1001. To understand the nature of the Primacy more deeply, it is very useful to investigate the origin of the power of Bishops. For since episcopal jurisdiction over all and each, not only the faithful but also pastors, belongs to the nature of the Primacy, the better we understand what kind and how great their dependence is on the Primate of the universal Church, the better also is the genuine character of the Primacy established. But the sense of the question must be duly declared.
1002. And I. The question here is not about the designation or election of the person who is to be set over the Church as Bishop. For the original and proper right of electing and confirming Bishops is certainly with the Roman Pontiff. Surely: 1) In any society, or form of society, the creation of inferior powers belongs of itself to the supreme power; for participation in power cannot be sought except from that principle which already possesses both the power and the force of communicating it, no. 722. But in monarchical government the highest power is whole and undivided in the prince. But it has been shown so often that the Roman Pontiff is the supreme head of the Church, whose form of government is simply monarchical. Therefore, by proper and original right, it belongs to the Roman Bishop to elect and confirm the other Bishops, no. 515. 2) The Roman Pontiff is the supreme Pastor constituted by Christ in the Church, to whom belongs the care of the whole fold, concerning which he must also render an account to God. But this universal care, concerning which he must render account, chiefly requires that he himself be able to designate subordinate pastors, on whom the right administration of the Church depends for the greatest part. Therefore. 3) Unless Bishops are constituted by the Roman Pontiff, by whom at last could they be constituted by right? Certainly not by any other Bishop; for, excepting the Roman Pontiff, all the remaining Bishops have authority only over their particular Church, and that dependent authority. Much less could they be designated and confirmed by the faithful people, unless we should wish, with the Protestants, to attribute supreme dominion in sacred matters to the people, and to imagine the government of the Church as democratic, contrary to every sense of Scripture and tradition. Finally, that election cannot be made by secular Princes, who have no authority in the Church, as is clear from the things said about the distinction by divine right between Laymen and Clerics. Therefore.
1003. II. Therefore the question is not about the designation of the subject in whom episcopal power resides, but about the power itself; and we seek the origin of this power in individual Bishops. In this matter, recalling the twofold power, of order and of jurisdiction, no. 755, let us note that these two powers are not only distinct, but also separable. Surely: 1) There can be episcopal power of jurisdiction in some subject without the power of order. It is an ancient discipline in the Catholic Church that one elected as Bishop and solemnly announced by the Supreme Pontiff administers his Church with jurisdiction of every kind, even if not yet consecrated, and defers his consecration through the whole time established by law. To recall one or another example: Claudianus, the brother of St. Mamertus, Bishop of Vienne, according to Sidonius Apollinaris, letter 11, book 4, was a mere presbyter while he exercised episcopal power in the place of his brother. St. Augustine, after designating the presbyter Heraclius as successor to himself in the episcopate, wished the offices of episcopal governance to be transferred to him while he was still a presbyter. For he says, letter 213, otherwise 110, no. 1: “I beseech you to allow me to pour back the burdens of my occupations upon this young man, that is, upon Heraclius the presbyter, whom today in the name of Christ I designate as Bishop, successor to me.” 2) Episcopal power of order can also be found in some subject without the power of jurisdiction. For a) the power of order, once received, can never be lost, so that, unlike the power of jurisdiction, even if bound by some impediment, it would indeed be exercised illicitly, but validly. Theodoret, for example, reports in Ecclesiastical History, book 1, chapter 9, the letter of the Council of Nicaea to the Churches of Egypt, by which jurisdiction is taken away from Melitius, Bishop of Thebais, while there nevertheless remains in him not only episcopal power of order, which cannot be lost, but also dignity and rank, or episcopal honor. The deposition of Bishops, or their spontaneous abdication, confirms the matter. The Cathari or Novatians were held as deposed by the Council of Nicaea, canon 7; and there is discussion of the abdication of Eustathius, Bishop of Pamphylia, in the Council of Ephesus, Synodical Letter to the Synod in Pamphylia. These things certainly show that the present practice of the Church is not new. b) The practice of the Apostles confirms the same thing, when they ordained Bishops who, attached to no see and furnished with no ordinary jurisdiction proper to themselves, were sent here and there as co-workers of the Apostles and their delegates. Compare Bolgeni, The Episcopate, part 1, chapter 7, no. 78. Here also belongs the practice of ordaining Bishops for the sake of honor alone, with the administration of no church handed over to them. But concerning all these things the Canonists can be consulted.
