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.