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.