1004. III. Now it is evident among all that the power of order in Bishops is immediately from God. Therefore the whole question concerns the origin of the power of jurisdiction. But it must still be noted that this power of jurisdiction can be considered as if in the abstract, insofar as it generally regards the episcopal order and grade, so that the question is asked “whether by the immediate institution of Christ there ought to be Bishops who, dependently on the Supreme Pontiff, rule the Church”; and in the concrete, insofar as the same power resides in this or that particular individual, so that the question is asked “whether, in individual Bishops, just as the power of order proceeds immediately from God, so also does the power of jurisdiction”; for that it proceeds at least mediately from God is again conceded by all. No one doubts that the power of jurisdiction considered in the abstract is of divine right and immediately from God. For by the immediate ordination of Christ it is the case that in his Church there are pastors and teachers, as the Apostle speaks in Ephesians 4.11; to Peter the sheep were handed over by Christ to be fed, and the Apostles themselves constituted Bishops. Certainly neither the Supreme Pontiff nor any human authority can ever bring it about that the order of Bishops is not in the Church, or that it indeed is there but does not rule the Church. Therefore the whole question is reduced to the power of jurisdiction in the concrete; and concerning it the question is asked “whether it is in the Bishop immediately from God, or through the mediation of the Supreme Pontiff.”
1005. IV. Here it must further be observed that the same power of jurisdiction in individual Bishops can be considered in three ways, namely as to exigency or aptitude, actuality, and exercise. It is certain: 1) that as to exigency or aptitude it is immediately from God. For aptitude for episcopal jurisdiction immediately springs from the episcopal character and is annexed to it of itself; but the character immediately proceeds from God; therefore so also that exigency. 2) It is evident both from what has been said thus far about the force and nature of the Primacy, and from ancient, universal, and constant practice, that the power of jurisdiction in Bishops, as to exercise, depends altogether on the Supreme Pontiff, by whom it can be restricted, enlarged, and even taken away; though not in such a way that all who are Bishops do not rule, or that the episcopal order itself is taken away. 3) Hence the question concerns only the same power taken as to actuality; and it is asked whether Bishops have it by force of ordination itself, and therefore immediately from God, or through the mediation of the Supreme Pontiff.
1006. But this question is also customarily proposed somewhat otherwise. Namely, they say that the power of jurisdiction in Bishops is either complete, already ordered to subjects, and proximately ready to go forth validly into second act; or incomplete, not yet ordered to subjects, nor so ready that nothing else is desired for its valid exercise. The incomplete power, they say, is conferred on Bishops by Christ as proximate and immediate author, together with the power of order, by force of consecration. The question is only about the other. That is to say, it is asked whether the complete power, already ordered to subjects and proximately ready to go forth validly into second act, is also immediately from Christ; or whether it is only through the mediation of the Supreme Pontiff, who, as immediate author, although not principal, for Christ alone is principal, but less principal, confers it by the authority proper to himself.
1007. Now the Vatican Council did not touch this question; but historically it is evident that it was agitated with great contention of minds in the Council of Trent; by which, nevertheless, the matter was left undecided, especially through the action of Cardinal of Lorraine. Compare Pallavicino, History of the Council of Trent, book 18, chapters 14-15, and book 21, chapter 11. Therefore the question is disputed among theologians. Francis de Vitoria, a Spanish theologian who died in the year 1549, is put forward as the first of all to have introduced and defended the opinion that jurisdiction in Bishops flows immediately from God; and Alphonsus de Castro, On the Just Punishment of Heretics, chapter 24; Vasquez, book 2, disputation 152, chapter 3, no. 28; Father Collet, On Order, part 2, chapter 4, article 3; and not a few others agreed with him. But all the highest theologians and princes of the schools held the contrary opinion. Thus St. Thomas, on book 4 of the Sentences, distinction 19, question 1, article 3, little question 1, reply to 1; II-II, question 39, article 3, etc.; St. Bonaventure, in the little work Why the Friars Minor Preach and Hear Confessions; Durandus, on book 4, distinction 24; Natalis Hervaeus, in the treatise On the Power of the Pope; St. Antoninus, Summa, part 2, title 22, chapter 3, section 3; Aegidius Colonna, Archbishop of Bourges, in the book On Papal Renunciation, chapter 8, and the little work Against Exemptions, chapter 2; Thomas of Strasbourg, distinction 25, question 1, article 2; John de Celaya, on book 3 of the Sentences, distinction 20, question 7; Michael Manuclerus, part 2 of On Monarchy, book 4, chapter 10; Nicolas Coeffeteau, discussion 5, chapters 1-2 against M. Antonius de Dominis; John Puteanus, on II-II, question 1, article 6, doubt 3, in the response to the first objection; Antoine Charlas, On the Liberties of the Gallican Church, book 3, chapter 10 ff.; Bellarmine, On the Roman Pontiff, book 4, chapter 24 ff.; Suarez, On Laws, book 4, chapter 4; Vargas, little work On Jurisdiction; Fagnanus, on chapter Perniciosam, On the Office of the Ordinary, no. 30 ff.; Benedict XIV, On the Diocesan Synod, book 1, chapter 4, no. 2; and many others.
