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Question Two. Whether the Keys of the Kingdom of Heaven are Conferred on Every Priest in the Reception of Orders
8. “After it has been shown etc 
.” [Lombard, Sent. IV d.19 ch.1 n.1].
9. Because the solution to this question [n.3] depends on the solution to the following question, which is about the conferring of the keys, or how the Church has the keys that are here being dealt with, I therefore ask about this distinction whether the keys of the kingdom of heaven are conferred on every priest in the reception of orders.
10. It seems that they are not:
In Revelation 3.7 it is said of Christ, “he closes and no one opens; he opens and no one closes.” Therefore, Christ alone has the keys.
11. Again, Augustine On Baptism against the Donatists V ch.21 n.29 [Lombard, Sent. IV d.19 ch.1 n.6], “Only the dove, that is, Christ, or the members of the dove, absolve from sin.” Therefore, no unjust priest has the keys by which he could absolve from sin, and yet an unjust priest can have the keys of the priesthood.
12. Again, one of the keys is commonly said to be the key of knowledge; but this is not conferred on everyone ordained to be a priest, because someone without knowledge before does not find himself to have knowledge after ordination, nor even does someone with knowledge before find himself to have more knowledge after ordination than before. But if knowledge were conferred on us, it would not escape our notice, according to the Philosopher, Posterior Analytics 2.19.99b26-28, “It is impossible for us to have the most noble habits and for these to escape our notice” [Scotus, Metaphysics 1 q.9 n.36].
13. Again, ‘a sentence passed not by its judge is null’ [Gratian, Decretum, p.2 cause 11 q.1 ch.49 d.5 ch.1, Code of Justinian VII ch.48 n.1, 4]; 
therefore no one has the key for opening heaven to anyone save to his subordinate; but by reception of priesthood he is not given a subordinate nor jurisdiction over subordinates; therefore not the keys either.
14. Again, if the keys are given, they cannot be held by a non-priest. The consequent is false because an archdeacon, who does not have to be a priest, can bind, absolve, excommunicate, and reconcile, as is plain from Gregory IX, Decretals I tit.23 chs.1-10; therefore etc .
15. To the contrary:
In Matthew 16.19 it is promised to Peter and to priests, “I will give you the keys etc .;” and in John 20.23 the promise is fulfilled when Christ says, “Whose sins you remit etc .”
16. Again, he to whom what is greater is given is not as a rule denied what is lesser; but the greatest power possible given to a wayfarer is the power of confecting the body of Christ [in the Eucharist], and this is conferred in the reception of the priesthood; therefore power with respect to the mystical body, which power is lesser, namely the key of binding and loosing, is conferred to the same person in ordination.
I. To the Second Question
A. Solution of the Question
17. This second question, as said before [n.9], needs solving first, and here there are five things that need looking at: first that in the Church (and this in the hands of a priest ordained according to rite), there is a key which is the power of giving sentence in the forum of penitence; second, that there is in his hands a key that is the power of taking cognizance in the case of a culprit making confession; third, that this and the former key are not the same key but two; fourth, how he who has these two keys has power through them for their acts, or what sort of power through them he has with respect to the acts of the keys; fifth, whether besides these there is any other key in the Church.
1. About a Priest’s First Key
18. About the first: all those who transfer [a term] transfer it according to some likeness; now a material key is the proximate instrument for opening or closing a gate through which a house is entered, but not thereby is it the opening, or the opener, or the cause for which it is opened (namely the worthiness of the person to enter, or the lack of worthiness by which he is excluded). In this way is it possible spiritually to consider the opening of the Kingdom of Heaven, and it is done by a definitive sentence when sentence is given that heaven is to be opened to this person; for this opening is not the actual opening, but a declaration of worthy disposition in him for whom it is opened.
19. It is also possible to find the opener, and it is he who gives sentence.
20. And possible also to find the cause whereby, through sentence of introduction, it is opened to this person, and whereby, through sentence of exclusion, it is closed to this person, namely the demerit of the latter and the merit of the former.
21. None of these is the key, because the first is the opening, the second the opener, the third the remote cause. Therefore, the power in the one who passes sentence, which power is the immediate instrument as it were for giving sentence (and the giving sentence is called ‘opening’) is most properly called ‘the key of the Kingdom of Heaven’.
This about the name.
22. About the thing as follows: the judiciary authority for passing the sentence that heaven is open, or is to be opened, for this person can be understood in one way to be the simply principal authority; in a second way not principal but excelling; in a third way neither principal nor excelling but partial and particular.
23. The first belongs to God alone, for two reasons:
First because he alone is just of himself, rather is he justice; and the first judgment can only belong to the first Just; for judgment is not perfect unless it is just, according to Psalm 118.12, “I have done judgment and justice,” since to judge is to declare the right or the just. Now the first just should be most perfect and so most just; and so it is of the first Just.
Second because to judge belongs to him who presides, for in Romans 14.4 it is said, “Who are you, who judge another’s servant?” Now in the primary things just stated the first presider can only be God. Hence, just as he cannot communicate divinity to another, so neither can he communicate the first power of judging, nor consequently the simply principal key for opening heaven.
24. The second key [n.22], namely not principal but excelling, can be understood as to a double preeminence: one certainly in the universality of knowledge of causes to be judged, the other in the firmness of definitive sentence. And each preeminence can belong to him who knows all the merits and demerits that are the reason heaven is to be opened or closed, and who has, along with this, a will inseparably conformed to divine justice.
