by Matthew Gaetano
In a previous post, I discussed Henri de Lubac’s criticism of the position of Bellarmine and Suarez on the pope’s power to depose Christian kings. Though he believed that such a position was already obsolete in the context of his own day, he called this position–quite widespread from the Middle Ages through the seventeenth century–harmful to the Church and scandalous. A worry, however, might be that de Lubac was merely accommodating the liberal polities of his day. A similar charge might be made of the Jesuit theologian, John Courtney Murray (1904-1967), who articulated Catholic conceptions of Church and State in the context of American religious pluralism. Both of these theologians–whatever the differences between them–drew not only on the resources of modern political thought but also on the work of a Dominican writing in the early fourteenth century, John of Paris. Murray employed John of Paris in a rather sustained way here. Henri de Lubac mentions John of Paris at several key points, noting that “the theologians of the Curia were opposed by other theologians … who, without going as far as the royal jurists, wanted to assure the political independence of their respective nations. It was Jean of Paris in the fourteenth century and Gerson in the fifteenth who mixed in with their Gallican opinions the outline of the theory that was later expressed … through the words ‘directive power'” (225). One sees John of Paris emerging at other important points in Henri de Lubac’s account (207, 286, etc.) I thought that presenting a few passages from John of Paris’s On Royal and Papal Power might illustrate (1) that these twentieth-century theologians are not merely reacting to the political shifts of the modern world and (2) that John of Paris might still be a fruitful resource for political theologians today.
John of Paris or Jean Quidort (d. 1306) was a Dominican friar at the University of Paris and a defender of Thomas Aquinas after the Condemnation of 1277. Though it is perhaps worth noting that John of Paris’s Eucharistic teachings were censured, his views on Church and State have been taken seriously by theologians since the century of his death. Bellarmine cites him in his own critique of the hierocratic position that the pope is lord of the world. The O’Donovans call On Royal and Papal Power the “most learned and able theoretical response to Rome from the French camp” during the controversy between Boniface VIII and Philip the Fair.
1) John of Paris argues that both spiritual and secular rulers ultimately derive their authority from God. But he is quite clear that they have distinct origins and ends.
John of Paris argues that government “has its roots in natural law and the law of nations.” Quidort agrees with Aristotle that man is “by nature created a political and civil animal” (77). But human beings are not “merely ordered to such good as nature can bestow on him, which is to live virtuously, but … he is also ultimately ordered to a supernatural end, which is life eternal” (80). John of Paris makes the interesting suggestion that earthly government would have directive authority over this end “if it were possible to achieve this end simply through human nature” (80). But this is not the case. Only a divine king with divine power can direct human beings to this supernatural end, which is ultimately God Himself. Christ as king could “clear obstacles from the path to the desired end and … bestow the remedies and necessary helps for its achievement” (80-81). Christ’s work on the cross made him a priest, offering himself as a sacrifice to God the Father. The general benefit of Christ’s sacrifice and priesthood is applied to individual human beings through the sacraments. “Since Christ intended to withdraw his physical presence from his Church,” Quidort continues, “it was necessary for him to institute ministers who would administer these sacraments to men. These ministers are called sacerdotes, … [who] are the leaders in the sacred order” (82).
While he embraces the old teaching of Pope Gelasius (d. 496) that the sacerdotal or priestly power “excels” the royal power “in dignity” because of the greatness of man’s supernatural end, he insists (on the basis of the foregoing) that the secular power is not derived from the spiritual. Indeed, “in temporal matters the temporal power is greater than the spiritual, and in these matters is in no way subject to the spiritual since it is not derived from it” (93).
2) In the beginning of the book, John of Paris framed his view between two errors. On the one side we have the Waldensians and others who argue that the pope and other bishops should have no temporal wealth at all. The Waldensians saw Constantine as the beginning of the end for the “true church” because the Church authorities received some temporal power and wealth in that period. On the other extreme is the position that he calls “the position of Herod,” who was threatened by Christ’s kingship, which he misinterpreted as simply another form of earthly rule. John of Paris argues that human kings should not be threatened by the kingship of Christ because Christ’s kingdom is not of this world; it was not “of the human kind” (71). It is noteworthy that, for John of Paris, any good political theology should not threaten secular governments which are maintaining their responsibilities under the natural law.
