Single Question. Whether there are Seven Orders in the Church in the Way in which Order or Ordination is Posited to be a Sacrament

1. “And now to the consideration...” [Lombard, Sent. IV d.24 ch.1 n.1].

2. About the twenty fourth distinction I ask one question only: whether there are seven Orders in the Church, in the way in which Order or Ordination is posited to be a sacrament.

3. That there are not:

Because then in the Church there would be thirteen sacraments, because in addition to the sacrament of Order there are another six.

4. Again, any Order has a character proper to it; therefore, seven characters correspond to those seven Orders. The consequent is false, because either they would be of the same species, which is false (because several accidents of the same species cannot be together at once in the same subject, from Metaphysics 5.10.1018a1-b8), or they would be of a different species, and this seems unacceptable (because there is an essential greater and lesser nobility in species; an essential excellence in these characters would not seem capable of being assigned).

5. Again, in the primitive Church there seem to have been only two Orders, namely the priesthood and the diaconate, since we do not indeed in Acts read that there were then other Orders in the Church. Therefore, there are not now either, because the Church has not added further any Order after the time of the Apostles; for in this sacrament, as in the others, one must find an instituting of it by Christ.

6. Again, Dionysius, Ecclesiastical Hierarchy ch.5, has set down only three Orders: episcopacy, priesthood, and diaconate.

7. Again, Isidore Etymologies 7.12 sets down episcopacy to be an Order, and it is none of these seven; therefore there are more than seven.

8. The same is held about episcopacy in Gratian Decretum p.1 d.21 ch.1.

9. Again, ‘first tonsure’ seems to be a sacrament, because it is a sign of a sacred thing [Ord. IV d.1 n.178; Augustine’s definition], and because those who have the first tonsure enjoy clerical privilege, which seems to be proper to Order.

10. To the opposite is the Master in the text [Lombard, Sent. IV d.24 chs. 1-2].

I. To the Question

11. About this distinction there are four things to look at: first, what is an Order, according as we are now speaking of Order; second how many orders there in the Church in this way of speaking; third, if Order is a sacrament; and fourth how it is one.

A. What an Order is According as we are Now Speaking of Order

1. Opinion of Others

a. Statement of the Opinion

12. About the first point it is said [Bonaventure, Sent. IV d.24 p.1 a.2 q.2] that the sacrament of Order is “a spiritual power for carrying out some act in the ecclesiastical hierarchy;” and consequently, Orders in the Church would have to be distinguished according to order of diversity for such acts.

b. Rejection of the Opinion

13. On the contrary:

From this description it follows that episcopacy is an Order, which is against them.Bonaventure held, along with others, that the episcopacy was not an order but an ‘eminence or dignity of order’, ibid. p.2 a.2 q.3 [n.12]. ⁷² For it appears that episcopacy is a spiritual order for some special act in the Church, as for act of confirming and conferring Holy Orders - and not just a power for carrying out these acts fittingly, but for carrying them out simply, because a non-bishop, if he attempt to do these acts, does not, as it seem, do anything.

14. Second, it follows that under the priestly order there is not any Order in the Church, which is against everyone. Proof of the consequence: for spiritual power, speaking of power simply, is not had by a deacon or a sub-deacon, because although he could do something fittingly that a layman would not do fittingly, yet if a layman were to attempt to do it, he would simply do it.

15. Third, it follows that priesthood is two Orders, because a double spiritual power belongs to a priest, namely of confecting the body of Christ and of absolving the penitent, which are not one power because one seems to have existed before the other; for in the Cena the Lord conferred the first power, and the second only after the resurrection, John 20.22-23.

2. Scotus’ own Opinion

a. About Order Taken Generally

16. One needs to understand, then, that order is in one way taken as Augustine describes it in City of God 19.13 n.1, that “order is the fitting disposition of equal and unequal things bestowing on each of them their place.” We commonly take order in this way when we say that there is an order of beings in the universe; and thus does Aristotle speak, Metaphysics 12.10.1075a16, “all things are in some ordered,” and he explains how. Also in this way is order in well-disposed polities taken, where the fitting disposition of equal and unequal persons in the polity is called the order of that polity, by which it is said to be ordered.

17. But in another way is the preeminent rank in such polity called order. And thus is a person in an eminent rank said to have order, in the way that ‘having a rank’ is said quasi-antonomastically, because those who are in a lower rank are not said to have a rank thus.