25. On account of the first [n.24] he has power to pass sentence in all cases, because he knows them all; on account of the second, his sentence can be simply firm and irrevocable, because always just.
26. This key, with each preeminence, belongs properly to Christ, who knows the merits and demerits of those to be judged, and who always judges in conformity with divine justice.
27. And this key cannot be in the Church Militant, at least it cannot fittingly be there, because no one in the Church knows all the causes to be judged, or has a will immutably just.
28. The third key [n.22], namely the one that is partial with respect to taking cognizance of cases and that is not firm as to passing sentence, namely because it is revocable from another source, can be conferred on someone in the Church Militant who is able to take cognizance of the case and to give, with right reason, sentence according to the Divine Law; and if sometimes he give sentence not according to it his sentence will not be firm, and if according to it his sentence will be firm.
29. In the Church therefore there can be a key for opening heaven, namely authority for giving sentence partially, and not irrevocably, that for someone heaven is open.
30. It is fitting too for this key to be in the Church, and that in a priest, so that the ecclesiastical hierarchy may be ordered and that everything may be reduced to the First through a middle. The hierarchy is in the middle between God and the sinner who needs to be brought back to God, about which there is Bernard On Consideration III ch.3 n.13. This is also fitting for the perfection of causes in their moral being, as it is for causes in their natural being. For God universally does not deny creatures the causality that can belong to them; rather he even communicates it and assists second causes in their action. From the fact, then, that it is possible for man to have, in gratuitous being, this causality for bringing back, which is called a ‘key’, it is fitting that it be given to him who is supreme in the Church, namely the priest.
31. Third [first n.28, second n.30] I say that this key has been given. The proof is from John 20.23, “Whose sins you remit etc.” And this is rightly called ‘the key of power’, because the authority to give judgment rightly is a power, since to give judgment belongs to him who presides.
2. About a Priest’s Second Key
32. About the second article [n.17] I say that what is ordained for this authority of passing sentence [n.29], or that whose use is ordered to the use of it, such that, of course, without the use of it there is no right use of the other [sc. the passing of sentence], can be called a ‘key’. For it is a sort of instrument for opening, though not a proximate one; rather it combines with the proximate instrument into, as it were, a single one; for without it the proximate instrument does not rightly open or close. But the authority of taking cognizance in the case of a sinner is of this sort, because without this cognizance one does not rightly pass the sentence that heaven is to be opened or closed. Therefore, this authority can be called a key of the kingdom of heaven.
33. Now this authority can be distinguished in three ways like the preceding one [n.22].
34. And about the key taken in the third way [n.28], proof can be given that it is fitting that it be had, and that it is had, in the Church (from the preceding article [nn.30-31]). For he who has authority to pass sentence in a case definitively has the authority of taking cognizance in that case - unless passing sentence at his pleasure in a case without taking cognizance of the case were committed to anyone (which commission does not seem should rationally be given to anyone who may err in passing sentence, of which sort is any wayfarer). God therefore, when rightly committing the first authority to the Church, which is called the ‘key of power’ [nn.21, 31], committed to it the second authority, which is called the ‘key of knowledge’.
35. And there is understood in the conferring of the first key, which is got from John 20.23 [n.31], also the conferring of the second key, as being something that precedes, in respect of use, the use of the second key.
36. Nor is this ‘key of knowledge’ any actual or habitual knowledge or any sort of discretion, as however the Master seems to say in the text [Lombard, Sent. IV d.19 ch.1 n.3], “Many indiscrete persons,” he says, “who have, neither before nor after [ordination to] priesthood, knowledge for discerning, presume to take the rank of priesthood, and therefore they do not receive this key in consecration. But although those do have discretion who, before [ordination to] priesthood, are endowed with the knowledge of discerning, yet the key is not in them because they are not able [sc. before ordination] to close or open with it. And therefore, when [such a one] is promoted to the priesthood, he is rightly said to receive the key of discretion, because the discretion he had before is increased and the key exists in him, so that now he is able to use it for closing and opening.”
37. But this knowledge, actual or habitual, is not the key, because the authority of taking cognizance, though it require knowledge or discretion to accompany the right use of it (in the way the key of power requires some justice for the right use of it), yet as the power of judging is not justice, indeed can be without justice, so the power or authority of taking cognizance in a case can be without discretion in cognizing.
38. And so the Master needs to be interpreted [n.36] - he who wants to hold to him and preserve the fact that knowledge is required for the key of knowledge, supply:58 required for someone rightly using it, but not for its being present absolutely.
39. If it be objected, why then is this key said to be the key of knowledge rather than that key said to be the key of justice, or the key that is justice, if knowledge is only required here for right use as justice is required there for its right use? - I reply: he who without justice has authority and gives some sentence does what belongs to his power, though unduly. And so he who without knowledge has authority for taking cognizance in a case does do something if he attempt it, though unduly. What however the first one does is always an act of power, and so it is always said to be ‘the key of power’; and what the latter does belongs always to knowledge, that is, to taking cognizance in a case, though not habitual knowledge.
3. About the Distinction between the Aforesaid Keys
40. About the third article [n.17], some say that these keys are the same as the priest’s character, and then it would be easy to see how they, just as also the characters, are conferred in his ordination on any priest.
