Question III: What punishments are owed to schismatics

I suppose first that Schismatics do not lose spiritual power: that which consists in the Character of Baptism, Confirmation, or Order; for this is indeleble, as St. Thomas teaches, art. 3., and others, and as is clear from Urban, can. Ordinationes, dist. 9 quaest. 1., who decrees that those ordained by Schismatic Bishops are truly ordained; and St. Augustine Lib. 6. de Baptismo, cap. 5., where he says: A man in separation can hand on the Sacrament, just as he can have it.

Second, it is certain that these Schismatics are deprived of the faculty of using rightly and lawfully this power of the Character; and indeed are deprived of this power as to its lawful use. So St. Thomas art. 3. It is had in cap. Novatianus, causa 7. quaest. 1.

Understand the Fathers of the Lateran Council in this sense, cap. 1. extra, de Schismaticis, saying: We judge the ordinations made by Octavian and Guy, heresiarchs, to be null. This Urban also says in can. Ordinationes, 9. quaest. 1.; for it must be understood as to their lawful execution, as the Gloss expounds there, and St. Thomas loco cit., and Turrecremata Lib. 4. summae, part. 1. cap. 7.

Yet in necessity it is lawful to receive Baptism from a Schismatic, as St. Thomas notes, art. 4. ad 1.

Third, it is certain that these incur excommunication, laid down in can. Nulli, dist. 19., according to Sylvester, V. Schismatici, num. 5. after Archidiaconus, Hugo, Innocentius, and Ioan. Andreas, and in cap. Excommunicamus, de haeret., and in the Bulla coenae, as Valencia notes, quaest. 15 puncto 3., Tannerus disp. 2. quaest. 6. dub. 2.

Fourth, it is certain that through Schism those who can incur excommunication lose jurisdiction ipso facto, and they are all below the Pope; for the Excommunicated lose jurisdiction, from whose power we are freed, as Valencia notes loco cit., drawing on Cajetan de authoritate Papae, cap. 22., indeed on Gregory VII, can. Nos sanctorum, 15. quaest. 6.

But the Pontiff cannot by excommunication fall from his dignity.

Fifth, it is certain that pertinacious Schismatics can be punished by deposition, as is clear in Can. In nomine Domini, 23., and Turrecremata and Valencia note it above. And if they still do not come to their senses, they can be punished with corporal punishments, with the help of the secular arm, as Pope Pelagius orders, de Liguribus, 23. q. 5., and St. Thomas teaches, art 4. ad 3., Tannerus num. 11.

The controversy, however, is whether by the force of Schism jurisdiction is lost, and indeed whether even the Pontiff, should he become a Schismatic, falls from the Papacy.

The same question is about the sin of heresy: whether by its force jurisdiction, even papal, is lost.

The first opinion is that jurisdiction, especially papal, is never lost, neither through Heresy nor through Schism, which is the lesser. So Cajetan, de authoritate Papae, cap. 20. 21. and 22. Sotus seems to feel the same, 4. dist. 22. quaest. 2. art. 2.; Canus lib. 4. de locis, cap. 2. and cap. ult. ad arg. 22.; and others as gathered by Turrecremata, Lib. 4. summae, part. 2. cap. 19.

The second opinion, extremely opposite, is that by Schism or heresy, even occult, the power of jurisdiction is lost, even papal. So St. Thomas hic, art. 3.; Turrecremata cap. 20.; Sylvester, verbo Schismatici, num. 3., where he says this is the unanimous sense of all the Doctors; and others as gathered by Valencia, disp. 3. quaest. 15. puncto 3.

The third opinion is the middle one: that the manifest Schismatic and heretic loses the power of jurisdiction ipso facto; but not the occult one, until he either becomes manifest or is declared by the sentence of the Church. All who judge that those do not altogether cease to be members of the Church who communicate with the other faithful, at least by external profession of faith and of the Sacraments, seem to hold this opinion. So Vuald. Tom. 1. Lib. 2. cap. 9. et 11.; Driedo Lib. 4. de Ecclesiasticis dog. et Scripturis, cap. 2. part. 2. sent. 2. et 7.; Castro Lib. 4. de locis, cap. 6. ad arg. 12.; Bellarm. Lib. 3. de Ecclesia, cap. 12. and Lib. 2. de Romano Pontifice, cap. 30.; Valencia supra, who says this opinion more easily avoids the confusions and dangers which could otherwise follow in the Church if the actions of Schismatics and heretics were invalid ipso facto; so also Tannerus disp. 3. quaest. 6. dub. 2. num. 22.

Second, because this man, though he is not intrinsically a part of the Church, is nevertheless still a member of the Church by external union, through the profession and use of the Sacraments.

It is confirmed by what Pope Coelestinus says, epist. ad clerum Constantinop., where he says that Nestorius and his followers, after they began to preach their heresies, could not excommunicate anyone or remove anyone from his place, because they no longer had the power to do so. He says the same in another letter to John of Antioch. The same is said of any Bishop in can. Audivimus, 24. quaest. 1.: that no one can condemn anyone from the moment he begins to preach a heresy of his own devising.

Finally others, the Fathers, want it to hold absolutely, being brought forward by the Doctors of the second opinion, as Cyprian Lib. 1. epist. 6.; Ambrose Lib. 1. de poenit. cap. 2.; Augustine in Enchir, cap. 65.; Optatus Lib. 1. cont. Parmen.; and Bede in cap. 18. Matthaei.

You will object, with the second opinion: He who has jurisdiction over the body of the Church must be a member united to it; for he who is divided cannot influence or move; but the Schismatic and heretic, even occult, is severed: Therefore. The minor is proved of the heretic; for Faith is the foundation of the union. As to the Schismatic, it is clear from the definition of Schism.

[Page 156 of the 1676 edition is missing from the only scan of this volume available to us, and therefore from this text. It held the end of this question, the opening of Disputation XVI, On War, and the beginning of its first question; the headings are supplied from the printed index.]