1008. According to this latter opinion, the disparity between the origin of jurisdiction in Bishops and in the Supreme Pontiff is better understood. For the latter, having the plenitude of episcopal jurisdiction over the universal Church, over all and each of its parts, can communicate it to Bishops in some determinate measure. Therefore they immediately receive from the Roman Pontiff the jurisdiction which has been divinely instituted. But on the contrary, besides the Roman Pontiff, there is no one in the Church who has supreme, universal, full power. Hence neither the consecrating Bishop, nor the Cardinal electors, nor the universal Church can communicate it to the new Roman Pontiff. When the Roman Pontiff has died, that power is left in the hands of Christ; and therefore the newly elected one can receive the keys of the kingdom of heaven from Christ alone.
1009. These things, therefore, having been noted beforehand: Section II The Proposed Question Is Solved. Proposition 60. By force of episcopal consecration there indeed arises in Bishops a certain exigency for ruling the Church; nevertheless the actual power itself required for this is not conferred. For although this actual power, by divine right, ought to be in the episcopal body, nevertheless, otherwise than the power of order, it is communicated to individual Bishops only through the mediation of the Roman Pontiff.
1010. Proof I. Actual power of jurisdiction is not had in Bishops by force of consecration and character. Therefore it must be immediately sought from a human cause, and thus from the Roman Pontiff. The consequence is proved from the very sense of the adversaries. For the adversaries contend that the actual jurisdiction of Bishops is immediately from God only to the extent that they think this same jurisdiction is annexed and, as it were, imbibed in the episcopal character and grade, and is received together with the grade and character in consecration. Therefore, if this is shown false, they themselves admit that actual jurisdiction cannot be drawn except from the Roman Pontiff, since they acknowledge, and can acknowledge, no middle between these two: that it is had immediately either from God or from the Roman Pontiff. Therefore: The antecedent is proved. 1) Once consecration has been posited, by its force we can establish in the Bishop no more than what the concept itself of consecration and episcopal character necessarily includes. But the concept of consecration and episcopal character necessarily includes only the exigency for obtaining the power of ruling the Church, and in no way actual jurisdiction itself. In truth, it would be a contradiction in terms if a consecrated Bishop were conceived as having in the character itself no relation to ruling the Church. But once some relation to the governance of the Church is posited, this can be understood, without any conflict of concepts, either immediately to the power itself by which the Church is ruled, or immediately to another from whom that power ought to be received. Hence, as we said in no. 1003, the power of order is separable from the power of jurisdiction. 2) If that actual power existed in the Bishop by force of consecration, it would follow that by no human authority could it be impeded, diminished, or suspended, so that it would be exercised not only illicitly but also invalidly. For what subsists by divine right can be rendered fruitless by no human power, as is manifest in those things which in a Bishop depend on the power of order. Nor should you say that the acts of jurisdiction in a schismatic, suspended Bishop, etc., are invalid, not because the actual power of jurisdiction is lacking to him, but because it is bound and needs to be loosed by one having authority. For in a schismatic, suspended Bishop, etc., the power even of order is constrained by bonds; and nevertheless that Bishop validly confects or ministers the sacraments, which pertains to the power of order. Therefore, if by force of consecration there were actual power of jurisdiction in him, just as there is the power of order, the acts of that power too would be valid, even if illicit.
