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:Punctuating the Latin as in the translation and not as in the printed text. 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.