754. The things which pertain to the power of the Church are immediately inferred from those things which we established in the preceding disputation, especially where we vindicated the true hierarchy and the nature of the Church as a perfect society. Nevertheless, it will be useful, whether for the fullness of doctrine or for overthrowing certain errors, to treat directly of the power of the Church, establishing at least the principles, while their application to diverse objects is left to the canonists.
755. “There is a twofold spiritual power,” says St. Thomas (2-2, q. 39, a. 3), “one sacramental, the other jurisdictional. Sacramental power is that which is conferred through some consecration; and such power, according to its essence, remains in the man who has obtained it through consecration as long as he lives, whether he fall into schism or into heresy… But jurisdictional power is that which is conferred by the simple injunction of a man, and such power does not adhere immovably; whence it does not remain in schismatics and heretics.” The Council of Trent sufficiently suggests the same division, when in session 23 it requires two things in a Bishop, namely legitimate ordination and legitimate mission: the former confers the power of order, the latter the power of jurisdiction.
756. We gave the reason for this distinction, which proves it to be adequate, at no. 516. Nevertheless it pleased certain more recent theologians and canonists to propose a new distinction, according to which ecclesiastical power is one thing of ministry, another of magisterium, another of command. By the power of ministry they understand that which we, with the common opinion, call the power of order. But they distinguish the power of magisterium and of command, while we, according to the common mode of speaking, call each the power of jurisdiction. But as Cardinal Tarquini rightly observes (book 1, no. 4, note): “The third kind of power, which he called that of magisterium, the distinguished Phillips introduced in vain. For if it is pure magisterium, it cannot be called power; but if it is so conceived that a right is present in it of inclining the Faithful to the obedience of faith and of commanding their assent, it is part of the power of jurisdiction. Therefore one ought not to depart from the doctrine common in Catholic schools.” The power of order is treated in the treatise On the Sacraments; we shall speak in the following article about the power of jurisdiction insofar as it regards the office of teaching; the rest must be treated here.
757. Now the power of jurisdiction is divided in three ways. For either 1) the means to the proper end of a perfect society are determined and proposed to its members in such a way that an obligation to use them is induced; and there is had legislative power. 2) Or it is brought about that the means already proposed are rightly applied, with consideration of the true sense of the law and the nature of the action which is conformable to it or difform from it; and there is had judicial power. 3) Or finally those refusing to apply the same means, or impeding them, are compelled or coerced; and there is had coercive power. But power is called coercive not because it precisely inflicts physical force, for that can also be done through injury, but because it imposes an obligation to a penalty and brings that obligation upon even the unwilling.
758. Heterodox writers have attacked the legislative power of the Church in two ways. For 1) many of the Innovators taught that the Prelates of the Church have no authority for making Ecclesiastical laws. Among these are chiefly numbered the Poor of Lyons, or Waldenses, Marsilius of Padua, John Wyclif, John Hus, John of Wesel, Calvin, and Luther. Luther, in the book On the Babylonian Captivity, chapter on Baptism, writes thus: “By what right does the Pope establish laws over us? Who gave him the power of capturing our liberty, given to us through baptism, when neither Pope, nor Bishop, nor any man has the right to establish one syllable over a Christian man, unless it is done with that man’s consent?” 2) Others, flatterers of Princes, indeed admit that there is in the Church a power of making Ecclesiastical laws, but they suppose that it depends upon the civil power; and with M. Antonius de Dominis, Richer, and others they contend that it was conceded to the Church by lay Princes, not given by Christ himself to the Apostles and transmitted from the Apostles to their Successors.