1011. II. The power of jurisdiction in one is correlative to the subjection which another owes to him; and therefore episcopal jurisdiction is correlative to subjects. Therefore where there are no actual subjects, jurisdiction cannot be actual; for correlatives exist at the same time, and one cannot be or be conceived without the other. If someone, for example, actually has royal power, he cannot actually lack subjects, to whom, unless by fact, at least by right, he commands. But if he has no subjects, he will be called King only mockingly. Hence it is that by way of jest we are accustomed to say: a king without subjects, a leader without an army, indicating namely a ridiculous or even impossible thing. But Bishops receive subjects immediately not from Christ, but from the Roman Pontiff. Therefore from the same one they immediately receive the actual power itself of jurisdiction. The minor, which is clear from fact and constant practice, can also be confirmed, because if Bishops by force of consecration itself, and not through the mediation of the Roman Pontiff, had subjects, these would be either 1) all the faithful, that is, the universal Church; or 2) an indeterminate part of them; or 3) a determinate part of them, that is, some particular Church. But the first cannot be said, since in that hypothesis all Bishops, by force of consecration, would obtain universal power, which nevertheless, as we have shown, was conferred on Peter alone and his successors. Nor can the second be said, since it is repugnant that actual subjects of some determinate superior be given unless they themselves are also determinate. If the third is admitted, it is already clear that Bishops immediately receive subjects from the Supreme Pontiff; for this is taught a) by ancient and universal practice; b) by reason itself. For who would hand over some determinate part of the flock to another to be ruled, except the one who is set over the whole flock? Hence Suarez fittingly says, On Laws, book 4, chapter 4, no. 8: “Superior and subject are correlatives, and therefore one cannot be made before the other, nor one without the other. Therefore when the matter is applied and subjects are made, the superior receives a new power and right, and as it were dominion over them, because by such power he is formally constituted superior. Therefore that is also the power of jurisdiction; therefore beyond the power given through ordination, there is required a power of jurisdiction given through men.” Lainez also in the Council of Trent, in Pallavicino, History, book 18, chapter 15, no. 16, used the same argumentation, asserting that the very matter of episcopal jurisdiction belongs to Bishops by divine right if jurisdiction belongs to them by divine right; since they are correlatives, and one cannot be understood without the other. You have the same in Bellarmine, On the Roman Pontiff, book 4, chapter 24, etc.
1012. III. From Tradition. For 1) it is solemn with the Fathers to affirm that the keys were handed over to Peter alone, so that from him and through him they might be communicated to Bishops. Thus Tertullian, Scorpiace, chapter 10, writes: “If you still think heaven is closed, remember that the Lord left its keys here to Peter, and through him to the Church.” St. Leo the Great, sermon 4 on the anniversary of his assumption, says: “If the divine condescension wished anything to be common to the other princes with him [Peter], never except through him did it give whatever it did not deny to the others”; and a little before: “So that, although he [Peter] alone received many things, nothing passed to anyone without his participation.” The author of the work On Priestly Dignity, among the works of St. Ambrose, says: “All we priests receive those keys of the kingdom of heaven in blessed Peter the Apostle.” Stephen of Larissa, in the libellus to Pope Boniface II, says: “Because, when the Lord said a third time, ‘Lovest thou me? Feed my sheep,’ he handed over the mandate first to you, showing that through you afterward he bestowed it on all the holy churches throughout the whole world.” Gregory IV, Supreme Pontiff, in the letter to all Bishops, no. 1, affirms concerning the Roman Church: “It so imparted its vicariate to other churches that they were called into a part of solicitude, not into the plenitude of power.” The Fathers of the Council of Rheims, in the year 800, profess that they are acting “by the authority conferred on Bishops through blessed Peter, prince of the Apostles.” Recall the other testimonies of the Fathers already given in nos. 547 and 737. From this doctrine of the Fathers, therefore, St. Thomas rightly concludes expressly, Against the Gentiles, book 4, chapter 76: “To Peter alone he promised, ‘To thee I will give the keys,’ that it might be shown that the power of the keys was to be derived through him to others, for preserving the unity of the Church.” 