18. In this way there is fittingly in the Church, which is an ordered polity, an order according to this double acceptation. For according to the first acceptation is the whole Church ordered with the fitting disposition of equal and unequal persons each in their place. In the second way is a person who has an eminent rank in the Church said to have order. And although these two significations posit each other mutually (because when there is order in the first way in a polity there is eminent rank there and so order in the second way), yet this signification and that are not the same, as is plain enough. The way, then, that we are speaking here of order, order is taken here for the second signification, not for the first.

19. Further, an eminent rank in the Church is said to be in order to an eminent ecclesiastical act; not, to be sure, in this way, that rank is a power for carrying out the act (as the earlier rejected opinion said [n.12]), but that it be a rank disposing one fittingly or simply to carrying out that act in due way, so that order thus could, as we are here speaking of order, be called a preeminent rank in the Church disposing one to some preeminent act. And because the acts especially preeminent in the Church are acts respecting the sacraments, therefore can it more especially be said that order is a rank disposing one to some sacramental act.

b. About Order Taken Specifically

20. From this, as it were, general idea could inquiry be made into the more special idea of order, as we are here speaking of order; but on this point there is a certain controversy.

21. For those [Bonaventure, Ps-Isidorian Decretals, Ps.-Alcuin, Lombard, Albert the Great, Thomas Aquinas, Richard of Middleton] who posit that the priesthood is the simply first order, denying that episcopacy is an order, would, from the fact that the priesthood is a rank disposing one to the consecrating of the Eucharist as to the more excellent act agreeing to that rank (and the idea of all the inferior ranks ought to be in their order to the first rank) - these say that the fitting description of order would be that it is ‘a preeminent rank in the Church, disposing one by congruity to some act pertaining to the consecration or dispensation of the Eucharist’.

22. Others [Godfrey of Vendome, William of Auxerre], who say that episcopacy is an order, because some rank belongs to it in the Church that does not belong to the priest, do not restrict the idea of order to the fact that it disposes one to an eminent act pertaining to the Eucharist, but in general that it is an eminent rank in the Church disposing one to carrying out some sacramental act. And in this way the power that episcopacy adds over priesthood has regard to some sacramental act, namely to confirm and to confer orders, which acts are proper to bishops.

B. How Many Orders there are in the Church in the Way that Order or Ordination is Posited to be a Sacrament

1. First Position of Others, Understood in Two ways

23. About the second article [n.11], those who rely on the words of Dionysius and Isidore (cited for the first side [nn.6-7]), and the canonists [e.g. Gratian, Decretum p.1 d.21 ch.1], say that the episcopacy is properly an order.

24. In favor of this seems to be the argument that, since a certain special power belongs to a bishop insofar as he is a bishop, it is either one of order, and then the conclusion is gained, or it is one of jurisdiction, and then it could be taken away by a superior - which seems unacceptable, because a consecration much lesser than a bishop’s cannot be taken away without the one who was once consecrated remaining always consecrated. The proof is from the Gloss on Gregory IX Decretals III tit. 4 ch.9 [“Sacramental anointing is perpetual and cannot be lost, though the exercising of it may sometimes be suspended”].

25. This approach [n.23], comparing the episcopacy to the priesthood, could be held in a double way.

26. In one way as follows, because ‘rank’ can be called eminent either because of the universality of the acts that it has regard to, or because of the nobility of the act that it has regard to. And this distinction appears in other polities where many acts belong to someone and fewer to someone else, but a nobler one can belong to the latter (as a judge can pronounce sentence, which is a nobler act than many others that belong to a lower person). But he who has universality for acts has also the nobler act, because in the universality for acts is included the nobler act. And therefrom does it seem that the rank which includes and regards the universality of acts is simply superior to the one which regards precisely the noblest act. And thus would the episcopacy be called a simply superior and nobler order, because it has an order to all ecclesiastical acts, but the priesthood does not have an order to them all, though it does have an order to the noblest of them.

27. And then the argument of a certain doctor [Richard of Middleton, Sent. IV d.24 princ.5 q.2] against this conclusion [n.26], which is that “the one order does not depend on the other as concerns necessity for the sacrament, but if a non-priest were to be ordained a bishop, nothing would happen etc.,” proves rather the opposite, for by how much the order of the episcopacy more includes the priesthood and other lower ranks, by that much is it simply more perfect, because it more essentially regards the acts of the ranks it includes.

28. Holding to this conclusion [n.23], namely that the episcopacy is properly an order and different from the priesthood, it could yet be said that it would not be nobler, because although, by its including the priesthood and episcopacy, it is a more eminent rank (since it is for more acts than by the other rank alone), yet what the episcopacy precisely adds above the priesthood is not as excellent as is the priesthood. For acts as noble as belong through the priesthood to the priesthood do not belong to the episcopacy through what, above the priesthood, is added to it.

