Question I

GRATIAN. Part I. That it is a sin to buy spiritual things is proved by the authorities of many. For Pope Leo says:

If grace is not given or received gratuitously, it is not grace. But simoniacs do not receive gratuitously; therefore they do not receive the grace which operates especially in ecclesiastical orders. But if they receive it, they do not have it; and if they do not have it, they can give it to no one, either gratuitously or non-gratuitously. What, then, do they give? Surely that which they have. But what do they have? Certainly the spirit of falsehood. How do we prove this? Because if the Spirit of truth—according to the testimony of the Truth itself, from whom it proceeds—is received gratuitously, beyond doubt that which is not received gratuitously is proved to be the spirit of falsehood.

Likewise Gregory to Syagrius, Bishop of Autun, [book VII, epistle 110]. Whoever strives to receive holy order by the giving of a price is not a priest, but vainly desires merely to be called one.

Likewise in the Register. If a priest has obtained a church through money, let him not only be deprived of the church but also be stripped of the honor of the priesthood, because none of the faithful is ignorant that to sell or buy the altar, tithes, and the Holy Spirit is the simoniacal heresy.

The same, [Gregory I, the aforesaid epistle 110, book VII]. The blessing is converted into a curse for the one who is promoted so that he may become a heretic.

The same in the same place. Whoever is ordained through money is promoted so that he may become a heretic. Therefore, whoever, according to the station of his office, has not burned vehemently against the simoniacal heresy and that of neophytes should not doubt that he will have a portion with the one who first committed this heinous outrage.

Likewise Pope Gelasius, [to the Bishops established throughout Lucania, epistle I, c. 26]. Those who are established to have bought a sacred dignity for a price, though unworthy by their merits, must, when convicted, be excluded, since they perpetrate such a crime not without peril, because the condemnation of Simon, which sacred reading attests, encompasses equally the giver and the receiver.

Likewise Ambrose in the pastoral book. Very many are found wishing, by the commerce of a gift, to buy the grace of the Holy Spirit, when they give a price to those persons so that they may receive the sublimity of the pontifical order, forgetful of the words of Peter, who said to Simon: “May your money be with you unto perdition, because you thought to possess the gift of God by money.” Therefore, because so great an evil is both customary and has frequently been cut down by the blade of our forebears, we too apply to this cancerous wound the heated iron which still remains, decreeing altogether that whoever from now on is discovered to have offered any reward for receiving the dignity of the divine gift is to know himself condemned from that very time by the reproach of anathema and estranged from participation in the body and blood of Christ, from the time when it is established that he perpetrated this outrage execrable to Christ. But if anyone should arise as his accuser, the one who gained this order by the giving of gifts is both to be deprived of the grade of honor he received and to be thrust into a monastery under perpetual penance. Those, however, who were recipients of gifts in this cause, if they were clerics, are to be punished by the loss of their honor; but if laymen, they are to be condemned by perpetual anathema.

Likewise from the Council of Chalcedon, [c. 2]. If any bishop performs an ordination through money and reduces to a price the grace of the Holy Spirit, which cannot be sold, and ordains through money a priest or deacon, or promotes any of those who are numbered among the clergy—even a steward or defender, or anyone subject to the rule—for the advantage of his most shameful gain, he who is proved to have attempted this will be subject to the peril of his own grade; and let the one ordained derive no benefit from this ordination or promotion which was effected through commerce, but let him be estranged from the dignity or charge which he acquired by money. But if anyone was a mediator in such shameful and impious gifts or receipts, if indeed he was a cleric, let him fall from his own grade; but if a layman, let him be anathematized.

Likewise from the Eighth Synod. Let one who has consecrated anyone through money, or who has been consecrated by another, be estranged from the priesthood.

Likewise Pope Callistus [II]. Following the examples of the holy Fathers and renewing them by the obligation of our office, by the authority of the apostolic see we prohibit in every way that anyone be ordained or promoted in the Church of God through money. But if anyone has acquired an ordination or promotion in the Church in this manner, let him be wholly without the dignity acquired.

Likewise Gregory Nazianzen. There is no doubt that one who strives to buy the gift of God for a price can by no reason remain in holy order thereafter or be recalled to it. Let such a man be cut off from communion in every way. For what else is buying the gift of the Holy Spirit for a price than a capital crime and simoniacal heresy? How detestably this was punished in both Testaments is readily apparent from many examples. Gehazi sold to Naaman the Syrian the grace of healing; with Elisha punishing him, he lost that same grace of healing when he was made a leper. Judas sold the Redeemer of all; soon afterward, suspended from a noose, he did not obtain that same grace of redemption—and deservedly, because no one can retain what he has sold. Simon Magus also, when he wished to buy that same grace of the Holy Spirit, heard from Peter the sentence of his condemnation: “May your money be with you unto perdition, because you thought to possess the gift of God by money.” The Lord also, to show that sellers and buyers are without a share in this grace, forgave all sinners through grace in the temple, but, reproving sellers and buyers in particular, drove them from the temple with a scourge; in this it is established that sellers and buyers are destitute and empty of the grace of the Holy Spirit. For will the Spirit of Christ make those whom Christ cast out of the temple a temple for himself?

Likewise Gregory. Those who sell or buy sacred orders cannot be priests. Hence it is written: “Anathema to the giver, anathema to the receiver: this is the simoniacal heresy.” How, then, if they are anathema and are not holy, can they sanctify others? And since they are not in the body of Christ, how can they hand over or receive the body of Christ? How can one who is accursed bless?

The same, [Gregory to Syagrius and other Bishops, book VII, epistle 110]. Since it is clear that this heresy, before all others, crept in with a pestilential root and was condemned in its very origin by apostolic detestation, why is it not guarded against? Why is it not weighed that the blessing is converted into a curse for the one who is promoted so that he may become a heretic?

Likewise Ambrose, On Ministries, [or On Priestly Dignity, c. 5]. When he was ordained bishop, what he gave was gold; what he lost was his soul. When he ordained another, what he received was gold; what he gave was leprosy.

Likewise, [in the same place]. When you were ordained, you did not receive grace, because you did not merit it gratuitously.

