The clergy live on alms and owe spiritual alms in return

Nor does it avail to pretend that that exercise of lordshipdominacio: exercise of lordship is not a privilegeprivilegium / privilegiare / privilegiacio: privilege / to privilege / privileging but common law, because it is a private law granted singly to his clergyclerus; clericus: the clergy; cleric long after the foundation of Christ’s churchecclesia: church. Therefore it is clear from the definitiondescripcio: definition of privilege that it is a notable privilege for it for this life.¹ For so the cleansing of the dead is a privilege of holy church, which many nevertheless do not desire. Now the minor of the argument is shown thus:² there was in Christ no falsehood, guile or duplicity, since according to the Apostle, 2 Corinthians 1:18, there was not in him "It is and It is not";³ now there would have been, other things being equal, if he had been crucified so that after taking clerical state his imitators should exercise lordshipdominus; dominari: lord; to exercise lordship / to lord it in secular fashion.⁴ Therefore he had not intended this in suffering; for he himself could not exercise secular lordship, but lived a poor life, supremely without propertyexproprietarii / exproprietarie: the propertyless / without property; and this he also taught his chief apostles, whom he willed to be patterns for the future church to imitate. For he told them that they should have an unwillingness to possess gold or silver,⁵ that they should not love the world nor worldly things, but that they should utterly leave all things 307that they possess and, taking up their cross, follow him (as is clear from Matthew 10, Luke 14 and often elsewhere in the gospel).

Since therefore in deed he moved his apostles to interpret these commands, by deed and by manner of lifeconversacio: manner of life, according to a life without property and of hardship, and never hinted civil lordship to them, he would have been an exceedingly great seducer if, these things being equal, he intended to add civil lordship to them for the state of the modern clergy.⁶ For in the chief patterns, in which he gave us the power and rule of living, he commanded and admonished the opposite by his example; nor is it credible that he would desert his clergy, keeping wholly silent about what was necessary for ruling their manner of life according to his good pleasure; for then he would have been altogether negligent and deceitful, so that we could reasonably turn all our failings back upon his negligence. Since this is wicked to say, let us believe from the faith of scriptureex fide: as faith teaches; with a genitive, from the faith of [scripture] and the testimony of the holy doctors that in the apostles he taught the whole kind of the clergy that followed to live purely without property on the bodily almselemosina: alms of the laity; and for the having of a mutual bond of charitycaritas: charity he bound his clergy no less to the repayment of spiritual alms,⁷ so that clerics are more necessary and more worthy in the church than the reverse, and secularsecclesia laycalis / secularis: the lay church / the secular church need clerics more than the reverse, as spiritual alms are more excellent than bodily. And so laymen must begmendicacio; mendicare; mendicitas: begging; to beg; beggary spiritual alms from clerics, to the repayment of which the clerics are the more bound, just as clerics must beg bodily alms from laymen, to the repayment of which the laymen are very greatly, but not so much, bound. Nor let us take ill the greatnessprioritas; majoritas: priority; greatness of such an obligation, because this redounds to the excellence of the clerics.

