The answers from the Lord’s prayer, the parable and the jubilee; the clergy as ravens

From these it is clear, thirdly (since toward everyone who is punished the one punishing must keep the love of charitycaritas: charity, and it is difficult or impossible for one on the roadviantes: those on the road charitably to pursue his brother by litigation, excommunication or killing in the bowels of charity), [that] the law of Christlex dei / lex Christi / lex evangelica: God's law / the law of Christ / the gospel law is most certain: "of him that taketh away thy goods, ask them not again", Luke 6:30 (which I have expounded at length elsewhere); "Bless them that persecute you: bless, and curse not", Romans 12:14; and "if one strike thee on thy right cheek, turn to him also the other", Matthew 5:39.¹ And he who does not know how to keep the rules of charity toward the enemy whom he torments may not turn aside from these counsels. Hence the Archdeacon, on C. 33 q. 5, Excommunicatorum, says that it is not lawful to kill anyone except out of love for the one killed outweighing the love of any temporal thing; much more would a pure theologian assert this.² Hence sloth in preaching that catholic truth has been the cause of the double killing of much people; may God forgive the bishops, who should have preached it fearlessly to the lords.³

From these the solution to the first objectioninstancia; objectum: objection, about the fifth petition of the Lord’s prayer, is clear; for according to Augustine, On the Lord’s Sermon on the Mount, book 2, chapter 10, "the petition is understood of the spiritual debt" (as I have expounded at length elsewhere): "That debt", he says, "is called sin is manifest. No one, therefore, is here pressed to forgive money to a debtor, but whatever another has sinned against him"; for then he would not receive the debt from one willing to pay it, nor seek it from a miser who is able [to pay], who, needy in spirit, inexcusably keeps back what is another’s.⁴ And then Augustine’s conclusion is: "If anyone acts in every way modestly and gently that it be 213restored to him by such a man, not so much aiming at the fruit of the money as to correct the man, for whom it is without doubt ruinous to keep it back when he has the means to repay, he will not only not sin but will greatly profit even the debtor; for otherwise, while he wishes to make another’s money his gain, he will suffer the loss of faith."⁵ Since, therefore, the pretended sense of this privilegeprivilegium / privilegiare / privilegiacio: privilege / to privilege / privileging excludes this almselemosina: alms, since it protects without distinction the man who is able and unwilling to return what is another’s as well as the man who is unable, it is manifest that it puts an obstacle to the rules of charity.⁶ By these the answer to the second is clear, since Christ’s saying is understood of the debt of guilt, whose satisfactory payment every Christian is bound humbly to remit to the supreme judge. For if it were understood of bodily debt, then all the possessionerpossessionati: the possessioners religiousreligiosi: the religious and the clerics would be bound, by the privilege of Christ by which they are the more bound to his counsels and precepts, to remit and not to reclaim every bodily debt owed them; and yet it is said that without mercy they exact such debt even from those unable [to pay], by secular exactions and ecclesiastical censurescensura: censure, more ardently than the secular lords.⁷ It is not, therefore, a privilege for them to shelter the enemies of the churchecclesia: church so that they do not satisfy them, although they are able; for (as I have said elsewhere) God cannot license a man to keep back a debt without his making satisfaction at least to God, because unless he makes satisfaction by restitution or by meritorious punishment, he is to be damned.⁸ Now God cannot license a man to sin. But this would be a privilege for such a church: that it should have from its patronspatronus: patron secular riches to minister to fugitives unable to help themselves, and (as far as its means allow) to make restitution for them, because this would tend on both sides to a work of mercy; but not the defence of any fugitive whatever, however excommunicated, 214however much the defence falls out to the fugitive’s loss of soul and to the detriment of those he has injured, and also to the disturbance of the kingdomregnum: kingdom and of the church.⁹

To the third the answer is that both the sabbath-keeping for the seventh year and the remission for the jubilee year were very reasonable for their time; but now, for the time of the law of gracelex gracie: the law of grace, when we keep the eighth, we must have a more fruitful love. For as the number seven, [the number] of virginity, has only unity as an aliquot part, while the eight has one, two and four, which make up seven, so the fathers of the old testament were more barren in charity than the fathers under the law of grace, who keep the seven in its entirety; which signifies the worship of the one God and, besides this, the union of Christ and the church, which is a unity added to the seven into a prior number, overflowing as regards its aliquot parts.¹⁰ And so we, in the time of the law of grace, ought to have a more widespread love and a larger continence than the fathers of the old testament had; for we have not only countrymencontribules: countrymen, but every single Christian as a full brother, since we are all born spiritually of the same father, Christ, and the same mother, the church.¹¹