759. But if it is once proved that legislative power belongs to the Church, that the same belongs to her by her own right, or divine right, and not by concession of princes, is both concluded by the same arguments and is clear from what has been said (nos. 582 ff.) concerning the independence of the Church from civil society. In this matter it can be noted that although civil power also is from God, nevertheless it is from him in a different way from ecclesiastical power. For if the question concerns the institution itself of authority, and not its actual conferral upon a determinate subject: 1) civil power is from God insofar as God is the author of man’s nature, which is social and therefore requires authority; but Ecclesiastical power was immediately instituted by Christ the Lord himself. 2) Hence God did not himself determine the form of government for civil society; but Christ the Lord determined the form of government in the Church. Compare Bellarmine, On Laymen, chapter 6.
760. From the independent legislative power of the Church, however, it is evidently perceived that the following propositions were rightly condemned in the encyclical Quanta cura: “The laws of the Church do not bind in conscience unless they are promulgated by the civil power; the acts and decrees of the Roman Pontiffs concerning Religion and the Church need the sanction and approval, or at least the assent, of the civil power; the Apostolic Constitutions by which secret Societies are condemned, whether in them there is required, or is not required, an oath concerning the keeping of secrecy, and their followers and supporters are punished with anathema, have no force in those regions of the world where aggregations of this kind are tolerated by the civil government.” To these can be added several propositions condemned in the Syllabus, sections 5-6.
761. The proper function of judicial power, as we said, is to bring it about that established laws are rightly applied. But this imports two things: 1) that they be applied according to the sense and mode in which they were made; 2) that the actions of subjects be measured according to this norm. Therefore a twofold judgment is required, namely concerning the sense of the law and concerning the relation which individual actions have to it; and for this reason this power is deservedly called judicial. But all who attack legislative or coercive power, as is clear of itself, deny this power of the Church. Nevertheless, it is helpful to recall proposition 31 condemned in the Syllabus: “The ecclesiastical forum for temporal cases of Clerics, whether civil or criminal, is entirely to be removed, even without consulting and despite the protest of the Apostolic See.”
762. The coercive power of the Church has been attacked in manifold ways. For 1) some have denied every power of this kind to the Church. Thus, among other errors of Marsilius of Padua proscribed by John XXII, the famous proposition is: “Neither the Pope, nor the whole Church gathered together, can punish any man, however evil, with a coercive penalty, unless he has power from the Emperor.” 2) Others indeed concede to the Church the power of inflicting spiritual penalties, but deny that she can also employ temporal penalties, even through the aid of the secular arm. This the Donatists once taught in Africa, as St. Augustine writes in the books against the letters of Parmenian, Petilian, and Gaudentius, Donatists. Having embraced their doctrine, the Innovators of more recent times, Waldenses, Albigenses, etc., on this account accused the Church of cruelty. John Hus, proposition 14 among those condemned by the Council of Constance, says: “Doctors who posit that someone to be corrected through Ecclesiastical censure, if he refuses to be corrected, is to be handed over to the secular judgment, certainly follow in this the Pontiffs and Scribes and Pharisees, who, when Christ was unwilling to obey them in all things, saying, ‘it is not lawful for us to kill anyone,’ handed him over to the secular judgment, and such persons are murderers worse than Pilate.” 3) Others finally acknowledge the coercive power of the Church even as regards temporal penalties; yet they hold that she can inflict these not through her own magistrates, but through civil magistrates.
763. To understand Catholic doctrine in this matter, we note with Suarez (On Faith, disp. 20, sect. 3, no. 13): “Since the evil of penalty consists in the violent privation of some good, as many as are the kinds of goods, so many kinds of penalties can be distinguished. Therefore spiritual penalties are those which deprive one of spiritual goods, with which the Church can deprive her subjects, such as ecclesiastical censures, irregularities and inabilities for ecclesiastical offices, and similar things. Temporal penalties, however, are those which deprive one of external goods of fortune, such as confiscation of goods and inability for temporal offices or honors. Corporal penalties, however, are those which touch the body itself, among which exile also is counted.” But concerning temporal and corporal penalties the same reasoning holds.
