their mutual subordination, in different respects. 125 DE LIB. ECCL CHAP. II. SECT. II. if [as respects the order of public discipline] even those who CASAUBON preside in religious matters, knowing that the empire was conferred upon you from on high, obey the laws, lest even in things of this world they should seem to oppose the determination of Heaven; I beseech you with what affection ought you to obey these spiritual governors, who are appointed to dispense the holy mysteries?" You see it is most manifestly the opinion of Gelasius, that where salvation is concerned, that is, in spiritual matters, the emperor ought to submit in all others, that the bishop must obey the command of the prince, whose power in the State I shall hereafter shew to be supreme. But here we meet with the patrons of that exemption of the clergy, which is now called the liberty of the Church, who cry out that it is a thing absurd, that they who administer spiritual things should be subject to those who manage things that are temporal. But these acute men do not understand what we proved in the beginning, that nothing is more agreeable to nature than that where there are different ends and divers powers, there should also be different commands; and that the same numerical person should both command and obey, namely in a different respect. Thus we often see those who have been the greatest and most honourable civil magistrates, when they go into the army, obey those who were far their inferiors. The life of physicians is for the most part private, and unacquainted with all jurisdiction; yet emperors themselves observe the orders of physicians. The same person therefore may be both inferior and superior: on which Themistius of old elegantly jested, when being from the profession of philosophy, which by its own right commands kings, promoted by the Emperor Constantius to a great post in the State, in a most elegant epigram, he thus speaks to himself, vûv ἀνάβηθι κάτω, καὶ γὰρ ἄνω κατέβης: “Now ascend downwards, because you have descended upwards." Like to which was that of St. Chrysostom in his sixty-sixth Homily on St. Matthew, concerning the sublime humility of Christ the 4 [δεῦρ ̓ ἀνάβηθι κάτω· νῦν γὰρ ἄνω κατέβης. Θεμιστίου εἰς ἑαυτόν. Αρ. Anthol. Græc., tom. ii. p.404. It is more probable that Themistius was promoted by Theodosius. See Petavius, Vita ap. e [S. Chrys. in S. Matt. Hom. lxvi. Op., tom. vii. p. 649, D.] NO. VI. 126 The offices of king and priest anciently united; APPENDIX. Lord of all: his words are these; 'H Kaтáßaσis avтǹ Táντων ἀνάβασις γέγονε: “ This very humiliation was the exaltation of all men." And many other like passages in the same father. Heb. 5. 6; 7. 1-17. III. The Christian Church and State acknowledges Christ only as King and Priest. The holy Scriptures own the priesthood of Christ alone to be of the order of Melchisedec, that is, joined with the Ps. 110. 4; kingly office. Indeed in the beginning, when kingdoms and dominions were instituted among men, the same persons were both kings and priests; and that custom remained among the Egyptians and other barbarous nations, and even among the Grecians themselves for many ages; as Plato' (in Politic. viii.), Aristotle (lib. iii. de Repub.), Clemens Alexandrinus (Strom. vii.), and several others assure us. Cicero also in his first book of Divination', affirms the same of the ancient Romans. This custom was afterwards changed, and instead of the first kings, who were also priests, there were instituted at Athens, Rome, and other places, sacerdotal kings', as it were only for the name, not much unlike those represented on the stage; for they had nothing of king except the name: Plato calls them λnpwTous ", "kings made by lots." And there was formerly a like observance among God's own people; for to say nothing of Melchisedec, so much taken notice of in both Testaments as king and priest, it is manifest that the ancient patriarchs, Noah, Abraham, Isaac, and Jacob, and indeed all the firstborn, as St. Jerome observes", were in some sort both kings and priests among their own people. But Synesius in his fifty-seventh Epistle says, it was God that changed that custom; and he there gives us this reason for the change. Because," says he°, "divine worship was administered after have been separated since the time of Christ. 127 DE LIB. ECCL CHAP. II. SECT. III. the manner of men, therefore God separated the office of CASAUBON the priest and the prince, which were before joined together in the same person." And the same most excellent writer says elegantlyr; ὅτι πολιτικὴν ἀρετὴν ἱερωσύνῃ συνάπτειν, τὸ κλώθειν ἐστὶ τὰ ἀσύγκλωστα, " that to join the political power with the priesthood, is to connect things into one, which are utterly inconsistent in their own nature." But the reasons for which God would have that distinction preserved in His Church are accurately explained by Pope Gelasius, whose words I think it necessary to write down. "These things," says he, "might be before the coming of Christ, that some persons in a figure, though as yet appointed for carnal employments, were at the same time both kings and priests, as the sacred history acquaints us holy Melchisedec was." And a little after", "But when once the true King and Priest was come, the emperor no longer