Chapter I — The definition of simony, its various species: and what things have the character of a price for contracting simony

I. QUESTION I. What is simony? ANSWER. Simony, named from Simon Magus, is a studious will of buying or selling something spiritual or annexed to a spiritual thing, as St. Thomas says, II-II, q. 100, art. 1. The first particle studious will betrays a deliberate action of the will. The other, of buying or selling, sets forth every onerous and not gratuitous contract, by which a spiritual thing is bought, sold, let out, exchanged, or transacted for some temporal price, or for some thing appraisable at a price. The last particles signify something proceeding from God as supernatural author, or directed to God as author of salvation.

II. This spiritual thing is threefold. 1. One is spiritual in itself, as grace, ecclesiastical jurisdiction, infused virtues, the gifts of the Holy Ghost given gratis, the working of miracles, the interpretation of tongues, and so forth. 2. Another is spiritual as effecting, as the sacraments. 3. There is the spiritual produced by a spiritual cause, as dispensations in vows and oaths, absolution from censures, to bury the dead, to sing in choir, and so forth. Annexed to a spiritual thing happens in two ways: either because it is antecedently conjoined with a spiritual thing, as are ecclesiastical benefices, which suppose the clerical Order; or because it accompanies, or follows, a spiritual thing, or is ordained to a spiritual thing, as are sacred vestments, sacred vessels, temples, the relics of Saints, and the right of patronage of presenting to benefices.

III. QUESTION II. Of how many kinds is simony? ANSWER. Twofold. One of natural and divine right, which is by its own nature evil, and which is committed while those things which are spiritual, or annexed to spiritual things — as graces, sacraments, ecclesiastical jurisdiction, gifts, virtues, and so forth — are sold or bought. The other is of ecclesiastical right, which is evil because forbidden: this is set in the exchange and resignation of benefices, and so forth.

IV. Simony is further divided into mental, conventional, real, and confidential. That is called mental which stops within the mind, which can happen in two ways: 1. When someone by an internal purpose deliberates to commit simony; 2. When he indicates it outwardly. Conventional arises from the mental; and it is an express or tacit convention of giving a temporal for a spiritual thing, or the contrary: but on neither side is it committed to execution, or only on one. Real follows upon both, and is committed to execution, either in part or in whole, of that which had been conceived in mind and outwardly agreed upon. Confidential is when someone procures a benefice by electing, presenting, resigning, or by another way, with a confidence or agreement, express or tacit, that he for whom it is procured shall resign it either to the procurer or to another, or shall render a pension or the fruits from it.

V. QUESTION III. Whether a feigned simoniac commits true simony? ANSWER. A feigned simoniac is he who promises a price for a benefice, with the mind of not obliging himself nor of delivering it. That this man sins most gravely all affirm. But several deny that he is a simoniac. The opposite opinion is to me true. The exterior promise of giving a price collides with the interior intention. The former opinion opens a most broad way of obtaining and retaining benefices by these feigned simonies. For the rest the case is rare, because sellers of spiritual things are not wont to be less crafty and cunning than buyers; and unless they be secure and rely upon the price, they do not sell.

VI. QUESTION IV. What things have the character of a price in simony? ANSWER. A gift from service, from the hand, from the tongue. A gift from service is a subjection offered, as to serve the collator of a spiritual thing, to sit by him, to attend him, to teach and instruct, and so forth. A gift from the hand is money, and whatever comes under the name of money, whether delivered or promised. A gift from the tongue is favour, praise, encomiums, prayers, supplications, adulations, and other things of this kind. A general and precise rule cannot be designated as to when simony is perpetrated in a gift from service and from the tongue. The delivery or promise of money is almost never a gratuitous gift. If a bishop should confer a benefice upon a minister on account of services rendered or to be rendered without salary, he commonly commits simony, even if no agreement intervene: since the deed speaks, and obtains the place of an agreement.

VII. Commonly gifts from the tongue and from service, if they be gratuitous, do not bring it about that the collation of a benefice is simoniacal. But rarely are they gratuitous and sincere testimonies of an ingenuous mind. Some distinguish between offering principally and less principally. The distinction is absolutely true. But in practice it is most difficult to distinguish the confines of the primary and secondary of this distinction, and a crafty mind transforms itself and puts on a mask. Wherefore both candidates and collators ought to abstain from gifts of this kind. Those who are worthy do not need these prestiges.

VIII. A gift imposed under an obligation contains simony, since such an obligation is appraisable at a price. If a loan be delivered from an agreement or convention of attaining a spiritual thing, similarly it is simony.

IX. Those who under the title of consanguinity or affinity confer benefices, and prefer a blood-relation or kinsman to the worthier, sin most gravely against justice, as St. Thomas teaches, II-II, q. 100, art. 5, reply 1, and all theologians subscribe to him. A bishop perpetrates simony if he agrees concerning a pension to be paid to himself or to another, or confers a benefice on condition that otherwise he would not have imposed the pension. Guilty of simony also are candidates who in the Roman Curia promise a pension to be paid, or something else appraisable at a price, to courtiers or to any others whatsoever, that they may afford help or favour for attaining a benefice. Those who impose upon a benefice a burden in no way annexed to it commit simony. Wherefore it is simony to renounce or to exchange benefices with any agreements, conditions, or modes added in favour of another. Guilty of simony also are those who exchange or renounce benefices with a pension by the Pope's leave, but with the condition added that the resignee pay the bulls of the pension. Similarly they perpetrate simony who confer a benefice with the care of souls upon the burden that he freely resign the benefice which he has, because they would append a condition in the collation of the benefice which is not of right.