CS IV, Distinction 37: On the Church’s Power to Command the Secular Power
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Explanation of the Text
Text. “We should consider next whether we have the power to sin from God or ourselves,” etc.
Obj. 4. The spiritual power is higher than the secular power. Therefore, if we should obey the greater power more, a spiritual superior could always release his subjects from the obligation to obey the secular power. But this conclusion is false.
Reply Obj. 4. Both the spiritual power and the secular power derive from God’s power. And so the secular power is subject to the spiritual power insofar as God has subjected the former to the latter, namely, in matters pertaining to the salvation of souls. And so we should obey the spiritual power rather than the secular power in such matters. But in matters pertaining to civic welfare, we should obey the secular power rather than the spiritual power, as Mt. 22:21 says: “Render to Caesar the things that are Caesar’s.” A possible exception is when the secular power is joined to the spiritual power. Such is the case of the pope, who holds the supremacy of both powers, namely, the spiritual and the temporal, by the disposition of him who is priest and king according to the order of Melchizedek, of him who is the king of kings and the lord of lords, whose power is not taken away, and whose kingdom is eternally indestructible. Amen.
Explanation of the Text
Text. “God’s holy church . . . has no sword except the spiritual sword.” Comment. On the contrary, Bernard says to Pope Eugene III that the church has both swords.1 And we should say that the church has the spiritual sword only regarding what it can accomplish by itself, but the church in addition has the temporal sword regarding what it can command, since the temporal sword should be unsheathed at the church’s bidding, as Bernard says.
1Bernard of Clairvaux, On Contemplation IV, 3 (PL 182:775).