764. These things being posited: 1) it is certain that “the Catholic Church has power for punishing and coercing heretics, and the same reasoning applies to other delinquents, … which must be held as certain by faith.” Compare Suarez, loc. cit., no. 10. 2) It is certain that this power extends also to temporal penalties. Pius VI, in the bull Auctorem fidei, condemns as inducing into a system elsewhere condemned as heretical the proposition of the Synod of Pistoia affirming that “much less does it pertain to her [the Church] to exact by exterior force subjection to her decrees.” Proposition 24 condemned in the Syllabus reads thus: “The Church does not have the power of inflicting force, nor any temporal power, direct or indirect.” In the encyclical Quanta cura, the Supreme Pontiff Pius IX condemned, among others, these propositions: “The Church ought to decree nothing which can bind the consciences of the faithful in order to the use of temporal things; the Church does not possess the right of coercing violators of her laws by temporal penalties.” Therefore Suarez rightly taught (loc. cit., no. 21): “I say, therefore, that the power of punishing heretics even by temporal and corporal penalties exists by divine right in the pastors of the Church, and especially in the Roman Pontiff, although secondarily it also pertains to Catholic princes, especially as protectors of the Church, and according to the determination of the same Church.” 3) The right itself of coercing by temporal penalties must be distinguished from the mode of using that right. If the right is considered, the Church can inflict them even through her own magistrates, as the documents which Suarez himself brings forward prove. But the mode can be accommodated to the circumstances of places, times, and persons, as has always been done by the Church.
765. These things therefore having been declared: If, however, someone asks whether this coercive power of the Church extends even to the right of the sword, behold what Cardinal Tarquini has (p. 42 ff.): “As regards the matter itself of which we are treating, the immediate exercise of power of this kind has been forbidden only by ecclesiastical law, and indeed to the inferior magistrates of the Church. But as regards the supreme magistrate of the Church, that is, the Roman Pontiff and a general Council, whose power can be restricted by no ecclesiastical law, these things are to be noted: “a) This must without any doubt be held, that at least mediately a right of this kind belongs to them; that is, that they have the right of requiring from a Catholic Prince that he punish delinquents with that penalty, if the necessity of the Church demands it. For the Church would not have been sufficiently provided for unless a true right had been given to her for those things which are necessary for her. “b) But that such a right cannot be exercised immediately, when necessity demands, by the supreme magistrate of the Church, can be proved by no reason; since from natural law, from the fact that the Church is a perfect society, the contrary is indeed demonstrated. From positive divine law, however, no passage can be adduced by which it has truly been forbidden. For the things objected are most inept, whether from Matthew 26.52, where Christ says to Peter, a private man at that time, ‘Put thy sword back into its place,’ etc.; or from 2 Corinthians 10.4, where Paul, declaring the force of his power, writes: ‘The weapons of our warfare are not carnal [that is, not fragile and futile], but mighty to God for the destruction of fortifications.’ With equal ineptness the argument drawn from the meekness of the Church becomes worthless, as though the administration of necessary justice were opposed to the virtue of meekness. But that one argument which can be opposed a little more solidly from perpetual non-use does not rise to the just force of proof, since it cannot be defined whether this happened from defect of power or rather from defect of opportunity, either because graver harm was feared from the use, or because the ministry of civil society was at hand.” Section II. The Proposed Question Is Solved. Proposition XXXIII. 1. To the Church, as being a society perfect by Christ’s institution, there belongs by native right, and not by concession of princes, supreme and independent power, both legislative and judicial. 2. Moreover, she can so sanction her laws that she coerces violators of them by penalties not only spiritual, but also temporal.
