Privilege is chiefly in spiritual gifts; exemptions and earthly privileges

But against what has been said it is argued thus. For it seems, first, that there is an equivocation in the name "privilegeprivilegium / privilegiare / privilegiacio: privilege / to privilege / privileging", since the community calls nothing a privilege except an excellence which one person has over another as regards the world.¹

To this the answer is that that assumptionassumptum: the assumption shows that those who speak so love earthly things and despise or hate heavenly ones; for the will draws the intellect to think more affectionately of, and to name, the thing in which it is more deeply fixed. In this sense it is said, John 3:31: "He that is of the earth, of the earth he speaketh." And hence the apostles and the earlier saints reckoned these earthly things "as dung", as is clear in their words and deeds, and as the Apostle expresses, Philippians 3.² Therefore, that the community speaks and attends in this way only accuses it of being turned away from God, and verifies the saying of the Evangelist, 1 John 5:19: "The whole world is seated in wickedness," and the saying of Christ, Matthew 12:34: "Out of the abundance of the heart the mouth speaketh." So we ought to attend to how one is to speak according to the rules of faith. Now since "privilege" sounds of the greatnessprioritas; majoritas: priority; greatness, prerogative or pre-eminence of a creature, it is manifest that the parts of the church, both of the church militantecclesia militans / triumphans / dormiens: the church militant / triumphant / sleeping and of the triumphant, are privileged by God.³ So the holy doctors commonly say that Christ and his mother had singular privileges above others, and so of the apostles and the other blessed: each has, unequally, 183his own gift, as the Apostle showed, 1 Corinthians 12:4, saying that "there are diversities of graces." Let the faithful man therefore note the meaning of privilege, and he will see that it lies principally in spiritual gifts conferred by God as proper [to each];⁴ hence, if the argument made had force, it would say consequently that there is no law, possession or lordshipdominium: lordship except of temporal goodstemporalia: temporal goods, because the community speaks principally or exclusively of those, so much so that as soon as "goods" is heard they apply it to the riches of the world; and when a bishopric, a rectory or another name of prelacy is spoken of, they at once apply it to the temporal endowment, setting aside consideration of the office; and so of other things.⁵ But it is not so in the primitive churchecclesia: church or in holy scripture; so, setting the vicious customconsuetudo: custom behind us, we ought to speak in conformity with the holy doctors. For I have not found a thing called by the name "privilege" in holy scripture; but the doctors and the usage of the church commonly call it so, as is clear of the holy Evangelist, of St Peter and of the Roman church. And it is clear that, relying purely on the common way of speaking, the whole company of Christ would not be privileged in any degree, unless perhaps it is feigned that Iscariot was privileged in this, that God permitted him to carry the purse; and so privilege would have been brought into the church with pride, out of strife about greatness and secular obedience, which Christ strove to destroy in his own.⁶ It is not to be granted, therefore, that the temporal lordtemporales domini: temporal lords alone privileged, built or endowed the church, since the church sings that Christ loved John the apostle with the privilege of love; and the same holds of any singular gift of God, as is clear from the definitiondescripcio: definition of privilege.⁷ Hence one could not show more expressly that one will justly lose privilege through abuse than by denying the privileges of Christ or by preferring earthly privileges.