29. Nor would those [who hold this view] regard it as unacceptable that an imperfect order presuppose (and necessarily presuppose) that it receive a more perfect order when the more imperfect one is adds to ecclesiastical acts some universality - a universality that the one that is more perfect does not include, but only includes order to a more perfect act.

2. Another Position of Others

30. Others [William of Militon, Questions on Sacraments, tr.4 q.74; Thomas Aquinas, Sent. IV d.24 a.3 a.2; Richard of Middleton, Sent. IV d.24 princ.5 a.2] contradict the conclusion that these two ways hold to [nn.26-29], because they deny that episcopacy is an order properly speaking; and so neither do they posit it to be an order superior to the priesthood (as the first way says [nn.26-27]), nor inferior to it (as the second way says [nn.28-29]).

31. Nor do they say that a character is there imprinted.

32. But whether a character can be deleted by the Pope when he deposes a bishop, or cannot be deleted because of the consecration with which it is conferred, they dispute among themselves [Ord. IV d.6 nn.201, 233-237].

33. But the dispute seems empty when denying episcopacy to be an order; for any jurisdiction in the Church can by a superior either be suspended (so that if he attempt to do anything during the time of suspension, he does nothing), or totally taken away for all time.

3. Scotus’ own Position

34. Whatever, at any rate, may be the case as to this controversy about episcopacy, the simply noblest act in the Church is the consecration of the Eucharist, and so the supreme or noblest rank (because of the nobility of the act for which it disposes) is the priesthood. And consequently, taking the description of order in this way, according to the description put in the first article [n.22] and to the distinction of order in the Church, there are only seven orders. Of these the first is the rank that disposes for consecration of the Eucharist, and it is the priesthood; the second rank, that disposes for the dispensation of the Eucharist (at least of the blood), is the diaconate; the third, that disposes for the offering of the Eucharistic matter to be consecrated, is the subdiaconate.

35. And the reason why these three are called orders is sufficiently plain, because they immediately dispose someone for an act or ministry about the Eucharist, or about presenting the matter of it.

36. Further, some ranks dispose for acts that are remotely related to the Eucharist: either for suitable disposition in the people, for adoring or receiving the Eucharist, or for removing impediment or unsuitable disposition. In the first way, a suitable disposition (pertaining to affection) is devotion, and for this devotion the acolyte attends by lighting the waxen candles. Another disposition, pertaining to understanding, is knowledge, and for this does the lector act. If the ranks dispose in the second way, namely by removing impediment or preventing the unworthy from coming near - then either unworthy men and to this pertains the office of gatekeeper, or demons and to this pertains the office of exorcist.

37. From these points it is plain that the first act of the deacon is not to read the Gospel, nor of the subdeacon to read the Epistle, but these are remote and less perfect acts; and the most perfect acts of them and proper to those orders are the acts that the one has immediately as to dispensing the Eucharist and the other as to offering its matter.

C. Whether Order is a Sacrament

38. About the third article [n.11] I say that, speaking properly of sacrament, order is not a sacrament, because every sacrament is a sensible sign, and order, as was said, is a certain spiritual rank. However, taking sacrament for an invisible sign, the way something is said to be ‘thing and sacrament’, it can in this way be called a sacrament, because it is a sign of the fitting execution of an act due to that rank, and also a sign of the act fitting that rank.

39. What then is the seventh sacrament? I say that it is ordination.

40. Whose description can be this: ‘Ordination is the instituting of someone in a preeminent rank of the Church, to which belongs some ministry as regard display of the Eucharist, carried out by a suitable minister speaking certain words and with due intention at the same time, representing with some visible sign the ranks of it, signifying by divine institution the preeminent grace whereby the ordained person may worthily carry out some ministry’.

41. And according to this universal idea of ordination can the special ideas of ordinations be proportionately taken, as for example the ordination of someone to the priesthood: ‘The instituting of him in a simply preeminent rank of the Church, disposing him who has it for consecrating the sacrament of the Eucharist, done by a bishop, speaking certain words with due intention’.

42. And if as to the parts of the universal description [n.40], and proportionally as to any particular description, you ask who the suitable minister is, I reply and say that the bishop and he alone is the minister in Holy Orders; but in the other non-sacred Orders, sometimes by commission some are ministers who have the privilege, as abbots.

43. But what words or what form?

I say that the words or the form that bishops have in episcopal books.