766. I. The first part is proved, as regards legislative power. Christ Jesus (Matt. 18.18) said to the Apostles: “Amen I say to you, whatsoever you shall bind upon earth shall be bound also in heaven, and whatsoever you shall loose upon earth shall be loosed also in heaven.” But these words comprise legislative power. Therefore. The minor is proved. 1) To bind and to loose suppose some bond; therefore not a material and physical bond, but a moral bond. But law is a certain moral bond, since it obliges, or binds the wills of men to doing or omitting something. The words of Christ are most universal: whatsoever you shall bind. Therefore the cited words comprise legislative power. 2) This is also clear from the common usage of speaking among the Jews; for to them to bind and to loose was the same as to make and to abrogate law. Hence in the Talmud those words are frequently used in the same sense. 3) Indeed Christ himself, wishing to show that he had not come to abrogate the law, said (Matt. 5.17-19): “I have not come to loose the law or the prophets, but to fulfill.” And speaking of the Pharisees (Matt. 23.4), he says: “They bind heavy and unbearable burdens and impose them upon the shoulders of men.” In this same sense the Apostle says (Rom. 7.2): “The woman who is under a husband is bound to the law while her husband lives; but if her husband has died, she is loosed from the law of the husband.” From this testimony it is also clear that the legislative power of the Church is supreme. For a legislator whose laws are always ratified by God himself has supreme legislative power. But the laws of the Church are always ratified by God himself, as is clear from the cited words of Christ. Therefore. Compare what was said at no. 558.
767. II. The Apostles used legislative power. For in the Council of Jerusalem (Acts 15.29) they passed a true law, commanding the faithful that “they abstain from things sacrificed to idols, and from blood, and from what is strangled.” Nor can it be said that the Apostles merely declared an already existing law, and did not establish a new law. For the first Christians certainly were not bound by that law, either because Christ had abrogated it, or because it was not passed with the intention that it would oblige after Christ. Otherwise that law would still be in force, for it would be a divine law, which the Church cannot abrogate, just as an inferior cannot abrogate the law of a superior. Likewise the Apostle (1 Tim. 3) established a law that bigamists are not to be ordained; in 1 Corinthians 11 he commands a woman to pray with veiled head; in 2 Corinthians 8 he commands that collections be made on the Sabbaths for those who had deposited all their goods at the feet of the Apostles in Jerusalem. The same thing could be confirmed from the most ancient practice of the Church, which commanded many things to the faithful, as is established from the Acts and Canons of Councils, both General and particular; but the matter is so obvious that we would gather testimonies in vain.
768. III. Legislative power is proper to every perfect society. But the Church is a perfect society; therefore legislative power belongs to the Church. Moreover, she was constituted as such a society by Christ the Lord himself; therefore she possesses that power by her own right and not from the concession of princes. The minor of this argument, as also the subsumption, was proved at no. 557 ff.; but the major can be assumed from the very concession of the adversaries, who cannot deny legislative power to a perfect society. But it can be confirmed from what was said at no. 430. For to a perfect society there must be conceded the power of requiring that which is necessary for the attainment of its end. But legislative power is necessary for this; for through it the means which must be employed by all are determined, so that all may conspire toward the same end. Considering the diversity of human disposition and the inconstancy of the human will, that mutual agreement in employing the same means would be impossible without law. Therefore all the arguments by which we vindicated for the Church the nature of a perfect society confirm this part of the thesis.
769. The first part is proved, as regards judicial power. I. Christ the Lord (Matt. 18.15-17) says: “If thy brother has sinned against thee… tell the Church; but if he will not hear the Church, let him be to thee as a heathen and a publican.” Now if the Church could not judge him, it would be useless to denounce him to her; but if, when he had been denounced, the Church should hold him as a heathen and a publican without any judgment and sentence, that would be unjust. Therefore Christ, who commanded that the sinner be denounced to the Church and, unless he heard her, be held as a heathen and a publican, conferred judicial power upon the Church.