41. But against this there is argument as follows:
Those powers are distinct where one of them can be without another; but the power of confecting the body of Christ (or the priest’s character as it is for this purpose) can be without the power that is included in the keys; therefore etc . The proof of the minor is that so it was in the case of the Apostles at the Cena, when it was said to them,
“Do this in remembrance of me” [Luke, 22.19, I Corinthians 11.24-25], where power of confecting the Eucharist was given them but, until the resurrection, not the power of the keys when, John 20.23, Christ says “Whose sins you remit etc.”
42. It seems one can argue similarly about any priest now ordained in the Church. For the bishop says first to the ordinands, “Receive the power of confecting or celebrating mass, both for the living and the dead,” giving them the chalice; and, after certain words interposed, he puts his hand on their heads and says, “Receive the Holy Spirit; whosever sins you remit etc .” Hence it seems that any priest receives the power of confecting first in time before the power of absolving; therefore it seems that they are a different power. And this proves that the power is not only distinguished from the character, if the character is something single [Ord. IV d.6 nn.279-359], but that they are distinct powers between themselves.
43. Again, the character (as said above [ibid. n.317] can only be a relation; but a relation cannot be the same for several terms; the true and mystical body of Christ, or the consecration of this [sc. the true body in the Eucharist] and the absolution of that [sc. the mystical body in penitence], are distinct terms; therefore that which is the power for consecration, if it be this sort of relation, will not be the same as the power for absolution.
44. I say therefore that they are simply two keys, such that the word of Christ, “I will give you the keys” [Matthew 16.19], is absolutely true.
45. And these keys can, by the absolute power of God, be separated from each other; for just as someone who is now presiding can commit to another cognizance in a cause without authority to pass sentence in it (as if he were to say, ‘I commit to you the authority of examining this case, and you give it back to me so that I may pass sentence’), just as too he could confer authority to sentence without authority of cognizance (as if he were to say, ‘I commit to you to give sentence as you please without any cognizance of the case’, but such commission would not be in order for anyone whose will was twistable) - so could God commit authority to take cognizance without authority to pass sentence; and this commission, if it were simply in order, would also be reasonable. God could also, of his absolute power, commit to someone with a will that was not twistable authority to pass sentence in a case without cognizance of it.
46. But by his ordained power, or his power in fact, both are committed to any ecclesiastical priest, at least to one who is fully ordained - which I say to this extent, that if authority of celebrating is given to him first in time before authority of absolving, he is not a completely ordained priest as to both powers if, after the first has been done, the second were omitted.
47. But whether each power be given precisely together in time I do not assert.
48. But if one of them be given before the other, when is the character impressed, then, on the priest? And how is this double power related to the character?
49. To the first it could be said that, as there are two powers, so there are two characters, and each is impressed in its own sensible sign signifying that invisible mark, as that the first is impressed in the giving of the chalice with the words “Receive the power of celebrating etc.,” and the second in the imposition of hands in the words “Receive the Holy Spirit etc .”
50. And according to this would be plain what would be said to the second question [n.48], that each power is a certain character but that these two make integral the total order of the priesthood. But there would, according to this, also seem to be two characters corresponding to the two keys, or they would be the two keys.
51. If therefore one is not pleased to posit so many characters corresponding to one priestly order, it can be said that by a single priestly character, whenever it is impressed, does someone have the power of confecting the body of Christ; and through it is he ascribed to the family of Christ in such an excellent rank, namely in the rank of feeding the people of Christ in the Church.
52. But just as someone promoted in this taking care of great things to an excelling rank in the family of a lord is by this fact disposed to having authority with respect to the other servants, so is he who is constituted by a character in an excellent rank in the family of Christ disposed by congruity to have over the mystical body of Christ power for binding and loosing. And then the priestly character is a disposition to these keys, at least the conferring of one key is not separated from the conferring of the other, because as was said [n.44], just as Christ in that same remark in John 20.23 conferred both keys on the Church, so the bishop in the same sensible sign and word confers both: one as it were excellently and explicitly [sc. the key of power], the other as it were implicitly [sc. the key of knowledge], whose use is antecedent to the use of this first one.
53. And from this is it plain how they can be called one key by unity of Order, because ordered to one ultimate act, namely that of opening; and as to that act one key is subordinate to the other, because more remote from the effect.
4. About the Double Power of the Priest in the Use of the Aforesaid Keys
54. As to the fourth article [n.17]: an active power to which at once a passive power corresponds, and which cannot be impeded, is always a power proximate to acting. But if there is a power to which there does not at once correspond anything passive in nature, or which, when the passive thing is had, can be prevented, it is not, while it is actually being prevented, the proximate power but a remote power. It is plain in Metaphysics 9.5.1048a5-7, where the Philosopher holds that the active and passive thing, when they have their active and passive power completely, at once act. And it is not necessary to add ‘with nothing preventing from the outside’, because this is included in the idea of what is potent, and it is not true save of the potent as this states a power proximate to act.
55. As to the issue at hand, the power of confecting has the matter at once in nature, because it has any wheaten bread. And it is a power that cannot be prevented, because whenever anyone through it attempts to act on determined and due matter, he does act. If it were this way with the key, namely that a penitent sinner would at once correspond to it as matter, and it could not by anyone else’s act be impeded but that he who is intending to use it would do what he intended, then the key would be the proximate power of absolution. And then it would follow that a priest, from the fact he had been ordained, could absolve any sinner who confesses - not indeed that he could do so licitly (but he would sin mortally if he were to attempt it against the prohibition of a superior), yet he would do it; just as a priest, however much prohibited, does consecrate if he attempt to consecrate.
