THE SCHOLASTIC PERIOD
From the case of Honorius we may pass clean away to _the Scholastic
period_, when the great systematic theologians were gathering into
consolidated form the developments of the Middle Ages. Six hundred
years have elapsed since Honorius was condemned by the Episcopate. The
relation of Papal to Episcopal power has greatly changed. To contrast
the theology of the thirteenth century with that of the seventh is
to realise a different atmosphere. Many elements contributed to the
enormous increase of papal influence. The Mohammedan conquests and the
isolation of the Apostolic Churches of the East left the Roman spirit
to develop its governmental tendencies, unbalanced, unchecked by those
more primitive conceptions which it was the mission of the unchanging
East to retain. The calamitous severance between the East and West must
have had disastrous influence on the proportionate development of Papal
and Episcopal power.
The growth also of the temporal power of the Roman See falls within
this period. It is neither our purpose nor permitted by our limits
to dwell much on this aspect of papal claims. Yet a reference to the
subject is necessary, because the growth of temporal power contributed
to the general influences of the Papacy on the mediæval mind, and to no
inconsiderable confusion between the secular and spiritual spheres.
The learned work of Gosselin,[71] Superior of the Seminary of St
Sulpice in 1850, on the power of the Pope in the Middle Ages, shows how
naturally the temporal authority grew out of the circumstances of the
period.
[71] Translated by Kelly of Maynooth, 2 vs., 1853.
The temporal sovereignty of the Roman See arose simply out of the
necessities of the Roman People, who, being abandoned by the Empire,
intrusted their temporal interests to the papal guardianship. Neither
Charlemagne nor Pepin were the founders of the temporal sovereignty;
they were but its protectors and promoters. It was founded in the
legitimate consent of a helpless and forsaken people. But, being once
founded, loftier reasons were gradually created to justify and explain
it. Archbishop Fénelon’s opinion, which Gosselin quotes and accepts,
was that the deposition of princes by the Pope in the Middle Ages was
based in the belief that none but Catholics could rule over Catholic
nations. Consequently, a contract between Prince and People was
implied: their loyalty depending on his fidelity to Religion. Therefore
the Church neither made temporal rulers nor unmade them; but when
consulted by the people, the Pope decided cases of conscience arising
from a contract and an oath of fidelity. But this power to determine
when consulted, easily slid into an assertion and a claim of a loftier
character. The double effect of excommunication on the religious and
the temporal status of the victim naturally led to endless confusion:
it exalted the possessor of this two-fold power to a height which
earlier ages would have considered simply amazing. It was a principle
universally admitted in the time of Gregory VII. that excommunication
entailed the loss of all civil rights. Consequently, says Fleury, when
Gregory VII., adopting novel maxims, and carrying them to greater
lengths, openly asserted that, as Pope, he had the right to depose
all sovereigns who were rebellious to the Church, and grounded these
pretensions on the power of excommunication, his opponents had no
defence to make. Conceding the principle that excommunication involves
temporal results, Gregory was invincible. But the consequence was a
vast extension of the papal authority.
And of course this vastly extended authority affected the weight of
every papal claim. Gosselin’s study of the temporal power of the Papacy
is exceedingly interesting as an illustration of development. It shows
how easily developments may be defended on theological theories with
which those developments had really nothing whatever to do. It shows
how little we can trust ultimate developments merely on the ground of
their existence; as if prevalence and legitimacy were invariably one
and the same. It shows the insecurity of assuming that the theories by
which developments are supported are necessarily the causes by which
they were produced.
The Episcopate still retained in the year 1300 its dignity, as the
ultimate court of appeal when in Council assembled; but the Papacy
had made gigantic strides from the conditions of its tenure in the
Cyprianic age. The Vincentian test of Catholic doctrine by identity
with the past was being exchanged for submission to a living authority
in Rome. The ancient appeal to the Universal Church was being exchanged
for a theory which identified the Roman Communion with the Catholic
Church. A strong and dangerous tendency had arisen to substitute _à
priori_ conceptions of the appropriate for appeal to ancient facts.
Speculative theories of ecclesiastical principle were being made a
substitute, in Scripture reading, for real interpretation. Theories
were read into apostolic utterances from which they could by no
critical ingenuity be derived.
The greatest theologian of the Roman Church, St Thomas Aquinas, is an
embodiment of mediæval theories of papal claims. He died in 1274. The
treatise, _De Regimine Principum_, whether his or not, was universally
ascribed to him in former days, and possessed for many centuries
the weight of his name and authority. It represents, at any rate,
the prevailing mediæval view. By an obvious misuse of the metaphor
that the Pope is the Head of the Church, it draws the inference that
from the Head all understanding descends to the Body. In the Pope is
the plenitude or fulness of all grace; for he alone confers plenary
indulgence on all sinners, so that the words originally applied
to Christ are also applicable to him: “of his fulness have all we
received.” Certainly those who accepted habitually this view were being
prepared for the conclusion that the Church was the passive recipient
of the Pope’s infallible utterances.