770. II. The Apostles used this power. Thus Peter brought judgment upon Ananias and Sapphira (Acts 5). Paul judged the incestuous Corinthian; whence he wrote (1 Cor. 5.3): “I indeed, absent in body but present in spirit, have already judged, as though present, him who has so acted,” that is, from knowledge of the crime, fame, or received information, although he delayed the sentence (no. 617). But if the Apostle could bring judgment concerning the most shameful action of the Corinthian, the Church also can do this, in which apostolic authority remains. The same Paul says (ibid., 12): “For what have I to judge those who are outside?” Therefore he could judge those who are inside, that is, in the Church. This is confirmed from the opposition; for he adds in verse 13: “for those who are outside God will judge.”
771. III. To the Church, a perfect society, belongs legislative power; but judicial power is comprised in it or necessarily follows upon it; therefore judicial power is also to be attributed to the Church. The minor is proved. 1) It contributes little or nothing to the end of society to determine the means, which is done through legislative power, unless those same means are rightly applied. But without judicial power the due application of the means would be lacking. For once that power is removed, each one of the associates would be left to himself in the application of the means; and, supposing the variety of human disposition and considering the passions, the associates would easily disagree. Therefore there would not be unity of operation, which is necessary for attaining the common good of the whole society. 2) In fact, judicial power imports a twofold judgment (no. 761), one concerning the true sense of the law, the other concerning the relation of conformity or difformity of an operation to the law. But if there were no authority bringing these judgments, and to which all would be bound to obey, each one would easily twist the law to his own sense and excuse his own action as not difform from the law.
772. The second part is proved. I. From Scripture. For 1) it is said (Matt. 18): “If he will not hear the Church, let him be to thee as a heathen and a publican.” From this we argue thus with Valentia (On the Efficacy of Excommunication, chapter 3): by Christ’s concession, the Church can conduct herself toward the refractory person as toward a heathen or a publican. But toward those persons the Church is accustomed to conduct herself so as not to communicate to them certain spiritual goods of common suffrages; nor does she have with them that custom of external conversation which she has with her members. Therefore the Church can deprive her refractory subjects of that same kind of goods. Therefore she can excommunicate them, since excommunication is nothing other than an ecclesiastical censure depriving a baptized person of the communion of the goods of the Church. 2) It is read (Matt. 16): “Whatsoever thou shalt bind upon earth shall be bound also in heaven.” Certainly one is bound unwillingly. The question concerns, as we have said, a moral bond. One of the moral bonds is obligation to undergo a penalty. Among penalties there are also privations of temporal goods. There is no restriction in the cited words. Therefore they comprise also the power of inflicting temporal penalties. The Apostle, however, says (1 Cor. 4.18-21): “As though I were not coming to you, certain persons have been puffed up… What do you wish? Shall I come to you with a rod, or in charity and a spirit of meekness?” And (2 Cor. 13): “I have foretold and now foretell, as present and now absent, to those who sinned before and to all the rest, that if I come again I will not spare. Do you seek an experiment of him who speaks in me, Christ?” And (10.6): “having in readiness to avenge every disobedience.” But the power of avenging is the power of punishing even the unwilling. In fact, not rarely the Apostle did not spare, but handed over the incestuous Corinthian “to Satan for the destruction of the flesh, that the spirit may be saved” (1 Cor. 5). Likewise he handed Hymenaeus and Alexander over “to Satan, that they may learn not to blaspheme.” These things should be noted: “I… have judged to hand over such a one to Satan for the destruction of the flesh.” That excommunication and “handing over to Satan” was for detriment, “for the destruction of the flesh.” Therefore that notable sinner of Corinth was afflicted, tormented in body, “in the flesh,” through the ministry indeed of Satan, but by the handing over of Paul. “For,” as Anthony Paulutius rightly notes (On the Church, chapter 2), “one handed over to Satan in that first age was often seized by demons as by torturers, as Baronius testifies from Hilary and Jerome. Whence also demons were often called by the holy Fathers the executioners of the Christian Republic.”