Likewise concerning Gehazi. Leprosy swiftly follows shameful payment, and money wickedly acquired stains body and soul. § 1. You see that by the deed of the author the succession of the heir is condemned. For inexpiable is the fault of a ministry sold, and vengeance for heavenly grace passes to descendants. Finally, the Moabites and others will not enter the Church of God unto the third and fourth generation—that is, so long, to interpret it more simply, until the manifold succession of a generation should abolish the fault of its authors. But since those who sinned against God by the error of idolatry appear to have been punished unto the fourth generation, surely the sentence by which the seed of Gehazi is condemned forever for the cupidity of possessing appears harsher, especially since our Lord Jesus Christ, through the washing of regeneration, has given remission of sins to all. Why, then, is the seed of Gehazi condemned forever, unless you understand the seed to be of vices rather than of lineage? For just as those who are children of the promises are reckoned as good seed, so also those who are of error are reckoned as evil seed. For even the Jews are from the devil as father, certainly not by succession of flesh but of crime. Therefore all the covetous, all the avaricious, possess the leprosy of Gehazi together with their riches, and by wickedly acquired payment they have gathered not so much an abundance of patrimony as a treasure of crimes, with eternal punishment and brief fruit. Part II. GRATIAN. Therefore, because by the authority of Pope Leo simoniacs receive nothing but the spirit of falsehood; according to Gregory, the priesthood does not subsist among simoniacs, their blessing is converted into a curse, the anathema of giving and receiving remains among them, and, since they are not holy nor constituted in the body of Christ, since they are accursed, they can neither sanctify others, nor hand over or receive the body of Christ, nor bless others; according to Ambrose, moreover, they are condemned by the reproach of anathema and estranged from participation in the body and blood of Christ, since gold is received and leprosy given, since the fault of a ministry sold is inexpiable; according to the Council of Chalcedon, they are judged to derive no benefit from such an ordination; according to Gelasius, they are encompassed by the condemnation of Simon; according to Gregory Nazianzen, by no reason can they remain in holy order or be renewed in it, they are covered with leprosy by Elisha, condemned to perdition by Peter, and driven from the temple by Christ: what else can a simoniac confer upon a simoniac in his ordination except that which Innocent attests concerning other heretics, saying, [epistle XVIII to Alexander, c. 3]:

Those who have lost the perfection of the Spirit which they had received cannot give its fullness—which operates especially in ordinations—since they lost it through their perfidy. And again: § 1. One who did not have honor could not give honor, nor did the other receive anything, because there was nothing in the giver; but through a depraved imposition of the hand he gave the condemnation which he had.

The same, [to Rufus and other Bishops, epistle XXII, c. 3]. We have come to the third question, which because of its difficulty requires a longer discussion. When we say that those ordained by heretics have a head wounded through that imposition of the hand, medicine by which it may be able to recover health must be applied where the wound was inflicted. The health which follows a wound cannot be without a scar; and where the remedy of penance is necessary, there the honor of ordination cannot have a place. For as it is read, “One who touches the unclean will be unclean”; how will that which purity and cleanness customarily receive be bestowed upon him? § 1. But, to the contrary, it is asserted that one who has lost honor cannot give honor, nor did the other receive anything, because there was nothing in the giver which he could receive. We assent, and it is certainly true, because he could not give what he did not have. Indeed, through a depraved imposition of the hand he gave the condemnation which he had; and how one who was made a participant of the condemned man ought to receive honor, I cannot discover. § 2. But it is said that the true and just blessing of a lawful priest removes every vice which had been injected by a vicious man. Therefore, if this is so, let the sacrilegious and those guilty of every crime be brought to ordination, because by the blessing of ordination crimes or vices are thought to be removed. Let there be no place for penance, because ordination can bestow what long satisfaction customarily bestows. But it is the law of our Church to bestow only lay communion through the imposition of the hand upon those coming from the heretics—who nevertheless were baptized there—and not to substitute any one of these into even the least honor of the clergy. Part III. GRATIAN. But it is objected: Other heretics depart from the faith, whereas simoniacs, although they think the grace of the Holy Spirit saleable, nevertheless are not alien from the faith; and therefore what is decreed by Innocent concerning other heretics cannot consequently be understood of them. To these things the response is thus: Although simoniacs appear to hold the faith, they are nevertheless subjected to the perdition of unbelief. Hence blessed Ambrose, writing against Novatian in the first book On Penance, said:

When Simon, depraved by the practice of magic art, had thought that he could buy the grace of Christ through the imposition of the hand and the infusion of the Holy Spirit, Peter said: “You have neither lot nor part in this faith, because your heart is not right before God.” You see that by apostolic authority he condemns this man, who through magical vanity blasphemed against the Holy Spirit, and all the more because he did not have the pure conscience of faith.

Likewise Gregory in the Register. Since all avarice is the service of idols, whoever does not vigilantly guard against it, especially in the giving of ecclesiastical honors, is subjected to the perdition of unbelief, even if he appears to hold the faith which he neglects.

Likewise from the epistle of Tarasius, Bishop of Constantinople, sent to Pope Hadrian. Those who have imposed or impose hands through money, the divine apostle Peter—whose chair your holiness has obtained—deposes like Simon Magus. § 1. For more tolerable is the impious heresy of Macedonius and of those who are around him, assailants of the Holy Spirit. For they, raving, confess the Holy Spirit to be a creature and a servant of God the Father and the Son; these men make that same Holy Spirit their own servant. For every master sells what he has if he wishes, whether a servant or any other thing among those which he possesses. Similarly also one who buys, wishing to be master of that which he has bought, acquires it through the price of money. Thus also those who carry out this iniquitous action detract from the Holy Spirit, sinning equally with those who blasphemed by saying that Christ cast out demons in Beelzebub; and, to speak more truly, they are compared to Judas the traitor, who sold Christ to the Jews who killed God. Since, therefore, the Holy Spirit is consubstantial with Christ, they will be of the same portion as Judas. And beyond doubt the grace of the Holy Spirit—that is, the holiness of the priesthood—is not in them. For they do not have what they did not receive. For Peter says to Simon: “You have neither part nor lot in this word, because you thought to possess the gift of God by money.” § 2. For both the twenty-ninth canon of the holy Apostles, and their Acts, and the third and fourth books of Kings pronounce one who at any time has given or received money to be altogether alien from the priesthood, whether before the imposition of the hand or after the imposition. For to receive is to receive at any time.

