The church’s judges cannot judge suits over temporal goods; the forfeited stipend and the precarial grant

Again, a judge is generally ignorantignorare: to be ignorant of what the will of God is as regards the contending parties, [that is,] which should occupy the temporal goods claimed; now no ecclesiastical judge ought to judge for a party except for the one for which he knows that God decides, for otherwise he would be contrary to God in judging. Therefore no ecclesiastical judge would judge in the contentious court of the clergyclerus; clericus: the clergy; cleric, unless perhaps [to rule] that each party should cease from the suit, attending to the office assignedlimitare; limites: to assign (an office); limits by the Lord.¹ For those to whom Christ assigns not to carry purse or scrip, but, because of the preponderance of the spiritual office to which they hasten first, neither to wear shoes nor to salute any man by the way, nor to be occupied in any way whereby he would hinder the weightier office of a disciple of Christ (as is taught in Luke 10:4), are far removed from being occupied about contentions over temporal goodstemporalia: temporal goods.² For salutations 450by the way are too dangerous, and delay too much from the preaching of the gospel. Nor does the fictionficcio: fiction avail by which it is said that the temporal goods contended for are, for a disciple of Christ, necessary

instruments for his office; for let him carry out his office without looking back to temporal goods, and it is not compossiblecompossibilis: compossible that God should fail him in necessary temporal goods that are not a burden.³ Therefore the Apostle says in Hebrews, the last chapter: "Let your manners be without covetousness, contented with such things as you have. For he hath said: I will not leave thee: neither will I forsake thee. So that we may confidently say: The Lord is my helper: I will not fear what man shall do to me." Therefore blessed Gregory says in Homily 17: "The preacher ought to have such trust in God that, though he does not provide for the expenses of the present life, he yet knows most certainly that they will not fail him, lest, while his mind is busied with temporal things, he provide the less of eternal things for others."⁴

Again, by the very fact that someone is not a membermembrum: member of holy mothermater nostra: our mother churchecclesia: church, he is unworthy to have the patrimony of the Crucified by the titletitulus: title or rightius: right / law of a churchman; now any ecclesiastical judge at all, to whom there is no special revelation about this, is ignorant whether the said person contending is a member of holy mother church; therefore he is ignorant whether he is worthy to have the patrimony claimed.⁵ The assumptionassumptum: the assumption is clear from this, that the person of no other church, except the person of holy mother church, has by the title of that church any colourcolor (non est color): colour (a plausible ground) for claiming anything, since he is of the city and body of the devil, contrary to the first justice.⁶ And the major is clear from this, that no ecclesiastical judge, the said revelation withdrawn,

knows whether another is predestinatepredestinatus, -i: the predestinate (sg. "a predestinate [person]"), and consequently whether he is a member of holy mother church. Since, therefore, the foundation of the whole right of contention would be the incorporation by which the contender would be of holy mother church, which neither the contender knows how to show nor the judge⁷

451to discern by any human proof whatever, it seems that, because of the uncertainty of offending against God’s justice, all such contention should cease.

For if the foundation of the title were a lie, how would every judgement resting on that foundation not be unjust? For otherwise it would suffice for any layman or craftsman to have a pretension or appearance of right in order justly to claim and obtain any possession whatever, ecclesiastical or civil; from which the most absurd things would follow. Since, therefore, Antichrist’s party is not able to prove that [such a one] is a churchman, and the judge must altogether beware lest he differ from the divine judgement, since none but that is just without qualificationsimpliciter / secundum quid: without qualification / in a certain respect, it seems that such judgement ought altogether to cease;⁸ and those who strive to excuse the ecclesiastical courts generally from sins in such judgements are washing bricks, and treacherously fattening the enemies of justice with the oil of the sinner.⁹ For Christ with his apostles refused such secular pleas and judgements, and so do all curatescuratus: curate or clerics not blinded by possession and caesarean law; of whom Gregory speaks in Homily 17: "Many," he says, "when they take up the rights of rule, burn to tear their subjects; they display the terror of power, and harm those whom they ought to have profited; and because they have not the bowels of charitycaritas: charity, they desire to seem lordsdominus; dominari: lord; to exercise lordship / to lord it, and do not at all acknowledge themselves to be fathers; they change the place of humility into the elation of the exercise of lordshipdominacio: exercise of lordship; and if sometimes they flatter outwardly, they rage inwardly." Of whom the Truth says: "They come to you in the clothing of sheep, but inwardly they are ravening wolves."¹⁰ And perhaps, as in the time of St Gregory, so today there are some such in the church; and 452since the laws of the church, though lulled asleep, together with their doctors say this with one accord (as is clear in book 3 of the Decretals, chapter Fraternitatem), we cannot be excused otherwise for so great an occupation with temporal goods, so different from Christ and his apostles, except that we are their ministers and the proctorsprocurator; procuratrix: proctor of the poor, whose are the goods that we keep, not as secular lords; and yet we despise as poison keeping that account in deed, or hearing it spoken of in word, but in speech as in deed we aspire to secular lordshipdominium: lordship.¹¹ Again, it contributes to rejecting such human judgement that the judge for the most partut plurimum: for the most part is ignorant whether the claimant has meanwhile fallen from his right through omission of the spiritual ministry that he is to render in return to his subjects; now while that injustice stands, judgement would be given unjustly for such a one: therefore it would be rash to give judgement for such a one.¹² The minor is clear from this, that the spiritual ministry [owed] continually to creatures is more owed than any bodily debt; therefore, while they withhold what is more owed, they would unjustly exact what is less owed, and that on the condition that they repay what is more owed.¹³ Indeed it seems that they exceed in malice the wicked servant who, after great mercy had been shown him over a greater debt, cruelly exacted a lesser debt owed to him (as is clear in Matthew 18). For such a curate exacts from his subjects what is not owed to him, and that horribly, through censurescensura: censure; and however clerics may have contended about prelacies, in the end they exact temporal goods from widows, from subjects.¹⁴ Whence the Decretum also touches on this wrong, Causa 12, question 2, Sepe fit, where from a decree of the seventh council of Toledo it is had thus: "If any of the clerics has received a stipend from the goods of the church by the largesse of any bishop whatever, 453he must write a profession under the name of a precarial grant, lest by long retention he bring prejudice to the church; and whoever has received [it] for use must labour usefully, so that the things of divine law may not seem on any occasion to be neglected, and that the clerics may receive support from the church that they serve. But if any of them scorns to do this, he will be seen to deprive himself of his stipend."¹⁵

And the laws of nature, the laws of scripture and the laws of the church attest that an ecclesiastic who altogether omits to labour as pertains to his office ought not to receive a temporal stipend from subjects whom he does not profit but harms; for then lay people would have to hire apostates to harm them.¹⁶ But (as I have often touched on) the dispute is who should carry out such a just withdrawal; and it seems to me that it is no such great mystery but that those who conferred the stipend for ministering should withdraw it from the one who is idle; nor does excommunication or other censure harm the faithful in this matter (as is clear in Causa 11, question 3, Quomodo sacerdos).¹⁷ A precarial grant is taken forsumitur pro: is taken for, sometimes strictly, a gift or temporal stipend at a man’s prayers for a limited time, and sometimes broadly any gratuitous donation whatever, even a perpetual one as to the usufructusufructus: usufruct, the donor reserving the lordship with himself; and so in the primitive church the whole endowmentdotacio: endowment was reckoned a precarial grant, lest the almsmanelemosinarius: almsman should acquire by prescriptionprescripcio: prescription against the patronpatronus: patron; and where the office fails, prescription does not run, just as there is no prescription against God.¹⁸