773. II. From the Fathers. St. Jerome, in his letter to Theophilus of Alexandria, writes: “That you bear much patience concerning the impious heresy, and think that those brooding over the entrails of the Church can be corrected by your gentleness, displeases many holy men, lest while you await the repentance of a few, you nourish the pertinacity of the lost, and the faction become stronger.” Again, in the letter to Vigilantius: “I wonder that the Bishops in whose parish Vigilantius is said to be a presbyter acquiesce in his madness, and do not with the apostolic rod and the iron rod break the useless vessel and hand him over to the destruction of the flesh, that the spirit may be saved.” What is the iron rod? What is it to break a vessel, to hand over to the destruction of the flesh? The question concerns a rod which falls upon the body, which hands over the body to the destruction of the flesh, and which therefore is coercive and afflictive. St. Augustine, whom the adversaries try to draw over to their own opinion, in book 2 of the Retractations, chapter 5, retracting what he had earlier said, that this compulsion of schismatics did not please him, says: “I said, it does not please me, because I had not yet experienced either how much evil their impunity would dare, or how much the diligence of discipline could contribute to changing them for the better.” And he pursues the same thing more broadly in letter 48 to Vincent and letter 30 to Boniface, where, speaking of the laws of Emperors against Heretics, he says: “these laws are more for them, although they seem adverse to them, since many have been corrected through them and are corrected daily; for by these laws the raging are terrified and the intelligent is corrected.” And the same holy Doctor, the text being found in chapter Si Ecclesia, Cause 23, question 4, says: “If the true Church is the one which suffers persecution, not the one which makes it, let them ask the Apostle what Church Sarah signified when she made persecution against the handmaid. For he says that our free mother, the heavenly Jerusalem, that is, the true Church of God, was figured in that woman who afflicted the handmaid. But if we discuss it better, the latter was persecuting Sarah more by being proud than Sarah was persecuting her by coercing her. For the former was doing injury to her mistress; the latter was imposing discipline upon pride. Then I ask, if the good and holy make persecution against no one, but only suffer it, whose voice they think it is in the Psalm where it is read (Ps. 17): I shall pursue my enemies and overtake them, and I shall not turn back until they fail. Therefore, if we wish to speak or recognize the truth, there is an unjust persecution which the impious make against the Church of Christ, and there is a just persecution which the Church of Christ makes against the impious. Therefore the latter is blessed, which suffers persecution for justice; but the former are miserable, who suffer persecution for injustice. Accordingly this one persecutes by loving; they by raging. This one, that she may correct; they, that they may overthrow. That one, that she may recall from error; they, that they may plunge into error.”
774. III. From the Practice of the Church. For there are abundant pontifical constitutions and decrees of ecumenical Councils, for example, Lyons II, Lateran IV, Vienne, Constance, etc., which establish temporal penalties, of prison, monetary fine, or even graver bodily affliction, upon criminals. Anyone can read these penalties in book 5 of the Decretals, in the entire titles On Heretics and On Penances and Remissions, and very broadly in Cause 13, question 4. But you will find many monuments of Councils, Pontiffs, and Fathers already collected in Suarez (On Faith, disp. 20, sect. 3).
775. IV. Here can be added the testimonies of the Innovators themselves, who in this matter, as in the rest, are little consistent with themselves. Calvin never rested until he moved the Senate of Geneva to consign Michael Servetus, the parent of the Antitrinitarians of our time, to the flames. Soon afterward he published a book whose title is Defense of the Orthodox Faith, and in which, refuting the errors of Servetus, he proves at length that heretics are to be coerced by right of the sword. But when Sebastian Castellio, hiding under the name of Martin Bellius, opposed a little book in which he took up the cause of Heretics, Theodore Beza, to defend the opinion of Calvin his master, wrote a book On Heretics to Be Punished by the Civil Magistrate. In it he not only maintains that heretics can be punished with capital punishment by the civil Magistrate, but also cites as supporters of this opinion Luther in the Lesser Postils, the fifth Sunday after Epiphany; Melanchthon, in the book On the Office of a Prince; Brentius, in the little book On the Well-Administered Republic; Bucer, in the Enarration on chapter 12 of St. Matthew; Capito, in the book On the Right of the Magistrate in Religion; etc.