Likewise from the Second Council of Braga, [c. 3]. It has pleased the council that bishops receive no gifts for the ordination of clerics, but that, as it is written, what they receive with God giving freely they give freely. Let not the grace of God and the imposition of hands be sold for any price, because the ancient definition of the Fathers established thus concerning ecclesiastical ordinations, saying: “Let there be anathema upon the giver and the receiver.” Because some, overwhelmed by many crimes and ministering unworthily at the holy altar, obtain this not by the testimony of good works but by the profusion of gifts, clerics must be ordained not through the favor of gifts but first through diligent examination and then through the testimony of many. GRATIAN. From this authority of Ambrose and Gregory it is clear that simoniacs—just as other heretics—depart from the faith, and therefore what is decreed concerning others is consequently understood of them. Part IV. § 1. Likewise it is objected that prophecy is a gift of the Holy Spirit, but that in the Old Testament it customarily was sold by holy prophets. Hence Saul presumed to go to Samuel to seek an oracle only with a gift. The wife of Jeroboam also approached the man of God only with a gift. Likewise Christ, sold by Judas, healed the servant’s ear. Thus, from the example of Saul and Jeroboam’s wife it is clear that to buy or sell the gift of the Holy Spirit is not a sin. From the example of Christ it is evident that, although the Holy Spirit is unjustly thought saleable by simoniacs, he nevertheless does not forget his power, nor even when sold does he cease to bestow the effect of his grace. But concerning prophecy blessed Jerome resolves the matter suitably on [c. 3 of] Micah, declaring that only the wicked received gifts, not the good:

“Its rulers,” he says, “judged for gifts, its priests answered for payment, and its prophets divined for money, and they rested upon the Lord, saying: Is not the Lord among us? Evils will not come upon us. Therefore, because of you Zion will be plowed like a field, and Jerusalem will be like a watchtower of an orchard.” Let no one doubt that Jerusalem was overthrown because of the crimes which are read in this chapter. And a little later: § 1. Peter could have sold to Simon Magus what he sought; rather, he could have feigned himself a seller—for the Holy Spirit can neither be sold nor bought—but he condemned the money offered together with the one offering it. § 2. Nor should that move anyone which we read in the first book of Kings, that Saul, wishing to go to Samuel, said to his servant that he could not go to him “because there is no price in my hand,” and added: “A fourth part of a shekel is in my hand; this I will give to the man of God, and he will announce our way.” For it is not written that Samuel received it or that they offered it; rather, they are fed by the prophet. But suppose that he received it: it is to be reckoned an offering for the tabernacle rather than a gift to the prophet. For a shekel has twenty obols. Therefore, a fourth part of a shekel is five obols. Thus our priests, if they wish to sell prophecy and to display the dove upon their chairs—which the Lord overturned with a scourge—should be content with the payment of only five obols. Would that they received not the price of estates but five obols. § 3. This same thing sounds forth in the third book of Kings concerning the wife of Jeroboam proceeding to the man of God, who offered only ten loaves, a little cake, and a vessel of honey. These things are to be reckoned expenses for the prophet rather than gifts for prophecy, although those who were accustomed to go to soothsayers could, from their wicked custom, have thought the same thing concerning prophets and wished to offer to holy men what they were accustomed to offer to diviners. § 4. Hence in the fourth book of Kings it is read “that Elisha came to Damascus, and Ben-hadad, king of Syria, was ill; and they announced to him, saying: The man of God has come here. The king said to Hazael: Take gifts with you and go to meet the man of God, and consult the Lord through him, saying whether I can escape from this illness. Hazael therefore went to meet him, having gifts with him and all the good things of Damascus, burdens of forty camels.” But they are not to be believed to have received them, just as it is read concerning that same Elisha that Naaman, cleansed of leprosy, offered him gifts, saying: “I beseech you to receive a blessing from your servant.” But he responded: “As the Lord lives, before whom I stand, I will not receive it.” And although he pressed him, he did not acquiesce at all.

The same in the same place. Divination is never taken in a good sense. They indeed appeared to themselves to be prophets, but because they received money, their prophecy was made divination. GRATIAN. Therefore, since according to Jerome good prophets received not gifts for prophecy but offerings for the tabernacle, while for the wicked who did receive them prophecy—which appeared to be a gift of God—was converted into divination, which is diabolical, what else is gathered except that no spiritual grace cooperates with simoniacs, as was said above? For since in the sacraments “neither he who plants nor he who waters is anything, but God who gives the increase,” who operates in them if the Lord, who gives the increase, does not shine in them but is idle? Likewise, as to what is said concerning Christ—that just as Christ when sold restored Malchus’s ear and performed miracles, so also the Holy Spirit can be sold and in that very sale operate his grace—this likeness is not valid. For the Holy Spirit does not spiritually operate in the perfidious commerce of avarice what Christ performed bodily for the sake of a certain mystery as an example of patience. For if the likeness is universal, since the Holy Spirit is believed able to be sold as Christ was, let him also be believed able to be crucified, which is impossible. It can also be understood, so that we do not depart from the likeness, that just as Christ when sold bestowed the gifts of his grace not upon the seller or buyer but upon those who were present without knowledge, for whom he also prayed upon the cross, so also the Holy Spirit is proved to bestow the effect of his grace not upon the seller or buyer but upon those who, led by ignorance, receive the Lord’s sacraments from their hands. § 1. Likewise it is objected that although it is evil to buy ecclesiastical things, nevertheless sinister beginnings often arrive at happy outcomes. As Jacob arrived at the blessing through supplantation, as the crop which is sown by a leprous hand is nevertheless reaped clean, as beautiful offspring is born from adulterous intercourse, so also money which is acquired through simony has a happy outcome when it is expended to benefit the poor. But none of these things gives support to simoniacs. For Leo [the Bishop] says to the Bishops of Mauretania, [epistle LXXXV, otherwise LXXXVII]:

A primacy which either sedition has extorted or canvassing has seized, even if it does not offend in morals and actions, is nevertheless pernicious by the example of its own vice. And it is difficult for things begun from an evil beginning to be brought to completion with a good outcome.

Likewise Gregory to [Anastasius], Bishop of Antioch, [book VII, epistle 47, indiction 2]. Since Paul says, “No one can lay another foundation besides that which has been laid, which is Christ Jesus,” it is consequently proved that where Christ is not the foundation there is no superstructure of a good work.

