Chapter 2
Eight Questions on the Power of the Pope totle, Politics, Book v, chapter 9,° because, as he says there, "The dissensions of notables make the whole city take sides"; for when such people disagree, they break up and divide the whole community. Therefore such a community is not best ordered.
It remains, therefore, that no community is best ordered unless it is under one head upon whom the jurisdiction of all others depends. But the totality of mortals is a community of persons able ta have communion with one another, m which many are prone to discord and disputes; therefore it is not best ordered unless it is under one head upon whom all the jurisdiction of all others depends. But that one head cannot and should not be anyone but the highest pontiff: first, because the jurisdiction of the highest pontiff, at least in matters relating to the Christian faith and religion, depends on God alone; also because the supreme
' judge of all cannot be the emperor, or, consequently, anyone inferior to him, because the emperor may once again be, as he was once, an infidel and a pagan; but jurisdiction in spiritual matters in no way depends upon an infidel or pagan. Upon the highest pontiff alone, therefore, the jurisdiction of all others depends. And if the jurisdiction of all others depends on the highest pontiff, neither the emperor nor any other ruler should exercise any temporal jurisdiction unless it is entrusted to him by the highest pontiff.
Chapter 2 Another opinion is that neither the pope nor the Roman Church has power by Christ's institution regularly to entrust temporal jurisdictions to the emperor and other secular rulers, and that they can exercise them without him. But there are various modes of asserting this.
One is that neither the pope nor the Roman Church has this from Christ, but it is by Christ's institution that the pope (as also the Roman church) has absolutely no coercive power unless it is entrusted to him by the people or by the emperor or by someone else inferior to the emperor, and that in temporal matters the pope,
William of Ockham ; if he commits any crime, secular or spiritual, is subject to the emperor or the people, to be regularly restrained by due penalty; and that the emperor and other secular rulers have power to exercise temporal jurisdictions without their being entrusted to them by the pope.
Another mode of assertion is that by Christ's institution the pope has power so that spiritual causes, both criminal and other, belong to him, and in them he has coercive power; but he does not have power to intervene either regularly or occasionally in temporal matters, unless it is entrusted to him by the people or the emperor or by some other secular.
A third mode of assertion is that the pope does not by Christ's institution have power regularly, but only occasionally, to entrust temporal jurisdictions to the emperor and other rulers, and that on occasion they should not otherwise exercise them.
These modes of assertion therefore agree in this, that neither the pope nor the Roman Church has by Chmist's institution powcr regularly to entrust temporal jurisdictions to the emperor and other secular rulers, and they can exercise them without his commission.
For this it is possible to argue as follows. No one has power to entrust temporal jurisdiction to his lord. But the emperor is the lord of the highest pontiff, since the pope is the vassal of him — i.e. the emperor - to whom he owes tribute, "unless by the imperial kindness he has immunity," 23, g. 8, Eece quad. Pope Urban also seems to have confessed this, as we read in 23, q. 8, Tributum.
Speaking of giving tribute to Caesar for himself and the other clergy, he says, "What was appointed of old is to be paid from the external goods of the Church to the emperors, for the peace and quiet by which they should protece and defend us." From these words we gather that the pope should give the emperor tribute, which is "proof of subjection," Extra, De censibus, Omnis anima. Therefore the emperor is the lord of the highest pontiff; and thus the highest pontiffs have sometimes called the emperor their Jord, 11, q. 1, Sacerdotibus, dist. 63, Salonitanae and c. Nebis dominus, Further, property passes "with its burden," Extra, De pignoribus,
Ex litteris, therefore the pope, receiving cities and estates that owe tribute and service to the emperor, is by reason of such things subject to the emperor.