56. But these two suppositions are not held to. For the first at least is not held, namely that from his ordination he has matter, but there must, before he have jurisdiction, be someone who is subject to him - not so he may absolve ritually, but so he may absolve absolutely, because a sentence not passed by its judge is null [n.13]. And it would seem it should in consistency thus be said about the second, because a superior could for a time remove the subject by suspension of the priest; and then his power would be impeded simply, such that if he attempt to absolve he would not in fact absolve.
57. The power of confecting [the Eucharist], then, according to this opinion is a proximate power, but the key is a remote power: both because, from the fact that the key is in someone, nothing passive corresponds to it unless made passive from elsewhere; and because, if the key is in someone, it can be impeded by some prohibiting superior.
58. And a reason for the unlikeness might perhaps be posited, that from the beginning no one was harmed, nor was the ordination of the Church, by the fact that any priest consecrated any matter. But there would have been harm if, by the conferring of the keys in ordination, any priest would have been judge of any penitent, and could, however much he was prohibited, have performed the act of the key, because thereby he could act to the prejudice of someone else whose subject he is.
59. How, then, according to this common way, will the proposition be saved that ‘to every active power there corresponds a passive power’? For if in nature there were a power to which a passive subject could not correspond save through another active power, that power would not be an active power. Therefore, by similarity here, since there could, through the key, be no matter corresponding to it save through another active power, namely jurisdiction, it follows that the key is not an active power.
60. And there could be a confirmation about this judiciary power: for no one seems to have the power of judging who has no one subject to him as judgeable by him; therefore the key, by the fact it is the key, is not a power of judging.
61. If you say that an active power, however much it is perfect, requires matter, this is true; and the power of confecting [the Eucharist] requires matter, namely bread, but yet as soon as the power of confecting is possessed, there is no need to require another active power so that the bread be capable of being consecrated. For if, in order for the bread to be capable of being consecrated, it were necessary that there be an owner of the bread, the priestly power would now be only the remote power for confecting. So in the issue at hand, it is very necessary that there be some penitent offering himself to the priest for absolution; but if he can only be matter for absolution if he be made such through another concurrent power, this power [of absolving] does not seem to be an active power of absolving.
62. Similarly, this proposition is universally true in natural things, that when to an active power of one idea there primarily correspond a passive power of another idea, anything under the latter corresponds to anything under the former provided there is no loss of active force. But in the issue at hand it is not so, because this person corresponds to this key as absolvable by it and not to another key, unless it be said that to a key the sinner as penitent does not correspond but the sinner as the penitent subjected to that key.
5. About the Use of the Two Keys of the Church in the External Forum
63. About the fifth article [n.17] I say that there is a double forum in the Church. One is most secret, where accuser and culprit are the same, and the aforesaid keys belong to this forum. The other is a public forum, because the Church too has authority to correct public transgressions. And a double authority is there required corresponding to the aforesaid double authority, just as for any right judgement knowledge in the case is required and passing of sentence.
These authorities, which belong to the public forum, can be called ‘keys’.
64. About this power given to the Church there is Matthew 18.15-18, when Christ says to Peter [Peter and the disciples; Peter alone at Matthew 16.18-19], “If your brother sin against you...,” and there follows, eventually, “tell it to the Church; if he will not listen to the Church let him be to you as a heathen and a publican;” and there follows, “Amen I say to you, whatever you blind on earth will be bound also in heaven; and whatever you loose on earth will be loosed also in heaven.”
65. This about the public forum, because God approves the loosing and binding done in the public forum by the Church, and he who despises the Church is to be held as “a heathen and a publican.” In this forum, the Church, that is, the communion of the faithful, is closed by excommunication, and opened by absolution or reconciliation from excommunication.
66. From this it is plain that these keys are not the same as the former keys, because the former are separated from these, since these are in those who have jurisdiction without priesthood (as in an archdeacon and certain others who have jurisdiction according to the ordination of the Church without priestly orders) - and these are separated from the former, as in the case of certain priests, to whom is not given the power of excluding from the Church, or of reconciling.
67. But surely anyone who has jurisdiction can excommunicate and reconcile?
I reply: an excommunication that is simply excommunication, which is by itself greater, is exclusion of someone from communion with the faithful - not indeed bodily exclusion (which happens through sequestration or incarceration or exclusion of this person from others), but exclusion by prohibition, so that he not communicate with others nor others with him. But no one who is not subject to a particular person is bound to keep what he institutes, as neither to keep his precepts. Therefore, it seems that he who is not subject to him is not bound to avoid someone excommunicated by him.
68. If therefore by excommunication simply any Christian is bound to avoid the one excommunicated, it is necessary that this be through a precept that any Christian is bound to obey. And then it follows that no inferior, even by his own authority, could excommunicate someone, though he could excommunicate him as far as his subjects are concerned, that is, he could command them to keep away from him. And then it follows that if any inferior excommunicates simply, he does so by commission from him whom all others are bound to obey, and they are bound to avoid the one excommunicated.
69. From this follows that it falls under the rule of the law: “what is not conceded is prohibited” [Justinian, Digest I ch.3 n.29, as expounded by Henry of Ghent, Quodlibet 10 q.2 a.2]. For this rule is true of things that do not regularly belong to anyone save by some special concession. And then Christians generally are bound to avoid the one excommunicated by authority of the same person by whose authority they incur the penalty of excommunication of the law if they do not avoid him. For they incur the penalty by authority of the legislator, and not of this particular judge.