The same to Syagrius the Bishop, [book VII, epistle 110]. It is not to be thought alms if that which is acquired from illicit things is distributed to the poor, because one who receives wickedly with this intention, that he may distribute well, is burdened rather than helped. § 1. Hence it is also certain that even if monasteries or hospices or anything else are constructed from money which is given for sacred orders, it does not profit toward reward. § 2. Therefore, lest under the pretext of alms we strive to receive anything with sin, Scripture prohibits it, saying: “The sacrifices of the impious, which are offered from crime, are abominable.” For whatever is offered in sacrifice to God from crime does not appease the wrath of almighty God, but provokes it. Hence again it is written: “Honor the Lord from your just labors.” Therefore, one who takes wickedly so that he may give as if well is established beyond doubt not to honor the Lord. Hence also it is said through Solomon: “One who offers a sacrifice from the substance of a poor man is as though he sacrifices the son in the sight of the father.” Let us weigh how great the father’s grief is if his son is sacrificed in his sight, and from this it is easily recognized how great a grief is aggravated before God when a sacrifice from robbery is bestowed upon him. Therefore, the perpetration of sins of simoniacal heresy under the pretext of alms must be exceedingly avoided. For it is one thing to make alms because of sins, another to commit sins because of alms. And after a few words: § 3. Therefore, whoever desires to obtain the priesthood not for the pomp of exaltation but for usefulness should first measure his strength against the burden which he is about to undertake, so that, if he is unequal to it, he abstain, and approach with fear even that for which he judges himself sufficient.

The same to Theodoric and Theudebert, Kings of the Franks, [book VII, epistle 114]. The simoniacal heresy—which first crept in against the Church of God by diabolical supplantation and in its very birth was struck and condemned by the zeal of apostolic vengeance—is reported to hold dominion within the boundaries of your kingdom, although faith together with life is to be chosen in priests. For if life is lacking, faith has no merit, as blessed James attests, who says: “Faith without works is dead.” For what works can there be of a priest who is proved to obtain the honors of so great a sacrament by a reward? And after a few words: § 1. Hence, therefore, a mortal wound is inflicted not only upon the soul of the ordainer and the ordained, but the governance of your excellency is also weighed down by the fault of your bishops, by whose intercessions it should rather have been helped. For if he is believed worthy of the priesthood whom not merits of action but abundance of rewards supports, it remains that gravity defend nothing for itself in ecclesiastical honors, diligence nothing, but that the profane love of gold obtain everything. And while honor rewards vices, perhaps the one who was to be punished is brought into the place of the punisher; and hence priests are judged not to advance but rather to perish. For when the shepherd is wounded, who applies medicine for curing the sheep? Or how may he protect the people with the shield of prayer who exposes himself to be struck by the missiles of the enemies? Or what fruit will he produce from himself whose root is infected by grave pestilence? Therefore, a greater calamity must be feared in those places where such intercessors are brought to the place of governance, who provoke God’s wrath against themselves more than they ought to appease it through themselves. GRATIAN. Therefore, since according to Leo simony is not brought to completion with a good outcome; according to Gregory, no superstructure of a good work follows, nor is that to be thought alms which is expended to the poor from the price of simony; medicine is not applied to cure the sheep when the shepherd is wounded; fruit is not produced from an infected root; and even a greater calamity is feared in the future—from so sinister a beginning, what happy outcome is hoped for? Hence Augustine says:

Just as the eunuch who bought Joseph was one, so one who buys grace has no living seed in his dry generative organs. So also the fire of sacrifice, which had lived under water through the seventy years of the Babylonian captivity, was extinguished when Antiochus sold the priesthood to Jason; this signified that the fire of the Holy Spirit does not shine in simoniacal sacraments. GRATIAN. What did blessed Augustine wish to signify by these likenesses except that the sacraments of simoniacs, just as those of other heretics, although true as to form, are nevertheless empty and false as to effect, since they cannot engender or kindle heavenly grace in human hearts? Part V. § 1. But that saying of Augustine against the heretics is objected, [tractate V on the Gospel of John]:

If the minister has been just, I count him with Paul, who does not seek his own glory, saying: “I planted, Apollo watered, but God gave the increase.” But a minister who has been proud is counted with the devil; yet Christ’s gift is not contaminated, because the pure river passes through him and comes to fertile earth. I know that a stone cannot bear fruit from water and that water passes through stony channels to the garden plots: it engenders nothing in the stony channel, but the garden brings forth very much fruit. For the spiritual power of the sacrament is received as pure light by those who are to be illuminated; but in passing through the unclean it is not defiled.

Likewise to Vincentius the Donatist, [epistle XLVIII]. All the Lord’s sacraments are from the catholic Church; you have and give them just as they were had and given before you departed from it.

Likewise to the Donatists, [book V, c. 19]. Thus God is present to his sacraments and words, through whomsoever they are administered, when their sacraments and words are right; just as evil men, whom these profit nothing, are perverse everywhere, that is, within and without.

Likewise, [book IV, On Baptism against the Donatists, c. 12]. Therefore no one, either without or within, who is on the devil’s side can defile in himself or in anyone else the sacrament which is Christ’s.

The same [Augustine] to Emeritus, [epistle CLXIV]. The sacraments which you have not changed, just as you have them, are approved by us, lest perhaps, when we wish to correct your depravity, we inflict sacrilegious injury upon those ministries which have not been depraved in your depravity. Nor had Saul depraved the anointing which he had received, an anointing to which the pious David repeatedly displayed so great an honor.

The same to the Donatists. Just as the false receive true things truly, not falsely, nor is their baptism rejected, so when schismatics and heretics come to us, we do not correct but rather approve those things which they have no differently and perform no differently than the true Church.

The same against Petilian, [book III, c. 9]. Let no one shun God’s sacraments either in a good man or in an evil man.

