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.