For Christ is more bound to his creature than the reverse, since by his eternal law and by titletitulus: title of prevenient gracegracia preveniens / comitans / concomitans / consumans: prevenient / accompanying / concomitant / consummating grace he made himself debtor to his faithful servants, not only to give them some temporal good, but to give them himself as an everlasting reward; but a blessed creature cannot be bound to the Lord to so great an extent; and so the priestsacerdos / presbiter: priest / presbyter is bound to repay spiritual alms to his subjects. Therefore (as I said in the preceding chapter)⁸ one who fails in the satisfaction of that debt is more gravely excommunicated by the Lord, and consequently falls more dangerously into heresy, so much so that if God, to suppose the impossible, failed in the debt to which he bound himself by graciously promising and by making merit profitable,⁹ he would be the supreme heretic. Nor let us take it ill that men, however noble as regards the world, humble themselves for Christ so far as to become almsmenelemosinarius: almsman of their poor subjects: both because Christ, most noble, received bodily alms to relieve his need, from secular men as well as from devout women; and also because from such humbling and fulfilment of ministry the greatness of the superiorprepositi: superiors grows as regards God. So therefore there is in this respect no distinction among friars, among possessionerspossessionati: the possessioners and among curatescuratus: curate living on tithesdecime; pars decima: tithes; the tenth part and offerings, but that we all ought to live without property on the alms of the laity, and we all ought to be proctorsprocurator; procuratrix: proctor, not civil possessors, of the goods of the poor, according to Christ’s command, Matthew 10;¹⁰ nor can conventual or solitary manner of life, or greater or lesser prelacy, take away this debt; but we are all bound to be faithful dispensers of the Lord’s treasure, spiritual or bodily, "according to the measure of the giving of Christ";¹¹ and those are superior as regards God who, like the apostles, forsaking the world the more, sow the word of God more effectively. Hence the modern rites added on 309to this greatest religion make it easier for some by helping them and harder for others by holding them back;¹² but in either case, whoever from greater charity has more defended and taught the law of the Lord will be more acceptable to him; for "there is no respect of persons with God",¹³ but whoever from greater charity has suffered more for him, lived more in hardshippenaliter: in hardship, and profited his bridesponsa / sponsus: bride / bridegroom more, will be more acceptable to him.

From these things the watchmanspeculator: watchman can weigh how perverted is the intention of the almsgiverselemosinans: almsgiver, and consequently the Christian religion. For whereas temporal goodstemporalia: temporal goods were given to the clergy not that they should exercise civil lordship, but that the church’s alms should be dispensed in the manner of a servant; not that they should be splendid as proprietors or live in secular fashion, but that, without respect of persons, the affection of flesh and blood set aside, the alms of the rich should be ministered to the more needy; not that the clergy, slothful in spiritual serviceservicium: service, should contend in secular fashion for primacy, but that, the more watchfully because of the greater benefice, it should attend the more humbly to how it may free itself and its subjects from guilt¹⁴ — but let him who considers the state of the world judge which of these sides is the stronger in these days. For the oil of the sinner has so prevailed that, where men would be called Christians from the oil of grace and humble imitation of the king of justice, now very many are Antichrists from the spreading of the oil of the king of pride;¹⁵ for the proof of which, "begin ye at" the sanctuary of Christ that is so in name only.¹⁶ Does not the antipope, the vicar of Lucifer,¹⁷ claim that he ought to lord it in secular fashion over all emperors, kings and princes, and that out of reverence for his order he ought everywhere to be served more splendidly after the manner of the world? And to this end he twists holy scripture and the sayings of the saints. And many of his disciples claim the same, ashamed to be called almsmen 310or servants of their subjects; but by living excessively in secular fashion they bring it about that they are named lords in turn. For in the primitive church they called themselves, as a rule, servants; but in the time of Augustine, on account of the exercise of lordship in destroying the vices of the insolent, they were called lords.¹⁸ But today they plainly strive, by omission and commission in their manner of life, to show that they claim to be secular lords; and since this is repugnant to God’s law and order, it is clear how great a monstrosity would be brought into the church from heresy about the faith of holy scripture. Therefore the blasphemers are to be corrected who blacken (as far as in them lies) the cause of Christ’s martyrdom, namely [by saying] that he died to acquire secular lordship for his clerics.

And so men displeasingingratus: displeasing (to God) [to God] pretend that Saint Thomas of Canterbury died to restore the secular lordship taken from the clergy of England and to confirm the civil lordship it had.¹⁹ For Christ, on the contrary, died for the salvation of the human race and to teach his disciples, and especially the clergy, to deny worldly desires (as the Apostle says to Titus, chapter 2).²⁰ And Saint Thomas died to rebuke kings and lords steadfastly, lest they cast the clergy headlong into secular office or hinder its being corrected by its bishopepiscopus; dominus episcopus: bishop; the lord bishop; and consequently to teach the bishops of our province not to be drawn back from this correction, and consequently from the defence of the privileges and rightius: right / law of the church, by servile fear of losing temporal goods.²¹ And would that the higher priests of our kingdomregnum: kingdom would learn, with understanding and affection, this twofold lesson.