The same in the book On Baptism, [against the Donatists, book VI, c. 44]. Were not the Sodomites pagans, that is, gentiles? The Jews, then, were worse, to whom the Lord says: “It will be more tolerable for Sodom on the day of judgment than for you,” and to whom the Prophet said: “You have justified Sodom,” that is, by comparison with you she was made just. Yet were the divine sacraments which were among the Jews of the same quality as they themselves were? The Lord himself also received them, and sent the lepers whom he had cleansed to celebrate them; and an angel stood by Zechariah while he ministered them and announced that he had been heard while sacrificing in the temple. These same sacraments were both in the good men of that time and in evil men worse than the gentiles, since they were placed before the Sodomites in wickedness, and nevertheless those sacraments were integral and divine in both. For even the gentiles themselves, if they could have anything divine and right in their doctrines, were not rejected by our saints, although they were detestable because of their superstitions, idolatry, pride, and other ruined morals, and, unless corrected, were to be punished by divine judgment.

The same, [book III, c. 16]. There are many operations of the Holy Spirit; when the same Apostle had commemorated them in a certain place, he concluded thus: “But one and the same Spirit operates all these things, dividing to each one his own gifts just as he wills.” Therefore, since the sacrament which even Simon Magus could have is one thing, prophecy which is customarily made even in evil men, as in Saul, another, and the operation of that same Spirit which only the good can have—that is, charity—another: whatever heretics and schismatics may receive, “charity, which covers a multitude of sins,” is the proper gift of catholic unity and peace, nor is his gift in all, because not all are his.

The same, [in the same book, c. 18]. The avaricious do not give remission of sins; it is given through prayer, that is, through the groaning of the dove, whoever may baptize, if those to whom it is given belong to its peace. For the Lord does not say to robbers and usurers: “If you forgive anyone’s sins, they are forgiven him; if you retain anyone’s, they are retained.” Without, indeed, no one can be bound or loosed where there is no one who can bind or loose another; but one who has made peace with the dove is loosed, and one who does not have peace with the dove is bound, whether he is openly without or appears to be within. GRATIAN. Therefore, if sacraments, after the manner of light, cannot be defiled by the unclean; if, after the manner of a pure river, they come through stony channels to fertile garden plots, it is clear that simoniacs have the sacrament of anointing uselessly and perniciously for themselves, but administer that same anointing usefully and salvifically to others. Therefore, just as the sacraments of heretics are true as to form, so they are true and not empty as to effect. Part VI. But it is to be noted that some sacraments are of dignity, others of necessity. Because necessity has no law, but makes a law for itself, those sacraments which are necessary for salvation, because they cannot be repeated, when they are true ought not to be taken away or lost, but with penance are permitted to be ratified. But those sacraments which are of dignity, unless they have been worthily administered in such a way that worthy persons are worthily advanced by worthy persons, cease to be dignities—not so that the truth of the sacrament is diminished, but so that the office of administering ceases, by reason either of place, time, or promotion. By reason of place, as Leo says, [to Rusticus, Bishop of Narbonne, epistle XC, otherwise XCII, c. 1]:

If any have been ordained by pseudo-bishops, such an ordination can be held ratified, provided that they remain in those same churches. Otherwise such an ordination is to be held vain. GRATIAN. Behold, if anyone ordained by pseudo-bishops changes the place of his ordination, such an ordination is vain and will be without administration. By reason of time, as Innocent says, [epistle XXII, c. 5], concerning those ordained by Bonosus:

What was established because of the necessity of the time ought likewise to cease when that which pressed ceases, because lawful order is one thing, usurpation another. GRATIAN. Therefore, someone ordained at another time by one similar to Bonosus will cease from the administration which was permitted because of the necessity of that time. Likewise by reason of promotion, as Leo says, [epistle III to Julian of Aquileia]:

If anyone has stained himself by the contagion of heretical communion, he has this as a great benefice: that, with every hope of promotion taken away, he may remain in the order in which he is found. GRATIAN. Behold, if a cleric communicates with heretics either in ordination or in any sacrament, when promotion ceases he scarcely remains in his own order. For it is not with this sacrament as with the others. For the others are either given for washing away faults, as baptism and penance, or are denied for faults not eternally but for a time, as the Eucharist, which at the moment of death is conceded to one penitent even of heinous sins. This one alone is interdicted not only because of fault but also because of infamy, and even because of the diminished prerogative of its own purity or of external or internal perfection, as it is denied to bigamists, to husbands of widows, to the illiterate, or to those defective in any part of the body, to whom nevertheless baptism or the Eucharist is not denied. Such a person can also administer all the sacraments who is unable to confer this one alone. Hence Leo says, [to the Bishops of Africa, epistle LXXXV, otherwise LXXXVII, c. 2]:

If any bishops have consecrated as priest such a man as it is not permitted to be one, even if in some way they escape the loss of their own honor, they will nevertheless no longer have the right of ordination, nor will they ever participate in that sacrament which they bestowed without merit. GRATIAN. Behold, while they escape the peril of honor so that they are permitted to administer the other sacraments in priestly fashion, they are removed from this one alone not merely for heresy or any greater fault but even for negligence. In all these things it must be carefully noted that the sacrament of priestly promotion is to be given or received more carefully and worthily than all the others, because unless it has been conferred in this way, it thereby ceases to be ratified, because it was not rightly perfected. For the other sacraments are given to each person for himself, and become for each person such as the heart or conscience with which they are received. This one alone is given not for himself alone but for others; and therefore it is necessary that, as to himself, it be received with a true heart and clean conscience, but as to others, not only without every fault but also without all infamy, because of the scandal of the brothers, for whose usefulness the priesthood is given not only that priests may preside but also that they may profit. Hence Jerome on Micah:

Those who ordain any of their followers and expose their life as a scandal to the people are guilty of the unbelief of those who are scandalized. GRATIAN. For truly those who are chosen so that they may preside over others, just as they are preordained in dignity, so ought to be preeminent in sanctity. Otherwise, why are those preferred to others who by no grace of merits are raised above the others? Hence Symmachus to Lawrence, Bishop of Milan:

He is to be reckoned most vile, unless he excels in knowledge and sanctity, who is more excellent in honor. Part VII. GRATIAN. Therefore it is clear that this saying of Augustine—namely, that the sacraments of Christ ministered through heretics do not lack their effect—is to be understood not generally of all but of the sacrament of baptism. Hence the same Augustine says, [tractate V on John]:

Judas gave baptism, and there was no baptism after Judas; John gave baptism, and there was baptism after John, because that which was given by Judas was Christ’s baptism, while that by John was John’s. We rightly prefer not Judas to John, but Christ’s baptism—even when given through the hands of Judas—to John’s baptism. Likewise: § 1. Those whom Judas baptized, Christ also baptized; thus, therefore, those whom a drunkard, murderer, or adulterer baptizes, Christ baptizes. Likewise: § 2. The sacrament of the Church is so great that it is not polluted even when a murderer ministers it.