776. V. From reason. For Suarez, loc. cit., no. 12, 1) establishes generally the coercive power of the Church against heretics, and the same applies to those infected with other crimes, saying: “Power to punish evildoers is necessary in every well-instituted Republic for its preservation and good government… This is so evident that, even setting aside Faith and divine revelation, all men have understood by force of reason that this power is connatural and given by the Author of nature by the very fact that men are gathered into the mystical body of one republic. But Christ the Lord instituted his Church so that it would be one mystical body through one Faith, to be led to one supernatural end. Therefore he left in it power to punish and coerce evildoers, who can especially harm this body and disturb it from that end toward which it tends.” 2) Then, loc. cit., no. 16, he asserts the same power specifically concerning corporal penalties. “For,” he says, “without them, spiritual penalties alone are usually little able to move carnal men; because although in reality they are graver, their harm is not perceived so sensibly. But those common men are especially led and compelled by sense. And this chiefly has place with respect to heretics, because the whole force and efficacy of spiritual penalties depends upon faith, by which both the power of the Church and the truth of censures are believed. Hence, since heretics cast aside the faith, they regard penalties of this kind as almost nothing… and therefore whenever Augustine defends and persuades this coercion of heretics, he speaks of that coercion which is bodily.” 3) Finally, loc. cit., no. 26, he shows that the same power belongs by proper right to the Church. “For,” he says, “this power was necessary for the right governance and preservation of the Church, as I proved above… therefore such power ought to have been in the Church, as the Church was instituted by Christ… and not, as it were, by accident begged from an inferior power: both because the government of the Church in itself and intrinsically ought to have been perfect; and also because otherwise the superior power would depend upon an inferior in a matter most necessary; and furthermore because it can happen that a temporal prince is unwilling to concede this power to the Church, or that he is unwilling to give it except subordinated to himself, and with recourse and appeal to himself, which would be the greatest inconvenience; and especially because it could not be universal over all the sheep of Christ, for at least the temporal kings themselves would have to be excepted, which would yield to the great loss of the Church.”
777. Scholion. The objections which we solved above (nos. 529 ff.; 562 ff.; 586 ff.) must be recalled here. It is useful besides to report a few others. And I. Against the legislative power of the Church they oppose several places in which the Apostle proclaims our liberty through Christ. But law, they say, imposing obligation, is opposed to that liberty. The answer is: Certainly the Apostle does not preach a liberty which excludes law; for he himself, as we have seen, made laws. Therefore sometimes he extols the liberty by which we have been freed from the legal ceremonies by which the Jews, even after Christ’s coming, considered themselves bound. Thus, for example, he writes (2 Cor. 3.17): “where the Spirit of the Lord is, there is liberty.” But immediately before he had said (verse 15 ff.): “Even to this day, when Moses is read, a veil is placed over their heart. But when it shall be turned to the Lord, the veil shall be taken away. Now the Lord is Spirit,” etc. Sometimes also he treats of the liberty proper to the sons of God, by which through Christ’s grace we are free from the servitude of sin. Thus (Rom. 6.14) it is said: “for you are not under law, but under grace”; but it is added in verse 20: “For when you were servants of sin, you were free from justice.” Sometimes the Apostle wills nothing else than that we are free from servile fear, to which the Jews were subject, willingly and with love observing the law. Compare On God the Creator, no. 913.
