3. Third Way of Speaking and its Proof by Authorities

27. There can be two other probable ways of speaking:This third way and the fourth [n.44], contra the Vatican editors who think the third way is divided into two ways; but the two ways are really two authorities [n.28] proving the same way. ⁶³

One is this, that in the primitive Church there was no difference between priests and bishops.

28. This is proved through two authorities from Jerome, which are set down in Gratian, Decretum p.1 d.95 ch.5.

a. First Authority and the Weighing of It

29. The first of these is in the chapter ‘Once’ (the second in the following chapter [n.37]), and it is titled ‘Jerome, On the Epistle to Titus [1.5]’: “Once,” he says, “the priest was the same as he who was bishop: they [sc. the faithful] were ruled by the common council of the priests of the Church until, by a diabolical instinct, passions arose and it was said in their meals [I Corinthians 1.12, cf. also 1.11, 31; 3.3; 5.8], ‘I am of Paul, and I of Apollos’. But after each thought those whom he was baptizing to be his own and not

Christ’s, a decree in the whole world was made so that one of the priests might be set up as superior and the seeds of schisms be taken away.” And a little later, “Just as the priests know that they are, by the custom of the Church, subjected to him who has been set up over them, so let the bishops know that more by custom than by the truth of our Lord’s dispensation are they greater than the priests, and that they must rule the Church in common.”

30. Again, Jerome, To the Priest Evangelius [Epistle 46 n.1], and it is in Decretum “We have read” [Gratian, p.1 d.93 ch.24], “Since the Apostle clearly teaches that the bishops are the same as those who are priests,” which he proves there by many authorities. And below, “At Alexandria from Mark the Evangelist up to the bishops Heraclas and Dionysius the priests used always to choose one from among themselves and place him at a higher rank, whom they called bishop [literally = ‘overseer’], in the way an army may, if it do, appoint a general, and the deacons may choose from themselves one whom they know to be industrious and title him archdeacon. For what does a bishop do that, apart from ordination, a priest does not do?” The response of the Gloss there [Gloss on Decretum, p.1 d.93 ch.24]: “In ‘ordination’ are understood the other things that are not done save by bishops.” But this is explained as “not done licitly.” For that these things may absolutely be done [sc. by priests] is proved by the preceding gloss, where there is disputation about that in which the preferment is made to be, whether in office or in name; and at the end the gloss says, “the preferment is made as to administration and certain sacraments that are now appropriated to bishops.”

31. From this a twofold argument is made:

First thus: if such a preferment of bishops over priests was made after the Apostles, then it was not so from the beginning of the Church.

32. Again [second], if now these things [n.30] are made proper to someone, then they were before not proper from the beginning.

33. I reply: if from the beginning there was some act proper to a bishop (as Jerome says: what can a bishop do that, besides consecration, a priest cannot do?; the gloss understands the other things through ‘consecration’ [n.30]), it follows that there was from the beginning a difference between bishops and priests. And then the authorities do not prove the opposite but are to be explained as the Gloss does [ibid. n.30], namely that perhaps “the names were synonymous and the administration (that is the governance of the Church) was common.”

34. But not, however, was all dispensing of the sacraments common. This is proved in Gratian, Decretum p.1 d.21 ch.2, “In place of the Apostles bishops arose;” but “the priests bore the pattern of the seventy-two disciples” [Luke 10.1-24]. Therefore, the distinction between bishop and simple priest was made by Christ.

35. To the contrary:

Was not Philip, and Stephen and the others of the seventy-two disciples, deacons and not priests?

36. Again: “I left you in Crete” for this, that you might ordain “priests” [Titus 1.5]; so a non-bishop could not do this.The point seems to be that if, as n.34 says, the bishops were those who took the place of the Apostles after their death, then Titus, who was not an Apostle but lived in the time of the Apostles, could not have been a bishop. Yet he was ordaining priests, which requires a bishop’s power. Therefore he was a bishop. Therefore it cannot be that bishops were those who succeeded to the Apostles after their death. ⁶⁴

b. Second Authority and the Weighing of It

37. This is also proved by the following chapter [n.29, Gratian, Decretum p.1 d.95 ch.6; taken from Ps.Jerome On the Seven Orders of the Church ch.6], and it is founded on the word of Paul to Timothy [I Timothy 4.14], “Do not neglect the grace given to you by the imposition of the hands of the priest,” where he does not draw a distinction, “since priests are also called bishops, according to what is said to a bishop ‘Do not neglect the grace given to you     etc .’ and elsewhere [Acts 20.17, 28] ‘[Paul] to the elders: He who placed you bishops to rule his Church’.” These the words of Jerome.

38 Paul does not distinguish, therefore     , the priest from the bishop, because he does not say that confirmation was given by the bishop alone, but he speaks of the priesthood.

39. Nor too in Acts is a distinction of priests from the Apostles, who were bishops, read of.

40. And if this is true, then to give confirmation could have belonged to every priest from his office, just as also to a bishop, because there was not, from first institution, another rank in the Church.

41. However afterwards, because of necessity, priests were multiplied and episcopal power as to some things was drawn away from them, and to the greater priests alone, who are called bishops, were certain things reserved, and ‘to confirm’ was such an act.

42. If this is true, Gregory [n.16] was well able to give the priests subject to Bishop Januarius license to confirm, because in this he did not concede an unfitting power to them but revoked a prohibition previously imposed on them.

43. If against this you object [Gandulphus Bononiensis, Alexander of Hales, William of Melitona, Thomas Aquinas] that according to these views, since in the primitive Church others besides the Apostles are not read to have confirmed, if then any of the priests was a a bishop, or equal to them as to this act, then it was, of their office, owed to bishops alone - I reply that either none other than the Apostles were priests, because the Apostles were then able to suffice, or if others were priests they deferred to the Apostles in this act, because of the evident manifestation of the Holy Spirt that used to happen in the conferring of this sacrament, so that it might be received with greater devotion because of the excellence of the ministers, and might be received in greater reverence.