Likewise against the Donatists, [book IV, c. 4]. Just as I seem to be pressed when it is said to me, “Therefore, does a heretic forgive sin?” so I also press when I say, “Therefore, when an avaricious man, a pretender to religion, baptizes correctly, does he forgive sins?” If by the power of the sacrament, both the one and the other do; if by his own merit, neither the one nor the other does. For that sacrament is recognized to be Christ’s even in evil men; but in the body of the one undefiled dove neither the one nor the other is found. It is as though someone’s hand were withered: it would indeed be a true member, although without blood it would be ineffectual and dead. So also faith, though true, is nevertheless dead without works. Likewise: § 1. Thus one baptized in heresy in the name of the Holy Trinity is nevertheless not made a temple of God if he has not departed from heresy, just as one baptized in the same name while in avarice is not made a temple of God if he does not depart from avarice, which is the service of idols. Part VIII. GRATIAN. From these words, therefore, it appears that baptism which is bestowed by heretics confers remission of sins by its own power. But the same Augustine testifies to the contrary in book [VI] On Baptism [against the Donatists, c. 1], saying:

Even those slower of heart understand that Christ’s baptism can be violated by no depravity of the giver or receiver. But because the sacrament is one thing and the effect of the sacrament another, since it is established that those who live ruinously in the very unity of the Church can neither give nor have remission of sins—because it was said not to evil sons but to good ones, “If you forgive anyone’s sins, they will be forgiven; if you retain anyone’s, they will be retained”—it is therefore clear that heretics only give or receive the sacrament of baptism.

Likewise in The Words of the Lord concerning Blasphemy against the Spirit. Bodily sacraments, which even those separated from the unity of Christ’s body bear and celebrate, can have a form of piety. But the invisible and spiritual power can no more be in them than sensation follows a member when it is amputated from the body.

Likewise Ambrose in the book On Initiating the Untaught. The baptism of the perfidious does not heal, does not cleanse, but pollutes, because in the flood of waters they will not approach God; for, as is said through the Apostle, “Whatever is not from faith is sin,” and it not only does not profit those who perform it and those for whom they perform it, but is unto judgment.

Likewise Pope Leo to Bishop Nicetas, [epistle LXXVII, otherwise LXXIX, c. 7]. Those who received baptism from heretics, when they had not been baptized before, are to be confirmed by the invocation of the Holy Spirit alone through the imposition of the hand, because they received only the form of baptism without the power of sanctification. And, as you know, we proclaim that this rule is to be observed in all churches: that the washing once entered upon be violated by no repetition, as the Apostle says, “One God, one faith, one baptism”; its washing is to be profaned by no repetition, but, as we have said, only the sanctification of the Holy Spirit is to be invoked, so that what no one receives from heretics he may obtain from catholic priests. Part IX. GRATIAN. But it must be noted that heretics such as Arians and Sabellians—of whom some confessed an inequality, others a lack of distinction, of the persons—ministered baptism not in the form of the Church but of their own depravity. § 1. Ambrose spoke particularly of these, saying: “The baptism of the perfidious does not heal, etc.,” so that they are also rebaptized and reordained. Hence it was established in the Council of Nicaea, [c. 19]:

If anyone has fled to the catholic Church from the Paulianists and Cataphrygians, let it be established that they ought altogether to be rebaptized. But if any were clerics among them, provided they were blameless and irreproachable, they are to be rebaptized, and let them again also be ordained by the bishop of the catholic Church. But if, when examined, they are discovered to be less suitable, they must be deposed. Similarly also concerning deacons and all who are found in that same clergy, the same form will be observed.

Likewise Innocent, [to the Bishops of Macedonia, epistle XXII, c. 5]. The Paulianists do not at all baptize in the name of the Father and of the Son and of the Holy Spirit, while the Novatians baptize in those same dread names, nor among them has any question ever been raised concerning the unity of the divine power, that is, of the Father, Son, and Holy Spirit, etc.

GRATIAN. Others preserve the form of the Church in baptizing. But when those who communicate with them in heresy or schism are baptized by them, they indeed receive from them the sacrament of baptism but do not obtain its power, which no one can obtain without faith. Hence it is said concerning the Lord that in his own country he could not perform a sign because of their unbelief. Likewise Augustine in homily LXXX:

Take away the word: what is the water but water? The word comes to the element, and it becomes a sacrament. § 1. Whence is there so great a power of the water that it touches the body and washes the heart, except through the word’s operation? Not because it is spoken, but because it is believed. For even in the word itself the passing sound is one thing, the abiding power another. GRATIAN. Concerning those also who are baptized in heresy or schism, Augustine writes to Peter the Deacon, [c. 36], saying:

Hold most firmly and doubt in no way that for those baptized outside the Church, if they have not returned to the Church, perdition is increased by baptism. For the communion of ecclesiastical fellowship avails so greatly toward salvation that one is not saved by baptism when it is not given there where it ought to be given.

The same, [tractate XIII on c. 3 of John]. Let us hold to unity, my brothers. Apart from unity, even one who performs a miracle is nothing. The people of Israel were in unity and did not perform miracles; Pharaoh’s magicians were apart from unity and performed things similar to Moses. The people of Israel, as I have said, did not perform miracles. Who were to be saved before God: those who performed miracles, or those who did not? Peter the Apostle raised a dead man. Simon Magus did many things. There were certain Christians who could perform neither what Peter performed nor what Simon performed. But in what did they rejoice? Because their names were written in heaven.

Likewise Leo to Bishop Nicetas, [epistle LXXVII, otherwise LXIX, c. 7]. We proclaim that this rule is to be observed in all churches: that the washing once entered upon be violated by no repetition, as the Apostle says, “One God, one faith, one baptism”; its washing is to be violated by no repetition, but only the sanctification of the Spirit is to be invoked, so that what no one receives from heretics he may obtain from catholic priests. Part X. GRATIAN. “No one” is to be understood as one established in heresy or schism. But if, with integrity of faith and purity of soul, someone has received baptism from the hand of heretics in the form of the Church, then that saying of Augustine is fulfilled: “Through a stony channel the water passes to the garden plots.” And again: “The spiritual power of the sacrament, etc.”