And I ask the one who relies on this evidenceevidencia: evidence to note, first, how we priestssacerdos / presbiter: priest / presbyter of Christ ought to be more merciful and more religious than the priests of the old testament. Let him note, secondly, how it was not lawful for the Aaronite priests to acquire for themselves revenuesreditus: revenue(s) or secular lordshipdominium: lordship, but for their share of lordship they were to be content with the portion assignedlimitare; limites: to assign (an office); limits them by the Lord (as is clear from Ezekiel 44:28); and the other tribes, obtainingimpetrare: obtain (by request) possessions from their countrymen, were not to disinherit them in perpetuity, but in the jubilee year were to restore what had been obtained, however long before.¹² And let him note, thirdly, by setting beside [these] the 215manner of lifeconversacio: manner of life of our clergyclerus; clericus: the clergy; cleric, the religious too, whether there is a proportional correspondence on both sides. For it is said that the clergy, even the so-calledvocatus (vocata bona, vocata ecclesia): so-called religious, disinherit many of their brethren, even in perpetuity for themselves, calling this acquisitionperquisitum: acquisition Christ’s patrimony; although Christ hung naked on the cross wholly without propertyexproprietarii / exproprietarie: the propertyless / without property, the veil of the temple being rent, to signify to Jews and gentiles that the spiritual inheritance is to be sought without qualificationsimpliciter / secundum quid: without qualification / in a certain respect and earthly possession despised (as has been expounded in chapter [ ] of the sixth book).¹³

For then we should be fatlings of pure wheat, fed so as to nourish the children by example, as the holy fathers did, in whose stead we act, at least in name, to gather money, not to heal souls.¹⁴ But now we are perverted into faithless ravens, fed on carrion outside the ship of the church, and like most rapacious birds we mount on high, not to watch for the dangers and spiritual advantages of the church; but we have the sharpest eyes, the swiftest limbs and the most retentive beaks for preying. And this while blessed Gregory, the chief shepherd, says in Moralia 21, chapter 4, a word harsh and terrifying enough: "A swift consolation of the good," he says, "is the end of the wicked, considered. For when from their destruction they see the evil that they escape, they think well of whatever adversity they suffer in this life. Let the reprobate go now, then, and fulfil the desires of their delights: in the damnation of their end they will feel that, living ill, they loved death. But let the elect be afflicted with a passing stroke, so that the scourges may correct from wickedness those whom fatherly kindness keeps for the inheritance. For now the just man is scourged, 216and corrected by the stroke of discipline, because he is being prepared for the patrimony of the eternal inheritance. But the unjust man is let loose in his pleasures, and the more temporal goods are at hand for them, the more the eternal are denied. The calves," he says, "that are to be slaughtered are left in freer pastures."¹⁵ Not that it is impossible for a man truly rich, abounding in temporal things, to acquire the kingdom of heaven; but then God must act miraculously [to do] what with men is impossible, converting the rich man from the world, from affection for temporal things and from carnal pleasure, and [making him] in his last days end altogether in evangelical poverty (as is clear from Luke 14).¹⁶

Hence, because it is probable that few of the world’s rich men do so, it is therefore a topical argumentargumentum topicum: topical argument that many such die in the sin of final impenitence. Therefore Gregory says (in the place cited above): "Earthly goods are denied to the elect in this life, because to the sick, too, who have hope of living, by no means is everything they crave granted by the physician. But to the reprobate are given the goods they crave in this life, because to the sick who are despaired of, nothing that they desire is denied."¹⁷ Let us attend, then, to the doctrinedoctrina: doctrine of Christ in deed and word, and we shall see that he does not so endow his dearest sons; and then we, in giving alms, ought to take example from Christ. And it is clear that the said arguments, alleged on the score of a kite’s piety, do not inferconcludere: to infer nor justify but exclude the privileges mentioned above.¹⁸