184Secondly, it seems that it is not lawful for the clergyclerus; clericus: the clergy; cleric to insist on earthly privileges, of which kind seem to be exemptionsexempcio: exemption, prerogatives, properties and secular exercises of lordshipdominacio: exercise of lordship, since they seem to be repugnant to the privileges of Christ, which it is not lawful to lose. To this the answer is, first, as to exemptions, that although they seem to be bad in kind, yet it happens that a subject uses them well, as also other acts bad in kind; for it is against the rules of the church triumphant that anyone be exempt so that a superior may not enlighten an inferior; and so it is against the rules of nature that a subject be exempt, so as not to be led or corrected by a superior in case he goes astray or offends.⁸ Hence it seems the same thing to obtain the opposite and, like Lucifer, to seek licence to sin; for the devils are exempt from such rule and (as I believe) from privileging, since no excellence which they have turns to a useful good for the damned; but on the contrary the blessed are supremely privileged, so much so that no privilege of the wayvia / patria: the way / the homeland avails a man except in so far as it prepares him to seek the privilege of the kingdom.⁹ Since, nevertheless, it happens that the superiorsprepositi: superiors of the church are blinder than those they are to lead, or in visitation rely on pomp or gain more than on correction, therefore a temporary exemption from such men is expedient by accident. But such [an exemption] ought not to be perpetual, unless it is known that the superior will perpetually be slothful, ignorant or avaricious; because otherwise (as Lincoln relates) this ill consequenceinconveniencia; inconveniens: CONTEXTUAL: an absurdity (in argument) · troubles, ill consequences (in affairs) would follow: that a pastor, however good, seeing the exempt [party] strangling the sheep for which he will render account on the day of judgement, will not dare, because of the exemption of the popepapa: pope, to harry or frighten off the wolves that bite his sheep so wickedly.¹⁰ And this cannot be called a privilege, but a devilish net. Hence it would be a privilege to be exempted from the jurisdiction of such a pope, if there should be one who, 185for money and for a particular case, in the lesser part also on account of a defect of his own that befalls, should establish such an exemption as a perpetual law.¹¹ For the devil and his membersmembrum: member, by seducing the people from the observance of the law of Christlex dei / lex Christi / lex evangelica: God's law / the law of Christ / the gospel law, seem to bring in an exemption of this kind, so that the inferior may not enjoy the aidsuffragium sensus: aid of sense of his superior, as Augustine hints in the second book De ordine.¹² And as to the other insignia acquired, of carrying mitre, cross and staff, and of ordaining clerics more widely or more narrowly, with other so-called privileges like these: since for the most partut plurimum: for the most part they savour of pomp and not of profit, they are often not privileges but a devilish dragnetsagena: dragnet, in which the fish swimming in the sea of this world are caught; and so it seems one must say of earthly privileges secularly obtained.¹³ Hence Augustine in the book De agone christiano, chapter 4: "The fish rejoices when, not seeing the hook, it devours the bait; but when the fisherman has caught it, first its entrails are wrenched, then from all its gladness it is drawn to its destruction by the very bait in which it rejoiced." So are all who think themselves blessed from temporal goods. Hence the taking away of temporal goods does the good no harm at all, since they do not love them.¹⁴ Hence among all the wilescautela: wile of the devil, worldly pre-eminence is the devil’s first dragnet; for with it he first tempted Christ. For in Matthew 4:8–9 it is said that "he shewed him all the kingdoms of the world, saying: 'All these will I give thee, if falling down thou wilt adore me.'" And truly, for a lesser privilege we often adore his members, although we profess in baptism that we renounce Satan and all his pomps.¹⁵ Such a final preponderance of secular privilege is therefore an infallible sign of a member of the devil; and so 186it seems to me that those who contend proudly about such privileges, unless they return humbly to unity, subject to one another, are not of holy mother church, as the decree of Pope Pelagius says, C. 24 q. 1 [c. 33] Pudenda: "The church," he says, "is one, as is clear in the Canticles, and it is that which is spread throughout the world by formed faithfides formata / informis: formed faith / unformed faith; which let us prove by the testimony of blessed Augustine. Hear what the most illustrious doctor says of the church in a certain work of his. For he says that, since that in which there is schism can in no way rightly be called a church, it remains, since it cannot be that there is no church, that it is that which is established in the root of the apostolic see through the successions of bishopsepiscopus; dominus episcopus: bishop; the lord bishop, [and which] the malice of no men [can extinguish], even if [that malice] is notorious and cannot be shut out."¹⁶

From this one must note, first, how reverently this pope allegesallegare / allegacio: allege / allegation Augustine: that those divided from Christ by envy, which thrusts out charitycaritas: charity, are not members of the church. It is clear, secondly, that if the Roman college is so divided by schism, then it is not headcaput: head or part of the church, because apostolic union is lacking. Hence he says that if such a bishop consecrates another, it ought to be called not a consecration but an execration.¹⁷ And thirdly it can be noted how, as pride and greed for primacy grow, a synagogue of Satan can be made out of the place of the church, since no one can be vicar of Christ or of Peter unless he follows them in manners, as is clear in Distinction 40, Non est facile.¹⁸ And it is clear that it is lawful for the clergy to insist on earthly privileges in so far as they promote [men] to eternal things; which must be weighed by the example of the saints and by the faith of scripture, in no way losing, for any good of the world, the privileges which Christ gave.¹⁹