Likewise [Augustine], On Blasphemy against the Holy Spirit. The Holy Spirit in the holy Church, even in this time in which the grain is, as it were, threshed with the chaff, operates so that he disdains no one’s true confession, is deceived by no one’s pretense, and so flees the reprobate that even through their ministry he gathers the upright. GRATIAN. Behold when baptism is received from heretics with its power; its administration is so necessary that even when given by pagans it cannot be repeated. Hence it is read in the Ecclesiastical History that Alexander, Bishop of Alexandria, when he was celebrating the solemn rites of Peter the Martyr, after the sacraments of the masses had been completed, saw on the seashore the play of boys imitating a bishop, as is customary, and performing the things which customarily are performed in the Church. Immediately he ordered them to be brought to him and asked what they had done. They revealed the order of the affair, confessing that certain catechumens had been baptized by them through the boy Athanasius, who had pretended to be their bishop. When he saw from their answers that all things accorded with the rite of our religion, he established that baptism ought not to be repeated for those upon whom water had been poured with the questions and answers complete, but that the things which it is customary for priests to perform should be completed. Hence Isidore also says:

If anyone through ignorance is ordained before he is baptized, those baptized by him ought to be baptized again, and he himself is not to be ordained thereafter. But the Roman Pontiff does not judge the man who baptizes, but believes that the Spirit of God supplies the grace of baptism, even if it is a pagan who baptizes.

[PALEA.

From the Council at Compiègne. If an ordained priest discovers that he has not been baptized, let him be baptized and ordained again.]

GRATIAN. That the other sacraments cannot be ministered by heretics is attested by Jerome on the Prophet Haggai, [c. 2]:

Such is this people of all heretics in my sight, says the Lord; everything they have done, everything they have offered to me—whether vows, or offerings for salvation, or peace offerings, or offerings for sin, or whole burnt offerings, or alms, or fasts, or chastity of the body—will be contaminated in my sight. For although the things offered appear holy in their form, nevertheless, because they have been handled by one who is polluted in soul, all are polluted.

Likewise on the Prophet Amos, [c. 5]. God hates the sacrifices of heretics and casts them away from himself; and whenever they have been gathered in his name, he detests their stench and closes his nostrils.

Likewise on Hosea, [c. 6]. They offer sacrilegious bread and give alms, and appear to pursue humility. If these things were truly done, I would interpret them as whole burnt offerings. But since they have forsaken the knowledge of God, in vain do they boast that they possess the other members when the head of faith has been cut off.

The same in the epistle to the Galatians, [c. 1, v. 11]. Marcion and Basilides and the other plagues of heretics do not have the Gospel of God, because they do not have the Holy Spirit, without whom the Gospel that is taught becomes human. Nor should we think that the Gospel is in the words of the Scriptures, but in their sense; not on the surface, but in the marrow; not in the leaves of the discourses, but in the root of reason.

The same, [on c. 5 of the same epistle, v. 14]. See how great a good charity is. If we undergo martyrdom in such a way that we wish our relics to be honored by men, and if, following the opinion of the crowd, we pour out our blood fearlessly and give our substance even to the point of our own beggary, not so much a reward as a penalty is owed to this work, and there are torments of perfidy rather than a crown of victory.

Likewise from the Council of Laodicea, [c. 32]. It is not fitting to receive the blessings of heretics, because they are curses rather than blessings.

Likewise from the Council of Pope Martin, [c. 70]. Let neither clerics nor laymen be permitted to receive blessed gifts from heretics, because they are curses rather than blessings; nor let it be permitted to pray either with heretics or with schismatics.

Likewise Leo to Anatolius, Bishop of Constantinople, [epistle XLVIII, c. 2]. In the Church of God, which is the body of Christ, neither are priesthoods otherwise ratified nor sacrifices true unless the true Pontiff reconciles us in the property of his own nature.

The same to Emperor Leo, [epistle LXXIII]. It is manifest that through most cruel and most insane madness all the light of the heavenly sacraments has been extinguished in the Alexandrian see. The offering of sacrifice has been intercepted; the sanctification of chrism is lacking; and all the mysteries have withdrawn themselves from the parricidal hands of the impious.

Likewise the blessed martyr Cyprian in the epistle against heretics. If anyone, he says, has departed from the Church by heretical presumption, he is condemned by himself. According to the Apostle, we ought not even to take food with one of this kind. This is declared in the book of Kings, where, when the man of God had been sent to Jeroboam to reproach his sins and foretell future vengeance, he was prohibited from eating bread and drinking water in his house. When he did not observe this, returning from there he died on the way from the bite of a lion, by divine sentence. § 1. Ought anyone to say that the saving sacrament and heavenly grace can be common with heretics, with whom neither earthly food nor secular drink ought to be common? Moreover, it is established that the oil with which the baptized are anointed cannot be sanctified, and the Eucharist cannot be made among them at all, where there is no hope and the faith is false, where all things are performed through falsehood. For the heretic, after the manner of apes which imitate the human form although they are not human beings, claims for himself the countenance, authority, and truth of the catholic Church, although he himself is not in the Church. He blesses although he is accursed by God; he promises life although he is dead; as a blasphemer he invokes God; as a profane man he administers the priesthood; as a sacrilegious man he sets up an altar. To all these things this evil also is added: that the prelate of the devil dares to make the Eucharist, although an offering cannot be sanctified there where the Holy Spirit is not, nor can the Lord profit anyone through the prayers and supplications of one who himself has violated God. For if those who violate the Church are held as gentiles and publicans, much more is it necessary that rebels and enemies, fashioning false altars, illicit priesthoods, sacrilegious sacrifices, and every adulteration, be counted among gentiles and publicans; all of these are established to have departed from the charity and unity of the catholic Church. Therefore, all things whatsoever that heretics perform are carnal, empty, and false, so that none of the things which they have performed ought to be approved by us. Things which are boasted in Christ’s name are not immediately to be received and adopted, but those which are performed in Christ’s truth. For how can those who attempt against God what is not permitted to them perfect the things they perform or obtain anything from God by illicit endeavors? § 2. Therefore, those who give patronage to heretics and schismatics are proved by divine censure to be destined for their crime and punishments—not only the leaders and authors but also the participants—unless they separate themselves from the communion of the wicked, as the Lord commands through Moses: “Separate yourselves from the tents of these most hard men, and do not touch any of the things which are among them, lest you perish together in their sins.” And the Lord fulfilled what he had threatened through Moses, so that whoever had not separated himself from Korah, Dathan, and Abiram immediately paid the penalties for impious communion. So also the Holy Spirit testifies through the prophet Hosea, saying: “Their sacrifices are like the bread of mourning; all who eat them will be contaminated,” plainly teaching and showing that absolutely all who have been contaminated by their sin are joined with the authors in punishment.

