Endowment as alms under condition; to be freed from it is a privilege

But thirdly it is objected: since the privileges with which Christ endowed the churchecclesia: church are more perfect than the earthly privileges 187that succeeded them, as also the state of those living according to those privileges is more perfect than the modern state, and easier to keep, it seems that it was not lawful to depart from those privileges and that state; for it is lawful for no person, in choosing, to set the greater good behind [the lesser] for himself; the church, the bridesponsa / sponsus: bride / bridegroom of Christ, is a person, since she is a virgin, from chapter 6; therefore it is not lawful for her to abandon the privileges of Christ and the state of evangelical poverty.¹ It is confirmed, first, by the decree De consecratione, D. 5 [c. 24] Non mediocriter, where it is said that they sin gravely who choose the lesser good for themselves, setting the greater good behind. It is confirmed, secondly, from what is said in book 5, chapter [ ], where it is taught that one on the roadviantes: those on the road must always proceed by growing better. And thirdly it is confirmed from this, that the counsels of Christ are perpetual and not to be dispensed for his bride.²

Here it seems to me that one [thing] is inferredconcludere: to infer from the assumptionassumptum: the assumption necessarily, since every Christian ought to follow Christ in manners as far as suffices.³ Hence it seems to me that blessed Silvester can be said to have received the bodily almselemosina: alms of Caesar out of piety: to unburden him, to stir up his devotion, and to provide more tenderly for the faithful than the lay people would; and since this stands with evangelical poverty, it is clear that the clergyclerus; clericus: the clergy; cleric ought not on that account to rely on property or pomp, but, to its own weariness, to minister to the poor from the alms conferred, in the more abject parts [of the service].⁴ Hence such alms cannot be given as perpetual alms however the clergy may have lived, but under the condition, at least tacit, that the clergy be truly a follower of the apostles in life and work. And so I believe that it must count all ministering to the poor wearisome to itself, and count it joyful, while it gives its labour to contemplation 188and preaching, that faithful laymen take up that burden (as I have shown elsewhere by the example of Augustine and other saints).⁵ Hence, because human frailty is prone to leave its first charitycaritas: charity over alms, by growing proud, by feeding itself too sumptuously and by leaving the office of shepherd, therefore the apostles and the holier [members] of the church left such things. Hence it is a wonder if the conferring of a temporal thing is a privilege to the clergy; indeed, had the apostles asked it of Christ, it would have heard the answer given above: "You know not what you ask."⁶ Does not experience teach that such an endowmentdotacio: endowment subjects those endowed to worldly care, serviceservicium: service and exaction, and consequently draws them away from the love of Christ and from the priestly ministry?

How then would it not be a privilege to be freed from an incitement of this kind? Hence the decree, C. 11 q. 1 [c. 29], recites from the letter of blessed Peter to Clement, written in this form: "It behoves you indeed to live irreproachably and to strive with the utmost zeal to cast off all the occupations of this life, that you be not a surety, nor become an advocate in lawsuits, nor be found at all entangled in any other occupation by occasion of worldly business. For Christ does not wish to ordain you today a judge or an examiner of secular business, lest, choked by the present cares of men, you be unable to be free for the word of God. But these works, which we say do not at all befit you, let laymen who are free for them perform for one another; and let no one occupy you away from those studies through which salvation is given to men."⁷ How then is it lawful for us to depart from this apostolic rule, we to whom it has been left 189by God to convert the church of the gentiles to the perfect law of Christlex dei / lex Christi / lex evangelica: God's law / the law of Christ / the gospel law? For there is no room for authority or reason for dispensing; hence it is likely that the root of all the disturbance in the world is the clergy’s turning aside from the law of Christ to civil life and traditions. But Christ has always left, in one part of his church or another, some faithful who desert the world; and in them perhaps, who have cast primacies aside, stand the faith and the continuance of holy mother church.⁸ And it is clear that the so-called endowment of the clergy in temporal goodstemporalia: temporal goods is often not a privilege; and consequently, in taking these things from the clergy, it is not necessary that privileges be taken from it, but rather that, the hindrance being removed, the apostolic church be restored to the true primitive privileges; which I believe the temporal lordstemporales domini: temporal lords are bound in the case to do, under pain of most grievous damnation.⁹ Do we believe it a great privilege for a bishopepiscopus; dominus episcopus: bishop; the lord bishop or an abbot that they have gallows and pit, in which the condemned are regularly put to death, and so of the prison and of other worldly privileges or insignia? Indeed, it would not be a privilege for a prelateprelatus: prelate to have the power that whatever he touched should at once be turned into gold; for then the air that carries [breath], which must be breathed in, would perish, and food and covering fitted to the body would perish.¹⁰ Hence, in detestation of this love of money, it is read that the blessed Evangelist turned branches of the wood into gold and stones of the shore into gems. That saint could at once have been, in the world’s eyes, the richest and, according to worldly glory, the most illustrious, the most lordly and the most famous, had it not been repugnant to apostolic perfection and to the privilege granted by Christ; for otherwise he would have sinned gravely by omitting it.¹¹ For one having it in his power so 190easily to profit himself and others, glorifying the church more than Caesar, would have no excuse for negligent sloth; but it is known by most certain demonstration that every spiritual privilege surpasses any bodily privilege infinitely; and so it is not a privilege for the clergy to be thronged about by secular knighthoodmilicia; milites: knighthood; knights, to feed in gold, to wear a buckle, or to have shining ornaments according to worldly glory.¹² For all these things the heathens seek (as is clear, 1 Maccabees 10 and 11); but Christ and his disciples, although they could most easily have had all these things if they were not repugnant to their perfection, because they are repugnant, therefore utterly rejected all these things.¹³

But fourthly it is argued that it follows from what has been said that there is no bodily privilege; indeed, that it is not only lawful for secularsecclesia laycalis / secularis: the lay church / the secular church but they are bound, under pain of excommunication, to take goods away from the clerics to whom, thinking they did them good, they erred [in giving].¹⁴