70. If these conclusions are not pleasing, one must ask whence first from the beginning of the Church any such inferior, who commonly excommunicates in the Church, had authority over all Christians so that they are bound to obey him, and to keep from the one excommunicated by him, because of his precept as it is his precept. And then one must ask how inferior authorities would have been more limited as to the number of subordinates, at least as concerns observance of the precept, and why it is not so of these as it is of others. Let him ask who will!
71. If the first opinion [nn.68-69] is true, then parish and other like priests are in no case able to excommunicate save when this is found expressly conceded to them, and when certain dangers are excluded that arise from the proneness for excommunication of certain vain persons, since frequent indeed is this striking with the sword in the Church, which sword however is rarely found drawn by the Apostles.
72. For in all the epistles of Paul he is found to have excommunicated only three times:
The first in I Corinthians 5.1-5, “The report is heard altogether that there is fornication among you, and a fornication of a sort not heard among the Gentiles, such that someone has his father’s wife,” and later, “I have already, as one present, judged concerning him who has done this deed, in the name of the Lord Jesus Christ, when you are gathered together and my spirit, to hand over a man of this sort to Satan for the destruction of the flesh, so that his spirit might be saved in the day of the Lord.”
73. Again, I Timothy 1.19-20, “Some have made shipwreck concerning the faith, of whom are Hymenaeus and Alexander, whom I have handed over to Satan that they may learn not to blaspheme.”
74. Again, Galatians 1.9, “If anyone preach to you a gospel other than that which you have received, let him be anathema.”
75. However, the Apostle is read to have prohibited in another way communion with the evil:
I Corinthians 5.11-12, “If anyone within who is called a brother is a fornicator, or covetous, or an idolator, or a curser, or a drunkard, or an extortioner, with such a one it is not licit even to take food.”
76. Again II Thessalonians 3.6, “We command you, brothers, in the name of the Lord, that you withdraw yourselves from every brother who walks disorderly;” and later he adds in the same place, 3.14: “If anyone not obey our words through this epistle, note him, and have no company with him, so that he may be ashamed.” But how it is licit to commune with him he adds saying, 3.15, “Do not reckon him as an enemy, but admonish him as a brother.”
77. Again, 2 Timothy 3.2, 5, “Men shall be lovers of themselves,” and a little later, “avoid these.”
And in the same place, 4.14-15, “Alexander the coppersmith did me much evil.. .whom also avoid.”
78. Again, Titus 3.10, “A man who is a heretic after the first and second admonition, avoid.”
79. And 2 John 10-11, “If someone comes to you and does not bring this doctrine, do not receive him into your house, nor say ‘hail’ to him; for he who says ‘hail’ to him shares in his evil works.”
80. In the first two authorities [nn.72-73] a sentence of excommunication seems to have been passed simply. Plain it is both that there was just cause there, because the sin was egregious and public; and due form, because there was a legitimate procedure; and right intention, because the correction of a delinquent was intended. Hence also the first case is corrected by the excommunication, as is plain in the second epistle [2 Corinthians 2.7], where he bids them console him lest he be plunged in a deeper sadness. The others are not read to have repented; perhaps they were already apostates from the faith, and there they remained.
And the third, to the Galatians [n.74], is against someone preaching something that is repugnant to sound faith, of which sort were then the false apostles.
But in the others [nn.75-59], where he bids them avoid the evil either simply or as to certain acts, it does not as fully seem that a sentence of excommunication has been passed, because they do not seem to have thereby been handed over to Satan. For it is said that those whom the Apostle handed over to Satan, the devil at once had power to torment, and it is not probable that thus was it done in the case of all those evil people whom he writes should be avoided.
B. To the Initial Arguments
81. To the main arguments:
As to the first [n.10], it is plain that the authority from Revelation must be understood not of the ministerial key but of the preeminent key, which is the authority of passing sentence universally and irrevocably.
82. As to the second [n.11], the Master expounds the authority in this distinction ch.3 [Sent. IV d.19 ch.1 n.8], that only through the dove or his members is the remission or redemption from sins done worthily: “It is however done through others, but not worthily or rightly; for God gives blessing to him who, even through an unworthy minister, worthily asks.” This is proved by the authority of Jerome on Matthew 16.19, “I will give you the keys etc.” [in fact from Bede, Homilies on the Gospel I hom.20: “The other Apostles have the same judiciary power, and the whole Church has it in the bishops and priests...”], and through [Ps.-]Augustine Questions on the Old and New Testaments [q.11 nn.1-2], “The will of the priest cannot harm or help, but the merit of the one who asks a blessing.”
83. To the third [n.12] the answer is plain from the second article [n.36], that the key of knowledge is not some knowledge or awareness but is the authority for being aware, that is, for inquiring and examining the culprit’s case.
84. To the fourth [n.13] the answer is plain from the fourth article, that, according to one opinion, the key itself is only a remote power [n.54], and in order for there to be matter responding to it another power is required in the priest, namely jurisdiction; or at any rate, through another active power is matter made subject to it so as to become matter capable of the action of it. According to the second opinion [nn.56-58], the key is the proximate power and includes private jurisdiction; for what else is jurisdiction than the authority to declare the right? And what else is this than the authority of giving sentence and judging?