2) Just as the Fathers everywhere derive the unity of the Church from one episcopate, as testimonies already given in various places show, so they also derive the unity of the episcopate from one origin. But in order to press this idea more closely, according to those things which are read in John 17: “I pray… that they may be one, as thou, Father, in me, and I in thee, that they also may be one in us,” etc.; and “all things which thou hast given me are from thee,” etc., they teach that the type of the unity of the Church is the unity of God in three Persons. Thus Pope Symmachus, letter 1, says: “After the pattern of the Trinity, whose power is one and undivided, the priesthood is one through diverse prelates.” Before Symmachus, however, Cyprian, to explain that “one episcopate diffused by the numerousness of many Bishops, and of which a part is held by each singly in solidum,” has recourse to the mystery of the Trinity: “The Lord says,” he says, “‘I and the Father are one.’ And again of the Father and the Son and the Holy Spirit it is written: ‘And these three are one.’” Hence also, in the letter to Magnus, 66, he adds: “And therefore the Lord, intimating to us unity coming in divine authority, lays it down and says: ‘I and the Father are one.’ Reducing his Church to this unity, he again says: and there will be one flock and one shepherd.” Now in divine things, one and the same essence, which is in the three Persons, is communicated to the Son by the Father, and to the Holy Spirit by the Father and Son as by one principle; and therefore the Father, the unoriginated principle, is as it were the first font from which the Son and the Holy Spirit proceed. Therefore it seems, according to the mind of the Fathers, that there is one principle from which episcopal jurisdiction proceeds into all who participate in it. But that principle ought to be visible, so that in the episcopate and in the government of the Church there may be visible unity. But no other visible principle can be conceived, from which power is derived into others, besides the supreme head of the Church, the Roman Pontiff, successor of St. Peter, who was the first of all to be instituted Bishop by Christ. Therefore it is necessary that the episcopate emanate from the Roman Pontiff, and that any Bishop whatever “derive his properties from him, as a shoot from a root, a river from a fountain, and a ray from the sun, and that nothing be alienated from the root,” as Tertullian speaks concerning the Trinity, Against Praxeas, chapter 8. 3) It is pleasing to confirm all these things by the testimony of Saint Cyprian, which we have exhibited more than once, and especially in no. 887, from which also canon Loquitur, chapter 24, question 1, is taken. Upon one, says the holy Doctor, Christ builds the Church, or to one he gives power; and nevertheless it is evident that there are many Bishops, furnished by reason of episcopal character with an equal partnership of honor and power. But whence is this kind of partnership? From the fact that that one does not reserve the whole power to himself alone, but he himself is the origin, the beginning of another power: Christ by his authority disposed an origin beginning from one. Wherefore Bishops stand toward the Roman Pontiff as rays toward the sun, streams toward the fountain. The former borrow their light from the sun; the latter their waters from the fountain. And for this reason, cut a stream off from the fountain, and once cut off it dries up; which would by no means follow if water came into the stream from somewhere other than the fountain. So, with due proportion, it happens to Bishops: what they have of authority over the people, they borrow from the Roman Pontiff. Cut off, separate a Bishop from him by excommunication, deposition, or suspension: once separated, he dries up; now he can do nothing. The contrary happens as to the power of order, which one deposed and degraded retains and exercises wickedly indeed, but nevertheless validly, against the will of the Pontiff, because he receives it immediately not from the Pontiff, but from Christ. But it is worthy of note that the praised canon hands these things down by reason of the unity of the Church, insofar as this derivation of episcopal jurisdiction proximately from the Roman Pontiff is judged necessary for inducing and preserving unity: “That he might make unity manifest.” The unity of the whole body is not separated, because there is one light which is diffused everywhere, that is, into many; but unity is preserved in the origin, that is, not only in dependence, but also in origin. Therefore take away this origin, or the derivation from this origin, derive episcopal power from somewhere else, and now there is not one Church, one mother copious in the successions of fruitfulness, but many and sterile ones.