3) John of Paris is able to reject the hierocratic position and other theocratic perspectives by arguing that “the priesthood is nothing other than a spiritual power conferred on ministers of the Church to dispense to the faithful those grace-bearing sacraments by which we are conducted towards eternal life” (143). Obviously, this gives ministers of the Church great dignity, but it also implies that there are limits (note the use of the words “nothing other”).
4) John of Paris avoids turning an argument against universal papal lordship into an argument for imperial or royal absolutism, as one often sees in the history of this debate. One way that he accomplishes this is with a strong case for private property.
Lay property is not granted to the community as a whole as is ecclesiastical property, but is acquired by individual people through their own skill, labour and diligence, and individuals, as individuals, have right and power over it and valid lordship; each person may order his own and dispose, administer, hold or alienate it as he wishes so long as he causes no injury to anyone else, since he is lord. Such properties therefore are not mutually interordered or interconnected nor do they have any common head who might dispose or an administer them, since each person may arrange for his own what he will. Thus neither prince nor pope has lordship or administration of such properties. (103)
5) John of Paris, however, believes that the freedom of individuals and families over their property and the independent origin of secular government does not mean that Christian priests have no juridical power. He describes the judicial power as the “power to coerce in the external forum by which sins are corrected through fear of punishment, especially sins in scandal of the Church” (145). “The full power of priestly rule over the community of the faithful” is found in three acts: illumination through doctrine, purification through correction, perfection through the sacraments (146).
6) So, there is the power to judge, correct, and even punish, but the spiritual power cannot compel in the way that the secular power does:
[There is the power which is] the key in the sphere of conscience. This too is wholly spiritual: Chrysostom commenting on John 22, ‘Receive the Holy Spirit, etc.’ says, ‘The spiritual power was granted to them only for the forgiveness of sins.’ The pope gets no authority in temporal affairs from this power except when, in the sphere of conscience, he persuades the penitent to make satisfaction, imposing this as he imposes other penances, even corporal ones. Yet no one becomes hereby subject to him in any unqualified sense, but under conditions, namely if he sins and wishes to do penance. If a person should not wish to do penance, then the pope cannot compel him because of the power of the keys as a secular prince can compel a culprit by fine or other correction imposed and enforced even on one unwilling to accept punishment. (152)
A priest can impose a penance that involves a bodily act, but this is a matter for penitents who have willingly come to the sacrament seeking reconciliation. The coercion of the unwilling that we see in the secular order does not pertain to priests.
7) At this point, John of Paris brings up the “indirect power in temporal affairs” (152), but his view is different from Bellarmine’s. John of Paris connects the “indirect power” to the “authority to teach, in that priests persuade men to penances and restitution of the money of others and disposal of temporal goods as the order of charity demands” (152).
8) The limits of the bearing of spiritual punishments on “temporal affairs” is directly applicable to the political sphere. An ecclesiastical judge “cannot, for reason of sin, impose a corporal or money penalty as can a secular judge, except on the condition that the guilty party is willing to accept it” (156). If the penitent refuses, then the spiritual authority might resort to excommunication, “which is the very most he can inflict; he can impose nothing beyond that” (156). In the case of a ruler who is an “incorrigible heretic,” a pope will threaten excommunication. But if the king “despises ecclesiastical sanctions,” the pope “might take such action with the people as would lead them to deprive him of office and to depose him” (156). John of Paris believes that the pope can excommunicate those who “continued to obey him as their ruler.” If the people obey, then the king would be deposed. But John of Paris wants to make clear that the people were the ones who actually depose him, “with the pope acting ‘incidentally'” (156).