85. To the fifth [n.14] the answer is plain from the fifth article [nn.68-71]. For I concede that someone not ordained can have, and someone ordained not have, other keys pertaining to the extrinsic forum. However, in order to be a hierarch of the Church, that is, to be in eminent principality, and to have these exterior keys, the presupposition is that one has the interior keys; hence no one is consecrated bishop unless he will have first been ordained priest.
II. To the First Question
A. Solution of the Question
1. Two Conclusions of Others
86. As to the question asked about the eighteenth distinction [n.3] there are two conclusions:
The first negative: namely that the force of the keys does not extend itself to the removal of guilt or of eternal penalty [Thomas Aquinas, Sent. IV d.18 q.1 a.3; Richard of Middleton, Sent. IV d.18 princ.2 q.1].
87. The master seems to think this in this distinction [Lombard, Sent. IV d.18 ch.6 n.3], “God,” he says, “does by himself dismiss sin thus, because he both cleanses the soul from interior stain and releases it from the debt of eternal death.”
88. What then do Gospel priests do?
He replies: “God bestows on them the power of binding and loosing, that is, of showing that they are bound or loosed.”
89. He proves it about the leper who is cured before sent to the priest, Luke 5.14; similarly about Lazarus resuscitated before handed to the disciples to be loosed, John 11.44.
90. Again, Jerome in his Commentary on Matthew 16.19, “I will give you the keys etc.,” says “In Leviticus 14.2-4 lepers are bidden to show themselves to the priests, because the priests do not make them lepers or clean, but discern who are clean or unclean.”
91. Herefrom the Master says [ibid.], “What once the legal priests had in the Law in curing lepers, this now the Gospel priest has in retaining or remitting faults.”
92. The affirmative conclusion is added [n.86; Aquinas, ibid., Richard of Middleton, ibid. q.2], that the force of the keys extends itself to the temporal penalty.
93. And in this the Master gives exposition in a different way [ibid. n.4] about how the Gospel priest looses and binds, because “he binds to the temporal penalty that he imposes on the confessing penitent, but he looses when he dismisses something from the penalty due, or admits the sinner who is purged by it to communion in the sacraments.”
94. But the point is added that this power is with respect to the temporal penalty, because the act of it is not ratified unless it is in conformity with divine judgment, namely, unless it imposes as much penalty as, according to divine justice, responds to the sins. Suppose, for example, that this man is by his sins bound according to strict rigor to such and such a penalty of ten days; the priest can remit, by virtue of the keys, a penalty for him of three days, and let it be that this priest, as dispenser of the Church’s treasury, could remit one or two days - after all this, the man remains obligated to six or five days, from which, if the priest dismiss something, this his obligation is not ratified, because the key of power is then erring in binding and loosing; for it makes him more loosed from temporal penalty than God judges him loosed,59 and consequently, unless he pay those six days here, the remainder of them will be exacted in purgatory.
2. Refutation of the Conclusions
a. Against the First Conclusion
95. Against the first [n.86]: because then the sacrament of penitence would not be a sacrament of the New Law. Nor would it have any causality or causal disposition for the first grace, because it would never be received save by one who already has the first grace, for no one is worthily shown to be loosed by God unless he was loosed before.
96. Again, the reception of this sacrament is an instrument for grace, that is, a disposition efficacious and necessary, by divine statute, for the reception of grace. But an instrument or preceding disposition is not a sign recollective or ostensive of anything as already past but of the future; therefore, the conferring of the sacrament of penitence, in order for it to be worthily done, does not need to be a sign of a preceding divine absolution.
97. I concede this point, as has been made clear at length in distinction 14 question 4 [nn.130-150], that the sacrament of penitence can be worthily received by someone who has attrition, and this with as much attrition as would not suffice by way of merit for receiving justification at the term of attrition. And if at the term it not in pretense be received, the first grace that is conferred by God is received; and sacramental absolution is an efficacious sign of the absolution that follows in the final instant of it, just as the speaking of the words is a sign of confection of the body of Christ.
98. Accordingly, it is plain how this sacrament is an instrument for the first grace as a disposition previous to it, in the way that alteration can be called an instrument with respect to the generation of substance, because it is a disposition previous to it.
99. There is no likeness, then, between the priest of the law [of Moses] with respect to leprosy and the Gospel priest with respect to guilt; because the former only performed something that was a sign recollective of cleansing from leprosy, and nothing that was an efficacious prognostic sign of a cleansing that follows. But the latter [sc. the Gospel priest] performs an act that is an efficacious prognostic sign of a cleansing that follows at the last instant; nor however is he lying, because the absolution [of the penitent] is understood to be for the instant at which he is absolved by God and the Church.
100. If you say that therefore the priest destroys the stain and eternal penalty of death, which is proper to God - I say that he does both, provided there are two there, which was spoken about elsewhere [d.16 nn.44-65]. But he only does them instrumentally, not indeed in reaching the effect either by his own power or that of another, but by reaching something prior, which is a necessitating disposition for the effect - necessitating, I say, by divine pact. And such an agent that causes a disposition necessary for the term is called an ‘instrumental agent’, just as is true of something that alters and generates [n.98]. But it is proper principally to God to cleanse and to remit the debt by also reaching the effect; and neither of these belongs to the priest.