1013. SCHOLION. All the difficulties are easily recalled to a few certain heads, and they are easily dissolved from the distinctions made in the exposition of the state of the question. Therefore it is enough to indicate them briefly. Hence: I. From Scripture they oppose the places in which 1) it is said, as in Acts 20, that the Holy Spirit placed Bishops to rule the Church of God; 2) or the Apostles are said to have been chosen immediately by Christ, as, for example, in John 6, Galatians 1, and according to that saying, “As the Father has sent me, I also send you,” etc. But Bishops, they say, are successors of the Apostles. It is answered: 1) Before we directly explain the objected testimonies, it is useful to observe that from a twofold head it can be shown that the whole argument lacks all force: a) from its very form. For just as Bishops are said to have been placed by God to rule the Church, so every power is said to be from God, kings to reign through God, and lawgivers to decree just things. But from these no one would rightly infer that every power is conferred immediately by God, that all kings reign immediately through God, that just things are decreed immediately by God. Therefore similarly it cannot rightly be inferred that individual Bishops receive jurisdiction immediately from God. b) From the things which would follow if the objected sentences had to be taken without any distinction, rigidly and as they sound; for they would prove more than the adversaries themselves like. For if the Holy Spirit “placed Bishops to rule the Church of God,” that is, immediately conferred power on them, then the Holy Spirit also immediately granted subjects; he also immediately defined territory. For certain and definite jurisdiction cannot exist without certain and definite subjects and territory. Likewise, if it was said to Bishops just as to the Apostles, “As the Father sent me, I also send you,” with no distinction made, then Bishops do not need to receive mission and canonical institution from anyone; therefore they will be able to run wherever they please and exercise their authority anywhere, just as the Apostles themselves. 2) Therefore it is clear that some distinction must necessarily be applied in the objected testimonies. Surely a) in order that Bishops may rightly be said to have been placed by the Holy Spirit to rule the Church of God, it is enough that God instituted the episcopal order and grade; that consecrated Bishops have an exigency and ordination toward ruling the Church of God. But it is not necessary that individual Bishops immediately receive the actual power of ruling from the Holy Spirit. b) Similarly Bishops cannot simply be called successors of the Apostles, as Roman Pontiffs are called successors of Peter. For while the Apostles were still living there existed Bishops whom they themselves constituted; Bishops do not obtain power equal with the Apostles; no see exists, except the Roman, elevated by divine right to episcopal dignity. What wonder, then, if Bishops differ from the Apostles also as to the immediate origin of their power? But these things were explained and demonstrated above, no. 880 ff.
1014. II. From the Fathers they object those places in which the Fathers teach that Bishops are constituted by divine ordination to rule the Church. Thus, for example, St. Ignatius Martyr, in the letter to the Ephesians, says that Bishops “have been defined through the boundaries of the earth according to the sentence of Jesus Christ.” St. Cyprian, letter 69, says that they “were set over the churches by divine ordination,” etc. I answer by distinguishing: these and other utterances of the Fathers are referred to the actual and particular jurisdiction of Bishops, as if it were immediately from God, I deny. They are referred to those respects of the immediate derivation of episcopal power from God which we explained in the thesis, I concede. Such expressions of the Fathers are taken from the utterances of the Scriptures and allude to the same; therefore they must be explained by the same criteria which we have already applied to explaining the places themselves of Scripture. Surely these sentences of the Fathers can be explained very well even if the communication of power made immediately by God to individual Bishops is set aside; and thus they must be explained, according to the testimonies brought by us in the proof of the thesis. Otherwise the Fathers would disagree with themselves.
1015. III. From reason they object: 1) The power of jurisdiction belongs to the essence of the Episcopate, nor would episcopal consecration be valid if jurisdiction were not conferred. 2) If Bishops received jurisdiction not from Christ but from a man, then the authority both of individual Bishops and of all taken together would be human; therefore ecumenical Councils themselves would become human congregations, destitute of every strength of divine authority. Thus Febronius from the Bishop of Segna in the Council of Trent. It is answered: 1) The power of jurisdiction belongs to the essence of the Episcopate as to exigency, I concede; as to actuality, I deny. But if they say that the consecration of a Bishop without assignment of a people is invalid, this we have already demonstrated to be false. Christian Lupus expressly showed the validity of these consecrations from canon 6 of the Council of Chalcedon, and from the consecration of Barses, Lazarus, and Eulogius, concerning which Sozomen speaks in Ecclesiastical History, book 6, chapter 34. Charlas, On the Liberties of the Gallican Church, book 8, chapter 9, fully satisfies the contrary arguments of Thomassin; finally Gerson himself, in the treatise On Ecclesiastical States, consideration 8, on the state of prelates, although he does not approve such ordinations, nevertheless declares them valid. 2) What the Roman Pontiff communicates to Bishops is not some authority drawing its origin from himself or from men; rather it is that very authority which Christ deposited in him when he constituted him as the one in whom there would be the plenitude of the font of all ecclesiastical power. Therefore, if the entity of jurisdiction is considered in itself, it is not a human power, but a divine one. Similarly, when the Roman Pontiff confers actual episcopal jurisdiction on some determinate subject, he confers the grade of power which Christ willed to exist in the Church. Therefore the grade of jurisdiction which a Bishop obtains is not human, but divine; the more so because episcopal character has an exigency for it, or an aptitude toward it. These things would indeed sufficiently show that the inference concerning the human authority of Councils themselves is tasteless; but besides, an ecumenical Council necessarily includes the Roman Pontiff himself. For then it verifies in itself that moral subject to which Christ conferred his gifts according to the promises made; and therefore its authority can in no way be reckoned human.