778. II. They say: By the will of Christ himself, liberty must be preserved both in the pursuit of the spiritual end proposed to the Church, and especially in faith. The Church herself professes that coercive power is not to be employed so that unbelievers may be converted; and therefore, they say, neither for recalling heretics or schismatics, nor for preserving the faithful. Therefore the Church does not have this power. The answer is: in this difficulty, physical liberty, exemption from intrinsic necessity, is confused with moral liberty, exemption from obligation; and it is also falsely supposed that external force, or coercion properly so called, takes away liberty. Therefore we could be content with those things which we said at nos. 58 and 88, and in the treatise On the Infused Virtues, no. 851. But since this difficulty is often renewed, it is useful to report the words of Suarez, which, while they fully solve it, at the same time show that it is ancient and not new. “The same difficulty,” says Suarez (loc. cit., no. 17), “can be objected against every coercion which is made through similar penalties, so that other evil deeds may be avoided or good works done, because other moral works also are done freely, and sins must be freely avoided. Whence we further say that free is said in two ways, namely either from natural necessity, which is in a naturally acting cause, or from necessity, so to speak, moral, that is, from obligation to do something. Therefore the first necessity is repugnant to Faith, by force of the liberty required for it. But this penal coercion does not induce this necessity, as is known of itself, and therefore it is not repugnant to the liberty required for Faith; indeed it helps toward that liberty by inducing a man to believe freely. And although in the beginning such coercion in some way seems to lessen the indifference of liberty, nevertheless it leaves the act simply free; and it is a lesser evil to believe thus than simply not to believe. And then the very vexation is accustomed to give understanding, so that now the man believes with perfect liberty. But if simulated conversions sometimes occur, that is accidental, and is permitted from the malice of men and for avoiding greater evils. But speaking of liberty in the second way, thus Faith is not free, especially in the baptized. I say this because in this the baptized differ from the non-baptized; for even for these Faith is not entirely free, because they are bound by divine precept to receive it. Nevertheless that obligation is only with respect to God. But the baptized are bound both to God and to the Church by reason of baptism, and therefore they can especially be compelled by the Church, either to persevere in it, or to return to it.” Compare, however, what we said at nos. 66 and 764.
779. III. Marsilius of Padua and Richer (On Ecclesiastical Power, book 3, chapter 3) oppose several testimonies of the Fathers, in order to deny to the Church the power of compelling through temporal penalties. The limits of the present treatment do not allow us to examine each one; nor is it truly necessary after those things which we have disputed both in this article and where we treated of the Church as a perfect society and of her relation to civil society. Therefore it is enough to observe: 1) that even if some Fathers had taught what Richer contends, nevertheless he would gain nothing by it; for the consensus of the Fathers presents an irrefragable argument, but the testimonies cited by us would sufficiently show that consensus to be lacking. 2) And even if the truth which we defend here could not be demonstrated from the consensus of the Fathers, which nevertheless we by no means concede, it would still be sufficiently demonstrated from Scripture and from other documents of tradition, as is clear from what has been disputed thus far. 3) But to touch something more directly concerning this head of the difficulty: a) Let the diverse acts which could be attributed to this power be distinguished; for there are some acts which the Fathers teach are by no means to be exercised by the Church, for one reason or another, without its following that the power itself is lacking, or that its legitimate exercise is lacking with respect to other acts. Thus, for example, St. Ambrose, whose authority the adversaries abuse very much, denies that the Church ought to stir up sedition against kings; but how can it be inferred from this that the Church lacks coercive power? b) Let the persons against whom the coercive power of the Church would be employed be distinguished. For the Fathers deny that it can be employed against unbelievers who are not subject to the Church; they also deny that, in certain circumstances of affairs, it is to be employed directly so that certain persons may be recalled to the faith. But from these things it by no means follows that that power is lacking in the Church, or that it cannot be employed for the protection of order or the correction of the wicked. 3) Let the circumstances be distinguished in which certain Fathers were writing, or in which the Church can be placed. For the Church, living under the hostile empire of the pagans, could not exert the fullness of her power; and therefore the Fathers rather assert historically what was being done, but do not juridically deny the power of the Church. Thus also the use of a legitimate power can sometimes be illicit, when the circumstances are considered; but from the fact that the exercise of the power is then excluded, neither is the power itself denied, nor is its use in other circumstances of affairs excluded.