101. The authorities, therefore, that the Master adduces for himself [nn.89-91], do affirmatively say that the priest does this, and it is indeed true that the Gospel priest shows this [penitent] cleansed and loosed at the instant at which his absolution is understood to be. But not this only; rather he thus shows that the showing is a disposition preceding and necessary for that which is shown. For this is the excellence of the sacraments of the New Law, that the reception of them is a disposition sufficient for grace; but of the legal ones [sc. of the Mosaic Law] not even the reception was an efficacious disposition for bodily cleansing of leprosy, or that sort of foulness.
102. Now it would be similar if we were to speak of the priest of the law [of Moses] purifying someone, through certain washings, from some irregularity contracted in the Law by contact with leprosy or the like. For then the priest would perform an act that would be a sign efficacious of reconciliation from this sort of irregularity and of cleansing from this pollution, in the act or term of which cleansing the effect signified would follow, namely that this person was worthy to commune with the rest in the Synagogue.
b. Against the Second Conclusion
103. Against what is said secondly [nn.92, 94], it can be argued as follows: the power of judging in a case is not committed to anyone whose judgment will never, for any diligence whatever he is able to use, be ratified but only by chance or by special divine miracle; but whatever diligence a priest is able to use, he can never reach that indivisible point of the penalty that God judges this sinner to deserve. If he do, then, reach it, this will be by chance or special miracle, and it will not, for you [n.94], be ratified unless he do reach it; therefore he does not have the power of judging.
104. There is a confirmation, because it is not likely that God has given the Church a power of thus judging what he wants the judgment of the Church to ratify, and yet that it be impossible for the Church to judge correctly such that it not be ratified save by chance or special miracle.
105. Again, no one is constituted an arbiter between parties under the condition that he judge precisely according to the will of one of the parties, and this especially when he cannot determinately know the will of that party. But in a judgment of penitence the parties are God and the sinner, between whom the priest is arbiter. Therefore, the priest is not bound to judge precisely the penalty that God would inflict on the sinner, especially since he could not be clear about the will of God as to what it precisely is as the sinner is a member of the Church.
106. Again, if the priest impose a little bit more than correspond to the penitent’s sins, it is not probable but that the penitent would be bound to fulfill it. Therefore, although he impose a little bit less than the deserved penalty, it seems to be enough; for if something less than the point that divine justice dictates were not enough, then he ought not to fulfil any penalty beyond that point of divine justice.
3. Scotus’ own Response
107. I say, therefore that, as in other cases of exchange commutative justice possesses some latitude such that it has regard not to some indivisible point in an exchange but to the mean of right reason, so punitive justice, which is a certain exchange of penalty for guilt, does not necessarily have regard to an indivisible degree of penalty corresponding to the guilt, but there is some latitude below which a lesser penalty does not suffice and beyond which a greater penalty is not to be imposed. And a key that, outside that whole latitude, binds below or beyond it, is in error; and then not undeservedly is what it looses on earth not loosed in heaven, that is, not ratified. But a key within that latitude is not in error. And therefore the judgment is ratified to the extent that, it is necessary to fulfill whatever is imposed within that latitude. And if it not be fulfilled, what is left over will be exacted in purgatory. And if less be imposed and be fulfilled, nothing more will be exacted in purgatory.
108. Now this middle within that latitude is possible for a man to know by the Law of God with the assistance of natural reason. And therefore obligation to this broad latitude is obligation to what is possible for a man without special miracle and without chance and fortune.
109. But is the penitent bound to fulfill the penalty imposed by a non-erring key?
I say that he is, if he will to submit himself to this priest both as to absolution of guilt and as to receiving or paying the corresponding temporal penalty; for he is then obligated to precept of the Church, to which he has voluntarily submitted himself.
110. But if he only wish to submit himself to this priest as to change of eternal penalty to temporal, and not as to the appraisal of the temporal penalty, but as concerns that, and the appraisal of it, he wants to submit himself to the hand of God either here or in purgatory - it would not be expedient to repulse such a one without absolution; for perhaps he would go away desperate.
111. Nor does it seem that he is in mortal sin because of this will, if he be contrite about the sin and wish to be punished for it (with a deserving penalty) by him to whom it justly belongs to inflict the penalty, though he not wish it to be inflicted on him by this priest, nor wish himself to accept it so as to make this priest the minister of the inflicting of it.
112. And it cannot be said that this penitent is disobedient to the Church, because he can submit himself to the decision of the Church as concerns the penitential judgment to which he is bound to submit himself, but he does not wish to submit himself to the judgment that follows. And it is plain that the judgment that follows is not necessarily included in the first one, because a priest, however uniform the first judgment is, considerably varies the following one. Hence frequently too, because of the will of the one confessing to undergo a great penalty, he gives him a moderate penalty telling him he must pay the rest in purgatory; and although that little penalty be manifestly disproportionate (outside the latitude) to the fault, not for this reason does such a one not receive the sacrament of penitence.
113. In the same way it seems that a priest could impose no penalty at all on him because of his resistance to receive it, telling him that he must pay the whole penalty in purgatory. And Augustine hints at this [Ps.-Augustine, On True and False Penitence ch.10 n.25], that if some displeasing penitence is imposed on someone who can scarcely be made inclined toward it, one must be afraid that he will take occasion therefrom to fall back into mortal sin, because taking occasion to throw the penitence away, wherein he will sin mortally after refusing to submit himself to the priest in the receiving of it.
