Book Three: On the Interpretation of the Word of God

Chapter Nine: the Same is Proved by Reason

It is proved finally by reason. God was not unaware that many difficulties would arise in the Church about the faith, so he ought to have provided some judge for the Church. But this judge cannot be Scripture, nor a private spirit that gives revelations, nor a secular prince, therefore an Ecclesiastical prince, either alone or at least with the counsel and consent of his co-­‐bishops, for nothing else is or can be thought up to which this judgment would seem able to pertain. And first it is plain that Scripture is not the judge, because it admits of various senses, nor can it say which sense is true. Besides, in every well established and ordered republic, law and judge are distinct things. For the law teaches what is to be done and the judge interprets the law and directs men according to it. Next there is a question about the interpretation of Scripture; but it cannot interpret itself.

But, they say, from bringing together various places anyone who is skilled in the languages can easily set up the true sense. But what if there are many skilled in the languages and they compare the places with each other, and yet can still not agree, who then will be the judge? Certainly many of the Lutherans, many again of the Zwinglians were skilled in the languages and with great labor compared the Scriptures with themselves, and yet in the explanation of this sentence, “This is my body,” they were never able to agree. But the Zwinglians, says the Lutheran, are blinded, so it is no wonder if the very clear words of the Lord are not understood.

But what if the Zwinglians say the Lutherans are blinded, who will be the judge?

But that a spirit giving revelation to each private man cannot be the judge is easily shown, for the spirit that is in you is not seen or heard by me; but a judge should be seen and heard by both of the litigating parties; for such they are who contend, namely bodily men. For if we were spirits, perhaps the judgment of spirit would suffice. Besides, in a temporal republic all men have the true natural light, by which the law is made and which suffices for expounding it, and yet the interpretation of the law is never allowed to the private judgment of each man; and if it were permitted the Republic could not long endure. How much less then should the interpretation of Scripture be permitted to the judgment of each man, since all do not have the true supernatural light by which the Scripture was made and which is necessary for understanding it correctly?

Further, a judge should have coercive authority, otherwise his judgment would be useless; but private men have no such authority. Again there are many who are so uneducated and unskilled that they themselves admit that they are in no way able to judge of questions of faith, and yet they too are able to be saved. It is not therefore necessary that all should judge.

Finally, if this private spirit giving revelations were the judge, the way for the conversion of heretics would be closed off, nor could any controversies be ever concluded. For there is no heretic who does not boast of the spirit, and who does not prefer his own spirit to the spirits of others. And as in II Chronicles ch.18, when Michaeas, the Prophet of the Lord, said he was speaking in the name of the Lord and that the false Prophets were driven by a spirit of lies, Zedekiah the false Prophet said to him, “And by what way did the Spirit of the Lord pass from me to speak to you?” Thus if a Catholic were to say that the Spirit is revealing thus to me, the heretic will respond, and by what way, etc.?

Now that a secular Prince cannot be judge is proved, for nothing has power beyond the virtue received from its causes; but the causes of the secular principate are human and natural; for the efficient cause is the election of the people, the end is temporal peace and tranquility for the Republic. Therefore a prince has, as such, no virtue or authority save a human one, of the sort the people could give him, and of the sort that is required for preserving temporal peace, because even without the Church there are true temporal Kings and Princes; and without them there can be a true Church, as there was in the Roman world in the first three hundred years.

Nor is that an obstacle which is said in Romans ch.13, “There is no power but from God, and he who resists the power resists the ordination of God.” For the Apostle does not mean to say that royal power is immediately from God but mediately; because God has put the natural instinct in men to create a King for themselves; just human laws too can be said to be from God because they are made by the natural light which God impressed at creation on the human mind. But the Ecclesiastical principate has divine and supernatural causes, for the efficient cause is God immediately, for neither does the Pontiff have power from the Church but from Christ, who said to him, “Feed my sheep,” John last chapter, and, “I will give to you the keys of the kingdom of heaven etc.,” Matthew ch.16. Now the end is eternal beatitude.

Wherefore outside the Church there is found no true Pontiff, nor true priests, nor without these can there be a Church. And hence Nazianzen in his oration to citizens struck by fear, Chrysostom in Homil.4 on the words of Isaiah, Ambrose in his book on Priestly Dignity ch.2 all say that the Bishop is as greater than the King as the spirit is than the flesh, the heaven than the earth, gold than lead. And for this reason too the Pontificate and the priesthood pertain per se to the Church; but the temporal principate pertains to it per accidens. Therefore since defining matters of faith and interpreting the divine Scriptures are spiritual and Ecclesiastical acts, they certainly do not belong to a temporal Prince but to a spiritual and Ecclesiastical one.

Robert Bellarmine’s: Controversies of the Christian Faith – Volume 1: On the Word of God — HOME