Whether the foreknown hold the orders and offices of the church; the character of orders

Supposing, from the faith of scripturenecessitas supposicionis / ex supposicione: necessity of supposition / necessity on supposition as worked out by the holy doctors, that only the predestinatepredestinatus, -i: the predestinate (sg. "a predestinate [person]") are membersmembrum: member of holy mothermater nostra: our mother churchecclesia: church, it remains to ask further whether 442the foreknownprescitus, -i: the foreknown hold the orders and offices of that church.¹ And it seems from what has been said that they do not; for God, supremely wise, would not give power to one unqualifiedinhabilis: unqualified (to hold office). Now no such [man] has power of this kind if not through God; therefore no such [man] has power of this kind. And he is unqualified, because he is continually in mortal sin, necessarily damnable, as I suppose from what was said in the twenty-sixth chapter of book 5.² It is confirmed from the Decretum, Causa 11, question 3, where, from a saying of blessed Gregory, it is had thus: "He deprives himself of the power of binding and loosing who exercises it according to his own wishes and not according to the conduct of his subjects." If therefore for a lighter sin one having the power of order is deprived of it, much more for a graver sin is he who would receive power of this kind excluded from it; Christ would therefore be to blame if he set over his church a member of the devil so unqualified and harmful. Such a man therefore does not have the indelible charactercarecter, caracter (sensibilis): (perceptible) character, so as to be of the Christian army.³ Here it seems to me without doubt that no foreknown [man] is a part, or bears an office as being of holy mother church; yet within that church he has, to his own damnation and the church’s profit, certain offices of ministering, as is clear of Iscariot and his many vicars; and to that extent God chooses such men, giving them power for such an office.⁴ For in John 6:71 it is written: "Have not I chosen you twelve? And one of you is a devil."

On which Augustine, in Homily 25, asks how Christ chose a devil, and answers that this one was chosen through whom, unwilling and unknowing, some great good would be done. "This," he says, "is proper to God, contrary to the wicked: that, as the wicked use the good works of God 443badly, so conversely God uses well the bad works of the wicked."⁵ And setting out many examples, he concludesconcludere: to infer by way of conclusion thus: "All the good things of God, therefore (lest it be long to run through them one by one), the bad man uses badly." And hence I have often said that one who is in mortal [sin] continually abuses the goods of God, and consequently whatever he so does, he sins mortally. Conversely of evils: "The evils of the evil," says Augustine, "the good man uses well. And what is so good as God", of whom it is said in Mark 10:18, "None is good but God alone"? "The better he is, therefore, the better he uses our evils. What was worse than Judas among the apostles, to whom the purse was committed and the dispensing for the poor assigned? But because, ungrateful for so great a benefit and honour, he took money, he lost justice; dead, he betrayed life; whom he followed as a disciple, him he persecuted as an enemy. All this evil of Judas the Lord used well", since by his damnable betrayal he redeemed us.⁶ So therefore Judas had an office in the church, not of it, as dung and abscessesapostema: abscess have offices in the human body, not of it. "At present," says Augustine, "the body of Christ is mixed, like a threshing-floor; but God knows who are his, as you know what you thresh, since there is a mass lying hidden there, and the threshing does not consume what the winnowing is to purge."⁷ But the difficulty is whether such foreknown [men] have the character of order, whether they are priestssacerdos / presbiter: priest / presbyter, bishopsepiscopus; dominus episcopus: bishop; the lord bishop or prelatesprelatus: prelate. As to the first there is dissension among many about the quiddityquiditas: quiddity of the character. For some say that it is a quality of the second species of quality, like a natural capacity. But others say that it is not of itself in a category but by reduction, like other similar truths outside a category, so that the character is a passive deputation 444of a rational creature to serve God and the church according to the degree of the order of dignity.⁸ Nor do I contend about the quiddity of such a character, since I am certain that it is not a thing, like a king’s crown, or some sign imprinted that could exist of itself.⁹

Holding therefore the second way about the quiddity of the character, I say further that one [character] is necessarily delible, as the ecclesiastical character in the foreknown, because the office of dignity will not last in them beyond the day of judgement.¹⁰ But in the predestinate the character must be altogether indelible, since the dignity of following the Lamb, of mutually enlightening one’s fellow-blessed, and of receiving the life-giving fruit could not be blotted out in them; and to that extent they have the character of order or the baptismal character. And it is clear that the predestinate and the foreknown, according to the diversity of office, have the character equivocally. And correspondingly it is said that they have order, the episcopate or another ecclesiastical prelacy equivocally, because the foreknown are enrolled for such an office as a merely temporal one, not that they may merit blessedness, but that, by mitigating their punishment, they may by accident profit the church.¹¹ And so it is granted that Iscariot and his vicars were apostles, presbyterssacerdos / presbiter: priest / presbyter, bishops and prelates, having power in proportion to their office, and to that extent they are qualified before God. And that Judas was an apostle is clear from Matthew 10, where he is counted among the twelve whom Christ had chosen; and blessed Peter testifies that he "had obtained part of the ministry of the apostleship", and that of him it is written in Psalm 108:8: "May his days be few: and his bishopric let another take". And so, since each of these is the name of an office, it is clear that it does not followsequitur: it follows: "Judas is an apostle, bishop or priest; therefore he is a member of holy church, or of it."¹² 445It suffices that he be in it as chaff, ministering for a time, to be burned in the end. Whence we do not say that, to serve God in hell by suffering perpetually, a servant must have a character indelibly, unless perhaps "character" is used equivocally of the character of the beast which John mentions in Apocalypse 19:20, where it is said: "He seduced them who received the character of the beast and who adored his image." And of this character mention is made in Apocalypse 13 and 14.¹³ But we transfer "character" to the good, for the writing of predestination in the book of life (as Christ speaks in Luke 10:20, and Apocalypse 13:8). And sometimes "character" is taken for the aggregate of predestination and assignment through a sacramental sign; and so, according to the assignment of the sign of the character, the answer must vary.¹⁴ For the character of the predestinate and the character of the foreknown who are of the synagogue of Satan (as scripture speaks, Apocalypse 2) is indelible: for the first is the white counter or new name, "which no man knoweth but he that receiveth it" (as scripture speaks, Apocalypse 2:9); but the second is the name of final impenitence, or the accompanying character of the beast; and the character is temporal when it is an assignment to a temporal office. And in such masters’ terms the respondent must be fixed at the outset as to signification and quiddity. For "character" is commonly taken in a bad sense in scripture; but here we speak otherwise, of the character of the Lamb, as to the active dignity of ministry to which the predestinate are assigned, differently from the servants of the devil, in order or in baptism.¹⁵