114. But suppose that the key of science is in error but not the key of power, is the judgment not ratified in heaven?
I reply: the key of science errs when the things that belong to the judgment are not well inquired into or examined, as that if some empty circumstances are inquired into that neither aggravate nor alleviate the deed but are pleasing to the prurient ears of the confessor, and if no inquiry is made into the attrition of the one confessing but the priest only listens to him as if he were narrating a single story. In the first case, indeed, although something be done that was not to be done, however provided nothing be omitted that was to be done, as that, along with circumstances being required that did not need to be required, those are required that did need to be required, then a correct judgment can follow; but in the second case, with the requiring of what displeases the one confessing omitted, a right judgment cannot follow save by chance.
115. In brief, therefore, I say that if the key of science err by pursuing things not necessary to the case or that are illicit, the confessor sins; but if he dismisses nothing of what is necessary for cognizance of the case, he can judge rightly. But if the key of science err by omitting something that is necessary to the cognizance of the case, the priest both sins and cannot judge rightly save by chance, and especially about the attrition of the one confessing.
116. But if the penitent show himself sorry although however he is not, he is in pretense and is departing from true penitence, and with a new sin. And the key of science does not err, but the penitent himself is wandering into his own peril. And then the judgment of the priest is ratified in heaven, for he did what it was his to do, because, as a man, he could only see the heart through external signs. But it is not ratified as concerns the one who receives it, because he is not capable of it in the way he shows himself capable of it.
117. But suppose that, when something necessary has been omitted from the case, the confessor brings in a right sentence - I say that it will be ratified as concerns the one who receives it (provided he is not in pretense), such that it will be sufficient for him to fulfill the penalty. And in this way must distinctions be drawn, that sometimes a judgment is ratified on both sides, both that of the priest and that of the recipient; and sometimes on the part of the latter and not the former; and sometimes on the part of the former and not the latter.
B. To the Initial Arguments of the First Part
118. As to the first main argument [n.4], I concede both members of the distinction.
119. And when it is said against the first member that then a priest could remit the whole of the penalty that was due, this does not follow, because there is there some mean determined by right reason, and while standing thereon the priest does the remitting.
120. And when it is said that at least he would remit [the whole penalty] by several remissions, this touches on a good difficulty, whether repeated confession of the same sins remits, by the power of the keys, more and more of the penalty. It seems probable that it does, because a second absolution is of the same idea as the first; therefore it can have the same virtue with respect to any part of the penalty that needs to be remitted; and consequently by the giving of several absolutions the whole penalty, since the fault is partible, could be remitted, if indeed ‘everything finite is totally consumed by the removal of finite parts taken several times’ [Authorities of Aristotle 2.25, Aristotle Physics 1.4.187b25-26]. What, then, is better than to be confessing always until, after the hundredth or the thousandth confession, the whole penalty, due to whatever sins had been done, would be remitted?
121. It seems more probable that by virtue of the keys the second absolution remits no part of the penalty, for to take flight here to parts of the same quantity or same proportion is nothing, because there is no reason why the second absolution could not take away a part of the same quantity, if it could take away any, nor is it a surprise if it can take away none, for the same judgment, passed once without error, is ratified by God in heaven, and it is irrevocable. Therefore, it is reasonable that it be so ratified that it is unrepeatable. I do not say that it be illicit or impossible for it to be repeated, but yet it is with the fruit it has now unrepeatable.
122. We see this in the case of definitive sentences in the legal forum, by which the accused are absolved when they are found innocent; nor is the examination continued so that there may be a procedure in the same case; nor, if it were repeated, would the accused be absolved by the second sentence as he was by the first; for he who is once released is not absolved further, for only he who is bound is released.
To the second part of the division [nn.4, 118] I concede that the penalty inflicted by the priest that does not exceed the total latitude of justice is the penalty the confessing penitent is bound to pay, and it is enough.
123. But you will say: how will the one confessing know if it exceed that latitude or not?
I say either from the Divine Law if he is an expert in it per se, or if he is not he can inquire of another confessor in whose prudence he has more confidence. Or if he not want to submit to another confessor and he is not by his own industry sufficient to judge if this penalty is merited by the fault or not, let him keep the penalty imposed on him, especially if it seem to him to exceed the merited penalty; but if it seem to him deficient, it is safer to go to another prudent confessor than to expose oneself to purgatory.
124. To the second argument [n.5], I concede that the use of the keys extends itself to remitting guilt and the debt of eternal penalty, but instrumentally.
C. To the Initial Arguments for the Opposite
125. Through this is plain the answer to the first argument for the opposite [n.6, sc. the keys extend to remitting temporal penalty, and instrumentally to remitting eternal penalty].
To the second [n.7] I say that just as baptism of water first confers grace on someone who does not have it and increases grace for him who does first have it, and often in adults the baptism of desire precedes the baptism of water (but if it not precede, as in children, the first grace would be conferred through the baptism of desire), so frequently here; for commonly adults are justified by attrition, as through merit by congruity, before they confess, according to the authorities of Augustine and Cassiodorus [n.7]; and then in the reception of the sacrament grace is increased in them. But suppose they did not have attrition sufficient by way of merit for justification, and consequently they are existing in sin and yet they in some way confess with attrition in the last instant -they receive grace by virtue of the sacrament. The authorities, therefore , are speaking of those justified in the first way, but they do not thereby exclude justification in the second way, as is plain by likeness with baptism in the second way.