And yet it by no means follows that St Thomas Aquinas drew the
infallibilist inferences, still less that he taught the Vatican
doctrine. It is acknowledged by a recent Roman theologian[72] that
while the theology of the Middle Ages on the primacy attained in him
its climax, yet he has not developed the doctrine systematically. In
point of fact, from an infallibilist standpoint, he still leaves much
to be desired. He taught that “we must not believe that the governor
of the Universal Church should wish to deceive anybody, specially in
those matters which the whole Church receives and approves.”[73] And he
argued from this in behalf of the validity of indulgences which the
Pope preached and caused to be preached. But this passage of Aquinas
obviously admits of more than one construction. It is general and
vague. It does not necessarily ascribe to the Pope any Infallibility at
all. It affirms that it would be wrong to credit the Pope with a desire
to deceive. It infers that indulgences possess validity because the
Pope proclaims them, but also because it is a matter which the whole
Church receives and approves. The infallibilist writer Schwane[74]
urges that we must not infer from the phrase “which the whole Church
receives” that the Pope’s Infallibility depends on the Church’s
consent. But it seems perfectly clear that to St Thomas’s mind the
reception and approval by the whole Church of the doctrine in question
was precisely that which gave stability to the papal utterance about
it. He does not write as if the Church’s consent was a necessary sequel
to a papal decree. In point of fact, if this were so, any reference
to the Church’s consent might seem superfluous, since it could add
nothing to the validity of the Pope’s instructions. But in Aquinas’s
argument for indulgences the elements are two: the Church’s reception
and approval of the doctrine, and the papal utterance. And these are
mutually supporting.
[72] Schwane, _Hist. Dogm._ v. p. 321.
[73] _In Sententiis_, 4 Disc. 20, a. 17.
[74] _Hist. Dogm._ v. p. 321.
Elsewhere Aquinas says:--
“If any one rejected a decision after it had been made by the
authority of Universal Church, he would be considered a heretic.
And that authority chiefly [principaliter] resides in the Supreme
Pontiff.”[75]
[75] _Summa_, 2, 2, Q. 11, a, 2, ad. 3.
But the exact force of his language is among his interpreters a matter
of dispute.
Bossuet held that the language of St Thomas on Papal Infallibility is
capable of a construction not widely different from that of the School
of Paris.[76] At any rate the idea of an Infallibility completely
independent of any endorsement by the consent of the Church is foreign
to his mind. If, however, in spite of this the Ultramontane claims him
still, then appeal must be made from St Thomas to the Fathers of an
earlier period.[77]
[76] Bausset, _Hist. de Bossuet_, ii. p. 399.
[77] Bossuet, xxi. p. 494.
The value of St Thomas’s theological inferences on the subject has been
challenged within the Roman Church on the ground that he relied upon
falsified authorities. Pope Urban IV., intending to assist Aquinas’s
studies, sent him a collection of assorted extracts from the Fathers,
calculated to refute the errors of the Gentile world. Aquinas utilised
this collection, confessedly, says Schwane,[78] without much critical
endeavour to sift the true character of the extracts. The importance
of the passages may be gathered from the fact already mentioned that
the theologian Melchior Cano, contemporary of the Council of Trent,
considered them to be the strongest evidence from the early Church
in behalf of Infallibility. Now it is admitted that this collection
of extracts is not genuine. “It appears,” says Schwane, himself an
Ultramontane, “that the compiler permitted himself to add here and
there explanations.” Other passages he “developed.” Schwane contends
that he has not absolutely falsified any; but admits that he ascribed
to St Cyril words which cannot be found in the writings preserved
to us. Schwane suggests that, possibly, for all that, they might be
genuine. Turmel is much less sanguine about this possibility. That
Aquinas utilised his authorities in all sincerity is indisputable.
It is also indisputable that he was deceived. This was urged very
forcibly by Janus and Gratry before the Vatican Decisions.
[78] _Hist. Dogm._ v. p. 333.
Some maintained that he would have arrived in any case at the same
conclusion. Others said that inferences from falsified premises
mistaken for the faith of saints awaken serious doubt as to their
validity. It was also urged, and probably with truth, that these
extracts were not the basis of his doctrine on the primacy. Still it
was felt that they contributed to advance ideas. It is an unwholesome
pedigree, especially when a Roman theologian calls these forged
authorities the strongest passages in the patristic evidences.