9) John of Paris seems to use the idea that ecclesiastical punishments are spiritual to raise serious questions about the practice of burning heretics at the stake. The Dominican theologian uses Scripture to argue that Paul “does not go beyond excommunication even for serious faults” (161). He quotes a couple of passages but concludes with Titus 3:11: “A man that is a heretic after the first and second admonition, avoid: knowing that he that is such a one is subverted.” John of Paris comments on the passage as follows: “Note that he does not say ‘Burn’ but ‘Avoid'” (161). Ecclesiastical punishments flow from a power that is “a spiritual one”; “princes are not subject to it, except in the way already explained. The power granted to Peter in the words ‘Feed my sheep’ is to be understood in the same sense” (161). (Later in the text, he does deal with Augustine’s view that the Church can now lawfully compel heretics to return to the Church. The Church did not do so in the beginning “because of the limitations of its power, for then princes and kings were not so well-disposed to the Church as they are now when, through the power of princes, heretics can be so compelled” (204). It would be interesting to know more about John of Paris’s view of the punishment of heretics by the secular authority.)
10) John of Paris shows a remarkable historical sensibility when dealing with the instances where popes appear to have deposed kings from their own authority and not merely “incidentally.” When the Merovingian king, Childeric, was “deposed” in 751, which allowed for the rise of the Carolingians, this was, John of Paris argues, merely an instance of giving “consent to those who were doing the deposing” (166). Indeed, John of Paris goes further and suggests that “the barons could have made [Pepin] king for some reasonable cause without papal assent” and that “no pope has ever deposed a king of France, except … [by consenting] to what was being done by those who were performing the actual deposition” (167). In reply to Pope Nicholas’s statement that Christ has conferred on Peter the rights of both heavenly and earthly empires, John of Paris does offer a charitable gloss but also says, “When it is the power of the pope in temporal affairs that is at issue, evidence for the pope from an imperial source carries weight, but evidence for the pope from a papal sources does not carry much weight, unless what the pope says is supported by the authority of Scripture. What he says on his own behalf should not be accepted” (170).
What about the deposition of emperors? John of Paris warns that “legal principles should not be deduced from unique events which occurred in particular circumstances” (169-70). Most of the arguments about deposing emperors are “about de facto situations, being concerned with what has in fact been done rather than with what ought to have been done” (172). John of Paris also rejects the idea that the pope transferred the Empire from the Greeks to the Franks in 800. “The people,” he says, “has the right to subject itself to whom it wills without any previous decision of anyone else. This act was accomplished for a necessary and reasonable cause, namely defence of the people against infidels and pagans, when there seemed no possibility of any other defender presenting himself. It was quite legal for the people to do this, for it is the people which makes a king and the army which makes the emperor. Are more arguments needed?” (173).
11) But what if the pope is commanding the people to act against their king in an unjust circumstance? John of Paris argues that popes cannot depose kings by their own authority, but he does allow for what Henri de Lubac calls the directive power over his subjects. If the pope is using this power inappropriately, the Christian king may resist. As John of Paris puts it, “The prince is permitted to withstand the abuse of the spiritual sword as best he may, even by the use of the material sword, especially when abuse of the spiritual sword conduces to the mischief of the community whose care rests on the king. Otherwise he would be ‘bearing the sword in vain'” (212).
John of Paris’s attempt to synthesize the Aristotelian view of man as naturally a political and social animal with the proper freedom of the Church for fulfilling its mission of guiding souls to the Beatific Vision should not be ignored. In rejecting the hierocratic position that makes the pope the lord of the world, he does not fall into imperial or royal absolutism as many did before and after him. Indeed, he offers a robust account of the individual’s right over his private property (a claim that makes him free of ecclesiastical and royal interference except in the case of emergencies), and he argues that the people make the king and that the people (or barons) can depose a king under certain circumstances. His rejection of hierocracy also does not lead to a total “spiritualization” of the Church. The Church is still a kingdom with power, even coercive powers. These punishments, though, are spiritual, not going beyond excommunication. The power of the Church to restrain heretical kings depends on its power to persuade the people to resist the king’s destructive actions against the Church. And this is not a temporal authority for the pope being slipped through the backdoor in part because the king can legitimately resist the pope for the common good of his kingdom.
Of course, there is always more to be said. But I hope that this post might help to bring John of Paris into our discussion about the “two powers.” At the very least, it should be helpful for showing that key elements in the twentieth-century critique of Bellarmine and Suarez have roots in the High Middle Ages.