observed by all, when he himself also shows reverence to them. It is fitting that princes be bound by their own laws, nor can they condemn in themselves the laws which they establish for their subjects. For the authority of their utterance is just if they do not allow themselves to do what they prohibit to the peoples.”
§ 3. By equal reasoning the Roman Church teaches that especially the constitutions of general Synods must be observed, cause 25, question 1, canon 1:
“We trust that no one who is truly a Christian now fails to know that the decree of each Synod which the consent of the universal Church has approved ought to be executed by no see before the others more than by the first see, which confirms each synod by its authority and guards it by continued moderation.”
With this mind Gregory writes to Bishop Felix, book 12, epistle 31, found in cause 25, canon 4:
“If I destroyed the things which our predecessors established, I should justly be proved not a builder but an overthrower, as the voice of Truth testifies when it says: ‘Every kingdom divided against itself will not stand’; and every science and law divided against itself will be destroyed.”
§ 4. But the manner in which the Pontiff is permitted to establish new laws is expounded by Pope Urban in cause 25, canon 6:
“There are some who say that the Roman Pontiff has always been permitted to establish new laws. This we not only do not deny, but even affirm strongly. Yet it must be known above all that he can establish new laws in matters concerning which the Evangelists and Prophets have said nothing at all. But where the Lord, or his Apostles, and the holy Fathers following him have openly defined something by a sentence, there the Roman Pontiff ought not to give a new law, but rather to confirm what has been preached even to the surrender of soul and blood. For if he strove—which God forbid—to destroy what the Apostles and Prophets taught, he would be proved not to give a sentence but rather to err. But let this be far from those who have always guarded the Lord’s Church most excellently against the snares of wolves.”
That nothing can be established against the divine laws is taught in cause 25, canon 8:
“The Catholic Church defends everything that is irreprehensible.” And below: “An unjust judgment and an unjust definition arranged by judges through royal fear or command has no force. Nor will anything stand which has been done against the ordinance of evangelical, prophetic, or apostolic doctrine, or against the ordinance of their successors or of the holy Fathers; and what has been done by unbelievers or heretics will be made wholly void.”
From this, therefore, it is clear that what is said concerning changed times and laws does not fit the Pontiff. For some things are changed in the Church only when necessity and utility demand it. He therefore spoke very well: “The authority even of this see cannot establish or change anything against the statutes of the Fathers; for among us antiquity lives with unshaken roots, and the decrees of the Fathers have ordained reverence for it.”
But if you seek true abrogators of the divine laws who change times and morals, you will find them without difficulty in the opposing camp. For he who thinks that he is bound to observe the law only by a law of gratitude, and who thinks the law impossible to observe—with what mouth and what face does he accuse the Pontiff as though he were a violator of the law? What is harsher than those words of Luther: “He who apprehends Christ as legislator and avenger apprehends the Devil in place of Christ”?
I cannot pass over one matter which is preeminent in this place, for it is the clearest testimony of preachers’ ignorance and shamelessness. The most obtuse of the Lutheran ministers accused the Pontiff of changing the times because he had brought the astronomical calculations of the erring year back to the true rule. Thus the little bachelor Powell did in theses printed at the University of Oxford. I marvel at it the more because troublesome prophets came out of England for Scaliger, men who were able to write books on the correction of the Calendar; it is like a portent that no one came forth from the University to admonish Powell concerning such rustic ignorance. For who would not marvel that a disputation was held on that matter in that University, a pretender to learning, when men proclaiming themselves pagans in Germany grieved, not without the mockery of their own people, that they had stumbled over it? But more astonishing is that a great
part of Germany, Gaul, Spain, and England acknowledged the error of the preceding calculation and admitted the new correction.