Unjust excommunication, and the three wonders of the laity

From which it seems that those who publicly excommunicate the king’s ministers without diligent examination of the offence, and especially if they are sworn to defend that very law, offend exceedingly. For in Genesis 18:20–21 the all-knowing [God], to give an example to judges how diligently they should examine a cause before they give judgment, says: "The cry," he says, "of the Sodomites is multiplied; I will go down and see whether they have fulfilled the cry in deed, or whether it be not so, that I may know."¹ Nor is the notoriety of the substance of the deed enough, but it must be notorious in its quality; for it is known that one who excommunicates for a lawful act wrongs the excommunicate, excommunicating himself. Nor is there colourcolor (non est color): colour (a plausible ground) for excommunicating the captainscapitaneus: captain of a lawful operation because, beyond their consent, authorization or occasion given, someone of the company did an undue deed; for so Christ would have to be excommunicated for the deed of [Is]cariot, and every leader of an army for any crime committed by a person of his army, and (what is more evident) every prelateprelatus: prelate 153for any crime of a subject of his flock; and if these things were true, the power of excommunicating subjects would be taken away from prelates, since it is not lawful for one excommunicated to excommunicate anyone; indeed, since as such he is a heretic, it is not lawful for him to administer any sacraments.² Nor does the excuse hold that the prelate does not excommunicate, but declares such men excommunicated by law; for such a declaration is a defamation to the least; and woe to him who so scandalizes his brother.³ And excommunication is unjust in three ways. First, when a priestsacerdos / presbiter: priest / presbyter out of rancour and zeal for vengeance excommunicates a subject, though guilty. Secondly, when a prelate excommunicates a subject rather for temporal goodstemporalia: temporal goods than for the love and correction of the subject, though he deserved excommunication in a good manner. And thirdly, when he indiscreetly excommunicates a subject for a lawful deed.⁴ And such an excommunicator seems to pollute holy churchecclesia: church more than one who bodily kills a man at the altar. For which it is to be noted that bodily pollution seems to be irrelevant to excommunication, except in so far as it savours of sin: both because pollution by spittle or other burdens of nature would be fouler than pollution by semen or blood, and also because that pollution is wiped out by a bodily washing.⁵ From these things it seems, since one who unjustly excommunicates his brother (as far as in him lies) kills the soul and the virtues, but the bodily homicide as such kills only the body, [that] it follows that, as the soul exceeds the body, so the killing perpetrated on the soul exceeds in malice the killing of the body. From which it seems, since sin cannot have its subject in a stone or a bodily building, that the place of itself does not pollute its inhabitants, but 154the reverse; since in 2 Maccabees 5:19 it is written: "The Lord did not choose the people for the place’s sake, but the place for the people’s sake."⁶ And it is clear that the pollution of a place would not reasonably hinder the worship of God except in so far as it struck horror from the sin; and since a greater sin would strike a greater horror, it follows that a graver sin committed in the sanctuary would rather draw [men] back from divine service. Nor do the laws of the church, rightly understood, mean anything else. For it is not lawful for a cleric of Christ to be blinded in the Pharisaic folly (of which Matthew 15), valuing a bodily washing, from greater horror of bodily filth, more than a spiritual washing from the filth of the soul; since, according to Christ’s definition, the things that come forth from the heart of the inner man, these are what preponderantly defile a man.⁷ And here the whole lay church wonders why the clergyclerus; clericus: the clergy; cleric excommunicate with such urgency and fervour for their bodily debt, or for a perceptiblesensibilis: perceptible privilege brought in by the traditions of men; but they do not so excommunicate clerics for the repaying of a spiritual debt, although the sin is infinitely graver and that debt as regards God more binding.⁸ It would also be more to the privilege and justification of the church that transgressorsprevaricator; prevaricancia: transgressor; transgression of God’s command be corrected by the censurescensura: censure of the church than that all human rites added on to the law of Christ be observed, however manifoldly, regularly and solemnly.⁹

Let us recall, indeed, that for the preponderance of the Pharisaic rite over God’s lawlex dei / lex Christi / lex evangelica: God's law / the law of Christ / the gospel law Jerusalem and Judea were destroyed (as is clear in Matthew 15 and Luke 19). Let us recall also how a privilege is a private law granted by a prince for the advantage of the privileged, 155and consequently it would be a great privilege for the clergy to be relieved, with the help of the temporal lordstemporales domini: temporal lords, of these ceremonies brought in by men, following Christ more nearly, purely, according to the first rules handed down by Christ. For in this we have a singular privilege above the laity.¹⁰ The secularsecclesia laycalis / secularis: the lay church / the secular church wonder besides how it is not lawful for them to communicate with one excommunicated by a priest for his own gain or secular eminence, and this under pain of the greater excommunication; but it is lawful to communicate with those more gravely excommunicated by God without the infliction of so great a penalty, as is clear of simoniacssimonia: simony, of a fornicating priest and his mistress. Indeed, although the cardinals, as heretics or schismatics, are divided from the head, yet we declare seculars most excommunicate if they withdraw from them their almselemosina: alms, which are the goods of the poor, although they, most unjustly and worse than robbers, occupy what is another’s.¹¹ And it is lawful (as they say at Westminster) to communicate with one excommunicated as regards God by reason of the unjust detention of a debt or the unjust killing of a neighbour, even maintaining him in his malice; but it is not lawful for the laity to communicate with those less excommunicated by them for the goods of the church. And many such ravings are feigned, by which the laity are deceived with lies; for although feigned falsehoods are sometimes of use by accident, deterring subjects from crime, yet God forbid that a Christian should use these fallaciesfallacia: fallacy for this end against the faith of scripture.¹² For it is known from the faithex fide: as faith teaches; with a genitive, from the faith of [scripture] of scripture that no one is excommunicated to his own harm unless by reason of his own offence he has been excommunicated as regards God. It is known again that no one incurs danger through bodily communication with one excommunicated unless he is a sharer in the crime with him. And it is known, thirdly, that it is infinitely more dangerous to communicate culpably with one excommunicated by God, who excommunicates only 156for mortal [sin], than to communicate merely bodily with one excommunicated only by man.¹³

Thirdly, the secular church wonders that the clergy press upon the secular armbrachium seculare: the secular arm that all their excommunicates who remain for forty days unabsolved by the prelates, [being those] whom they themselves have signified, be committed to secular prison until they have made satisfaction at their discretion, however sophistically they may have been bound. For their ingratitude does not merit such assistance, since a rule of divine law pronouncessentenciare: to pronounce that he who abuses the power granted to him is bound to lose the privilege bestowed. Therefore an abuse tending to the enervation of the kingdomregnum: kingdom, and putting a private good above the common good, deserves the taking away of the privilege so abused.¹⁴