took to himself the name of high-priest, nor did the high-priest claim the dignity of king. For although as members of Him, that is, of the true King and Priest, according to the participation of His nature, they may be said, in the sacred generation, to have taken both offices, that the regal and sacerdotal dignity might subsist together; yet Christ being mindful of human frailty, that He might act in conformity to the salvation of His people, by a glorious dispensation thus separated the duties of each power, dis P [Id. ibid., paulo supra.] [Fuerint hæc ante adventum Christi, ut quidam figuraliter, adhuc tamen in carnalibus actionibus constituti, pariter reges existerent et pariter sacerdotes; quod sanctum Melchisedech fuisse, sacra prodit historia. -S. Gelasii Tomus de anathematis vinculo. Concilia, tom. v. col. 357, E. See above, vol. ii. p. 350, y, z.] [Sed cum ad verum ventum est eundem Regem atque Pontificem, ultra sibi nec imperator pontificis nomen imposuit, nec pontifex regale fastigium vindicavit. Quamvis enim membra ipsius, id est, veri Regis atque Pontificis, secundum participationem naturæ magnifice utrumque in sacra generatione sumsisse dicantur, ut simul regale genus et sacerdotale subsistant; attamen Christus memor fragilitatis humanæ, quo suorum saluti con grueret, dispensatione magnifica tem- NO. VI. 128 Reasons for separating the civil and ecclesiastical powers. APPENDIX. tinguishing them by their proper actions and dignities, being desirous that His elect should be saved by a wholesome humility, and not again destroyed by human pride: and that Christian emperors should stand in need of priests for the attainment of eternal life, and priests depend upon the emperors in the administration of temporal things, that the spiritual action might be free from carnal encroachments, and therefore that no man who is God's soldier should entangle himself in the affairs of this life and on the other hand, that he who is entangled in secular affairs should not preside over such as are divine: and that by the balance of both orders it should be provided, that none should have both to puff him up; and that a competent profession should be peculiarly suited to the qualities of both actions." Thus Gelasius in his book de Anathematis Vinculo, from whence Pope Nicholas took it, and Gratian from him. You will here observe two very important causes, why no man can be king and priest in the Church of God: the first is "the balance of both orders." This judicious author calls modestia what the Greek writers of politics, when they treat of the nature of civil governments, style ισοῤῥοπία and ζυγοστάτησις", “ an equilibrium;” for they tell us that "a government cannot be firm and steady when the parts which constitute it in a geometrical proportion are not on all sides, by an equal weight, kept in their proper and lawful stations;" that otherwise it will necessarily come to pass, as Gelasius here says, that the part which is buoyed up with too much power will rise too high, and coin, as Polybius most aptly expresses it, that is, "go out of its place." Another reason is, lest that should happen which was just now mentioned from Synesius; but on the contrary, that sacred persons should take care of sacred things, and persons not consecrated of things not sacred. The archbishops of the provinces of Rheims and Rouen use this expression to Lewis their king"; "God coming in the flesh, The power of civil governors is directly from God. 129 DE LIB. ECCL. who alone could become King and Priest, and ascending into CASAUBON heaven, disposed of the government of His kingdom, that is, the Church, between the pontifical authority and the regal CHAP. II. power." IV. The prince and the priest, or the bishop, receive their power from Christ, both King and Priest; the one the civil, the other the sacerdotal power, but in different respects. Christ, God and man, is the author of both powers; nor does either the sacerdotal in things divine depend on the king, or the regal in things human on the bishop. The latter of which many falsely assert now, and endeavour to prove; for indeed Christian kings and princes have most of them among their very titles of honour long since begun to profess that they are what they are by the "grace of Godz." And the Emperor Justinian says right, (in the sixth Novela,) that "the priesthood and kingly office flow from the same fountain," namely, Christ, who, as He said in St. Peter to all bishops universally, "Feed My sheep;" so speaking to the Pharisees, He gave this command to all people in general, of what order soever, "Render to Cæsar the things that are Cæsar's, and to God the things that are God's." And the same Christ by His Apostle Paul proclaims, "Let every soul be subject to the higher powers; for there is no power but of God; the powers that be are ordained of God." Where that he speaks of the secular powers, not of the ecclesiastical, is so manifest from what follows, that it is senseless to doubt of it, and mere sophistry to interpret it otherwise. Therefore Gregory of Nazianzum, in a sermon delivered at that city, said, that the civil magistrate did Xplory ovvápχειν, Χριστῷ συνδιοικεῖν, “share the empire with Christ in a joint administration." And Symmachus, bishop of Rome, SECT. III. |