44. But in the priesthood it seems probable that there are two partial forms there, in one of which the power of confecting the Eucharist is conferred, in the other the power of absolving the penitent in penitential confession. And with these are conjoined two proper matters, that is, two visible signs: the matter of the first form is the handing over of the chalice and the paten with hosts: “Receive the power of celebrating etc.;” and of the second form the imposition of the bishop’s hands on the head, “Receive the Holy Spirit,” so that thus the bishop acts agreeably with the supreme bishop, Christ, who, as was said [n.15], conferred on the Apostles the power of confecting before that of absolving.

45. From these points is plain how there are seven ordinations, which are institutings in the case of orders; and the seven are said to be contained under the sacrament of order, or more properly under the sacrament of ordination, insofar as it is one sacrament.

D. How the Sacrament of Order is One

46. But now as to the fourth article [n.11], how the sacrament of order is one, I say that it is one by unity of proximate genus, as the moral virtues are said to be three according to genus: justice, fortitude, temperance. And in the first division of moral virtue these occur first; however, each of them is divided specifically into many, as was said in Ord. III d.34 nn.54-80.

47. But there is another unity between the orders, because there is a unity of order; for it is fitting to receive a lower order first before a higher one, nor yet is this order simply necessary such that, if it is omitted, nothing happens, as is plain in Gregory IX, Decretals V tit.29 ch.1, ‘About a cleric promoted by bounds’, where one gets that ‘what has been done is not to be repeated but what was passed over is to be cautiously supplied’. And consequently, it is not the case that, if a lower order has not been conferred first, nothing is done in the conferring of a higher order. But this unity of order is not that by which order or ordination is one sacrament, but is rather a prior unity, namely unity of genus [Scotus more fully in Rep. IV A d.24 q.1 n.14].

II. To the Initial Arguments

48. To the first main argument [n.3] I say that, in the primary division of sacraments into seven, order or ordination there is only one member, although it could be further divided into certain special ones contained under it. For that first division is not into the most specific species but into certain things contained more nearly under it.

49. As to the second [n.4] I concede that there are several characters, and it is more probable that they are of different species, as appears from the acts for which these ranks make disposition; and these ranks are either characters or have proper characters corresponding to them. And when argument [n.4] is made about the specific excellence, it can be conceded that they have such excellence in the same way that characters are beings. If they were also posited to be of the same species, the refutation (that then ‘they would exist together’) would not be probative. For that proposition is not true even of real relations; and as was said above, Ord. IV d.6 nn.333-334, it is not necessary to posit that a character is an absolute form.

50. To the third I say that in the primitive Church there were few believers, and therefore a few ministers were sufficient for dispensing the Eucharist to them, and so there was then no need for ministers to be instituted in the several ranks. But afterwards the faith increased and devotion to daily communion accompanied it; and then it was necessary to have many ministers for the individual ministries pertaining to the Eucharist. And then the Church instituted many ministers in the several ranks.

51. Nor yet were those orders newly instituted; indeed, the Master says in the text [Sent. IV d.24 ch.1 nn.2-11] that Christ exercised the acts of the several orders in himself, and also that they were anciently prefigured in the Mosaic Law (in certain ranks corresponding to them). But the orders anciently instituted were, after the number of the faithful was multiplied, then conferred on ministers, which orders did not need before to be conferred on certain persons, because the ministry of them before was not necessary.

52. The reason why now in the Church there are not determinate ministers in the several orders is because, although now the multitude of the faithful has multiplied, yet the happiness of devotion has changed; hence many scarcely want to communicate once in a year. And therefore there is not need now for there to be so many ministers involved in dispensing the Eucharist. And that is why the four non-holy orders are conferred together, so that no one is deputed to minister in the rank of the lower orders as if that order was proper to him and another order to another.

53. As to Isidore and Dionysius and the Decretum [nn.6-8], the thing is plain from what was said in the second article [n.30], for those who deny that episcopacy is an order expound that they [Isidore, Dionysius] take sacrament for a sacramental.

54. As to the final argument [n.9], I deny that the first tonsure is an order. And when you say it is a ‘sign of a sacred thing’, I say that it is not a practical sign effective of the sacramental thing, that is, of grace, in the way that a sacrament must be understood to be a sign of a sacred thing, as was said in Ord. IV d.1 nn.179, 201, 206. As to what is added there about clerical privilege, it is not valid because converted layman in Religion [sc. lay members of religious orders] enjoy clerical privilege, and the legislator could have given that privilege to a prince or to anyone simply a layman. The proposition     therefore that the privilege is proper to the ordained is false.