Likewise Augustine, [book of Sentences Collected by Prosper of Aquitaine, Bishop of Reggio, c. 15]. Outside the catholic Church there is no place for true sacrifice. Likewise Gregory in the third book of the Dialogues, [c. 31], says concerning King Hermenegild, son of Leovigild:

When the day of the Paschal festivity arrived, in the silence of the dead of night his perfidious father sent an Arian bishop to him so that he might receive communion of the sacrilegious consecration from his hand and through this might merit to return to his father’s favor. But the man devoted to God reproached the Arian bishop who came, as he ought, and repelled his perfidy from himself with fitting rebukes.

Likewise Innocent, chapter VII. Moreover, Arians and the other plagues of this kind: because we receive their laymen when converted to the Lord under the form of penance and with the sanctification of the Spirit through the imposition of the hand, their clerics do not appear worthy to receive the dignity of the priesthood or of any ministry. For those to whom we permit only baptism to be ratified—which certainly is received in the name of the Father and of the Son and of the Holy Spirit—we do not judge to have the Holy Spirit from that baptism and those ministries, because, when their authors departed from the catholic faith, they lost the perfection of the Spirit which they had received, and those who through the perfidy of their impiety lost faith in the Lord cannot give the fullness of the Spirit which operates especially in ordinations. For this reason it cannot happen that we judge their profane priests worthy of Christ’s honors, when, as I have said, we receive their laymen as imperfect, under the form of penance, for receiving the grace of the Holy Spirit. Likewise: § 1. It is read, “One who touches the unclean will be unclean”; how, therefore, will that which is accustomed to receive uncleanness and filth be bestowed upon him? And below: § 2. How one who has been made a participant of a condemned man ought to receive honor, we cannot discover. GRATIAN. Moreover, from the fact that the imposition of the hand is commanded to be repeated, it is shown not to be a sacrament. Hence Augustine, in book III On Baptism, [against the Donatists, c. 16]:

The imposition of the hand is not like baptism, which cannot be repeated. For what else is it but prayer over a man? GRATIAN. Therefore, since Innocent permits only baptism to be ratified among heretics; since Gregory calls the consecration of the Arians sacrilegious; since Cyprian judges whatever things are performed by heretics to be carnal, empty, and false; since Jerome asserts that all things offered by them are contaminated in the sight of the Lord; since Leo attests that outside the Church neither are priesthoods ratified nor sacrifices true: it is clear that ecclesiastical sacraments apart from baptism, as was said above, cannot be ministered by heretics. Likewise, that saying of Jerome to the Luciferian is objected:

Just as Christ is he who baptizes, so he himself is he who sanctifies. Hence I ask you either to grant the license of sacrificing to the one whose baptism you approve, or to reject the baptism of one whom you do not think to be a priest. For it cannot happen that one who is holy in baptism is a sinner at the altar. GRATIAN. But this is to be understood only of a catholic sinner, not a heretic. Whatever he does with faith according to his office, although unworthy, is nevertheless believed ratified through the cooperation of divine grace. Otherwise, if it is understood to have been said concerning heretics, he would be contrary to himself, since he says on Hosea: “Their sacrifices, etc.” And elsewhere in the person of the Lord:

“I will curse your blessings”: that is, whatever is blessed by you will be accursed by me. Part XI. GRATIAN. This, therefore, is to be understood of a heretic, but that statement to the Luciferian of an ecclesiastical sinner. Concerning him Augustine says in the book On the Body of the Lord:

Within the catholic Church, in the ministry of the body and blood of the Lord, nothing greater is accomplished by a good priest, nothing less by an evil one, because it is accomplished not by the merit of the one consecrating but by the word of the Creator and the power of the Holy Spirit. For if it were accomplished by the merit of the priest, it would by no means pertain to Christ. But now, just as he himself is the one who baptizes, so he himself is the one who through the Holy Spirit makes this his flesh and transforms it into blood. For it is to be believed that the sacraments are confected in the words of Christ. Things first created by his command are certainly recreated for the better by his word.

The same in book II Against the Epistle of Parmenian, [c. 10]. Although all the sacraments harm those who handle them unworthily, they nevertheless profit those who receive them worthily through such persons, just like the word of God. Hence it was said: “Do what they say, but do not wish to do what they do.”

The same in the tractate on the epistle of John. Saul, an evil king, prophesied even while he persecuted the holy David. Therefore, let those who perhaps have a holy gift of God without charity not boast, but let them see what account they will render to God who use holy things unholily. Of these will be those who will say in the judgment: “In your name we prophesied.” It will not be said to them, “You lie,” but, “I do not know you, etc.” GRATIAN. Therefore they are to be said to have had the spirit of prophecy, not its merit.

Likewise Jerome on [c. 2 of] Haggai. O prophet, who, with the altar built and my house ruined, offer victims to me upon the altar and think yourself sanctified by its sacrifices, know that what is offered upon the altar is indeed holy, but you are not so much sanctified by the offerings as polluted by dead works.

Likewise Augustine in the book On the Words of the Lord, [sermon XI, toward the end]. Thus a word is made against the Holy Spirit when one never comes from dispersion to the congregation which received the Holy Spirit for forgiving sins. If anyone with a heart not false approaches this congregation even through an evil cleric—nevertheless a catholic minister, reprobate and false—the Holy Spirit operates remission of sins in him; in the holy Church he so operates that he flees the reprobate yet gathers the upright through their ministry.

The same in the sermon On the Remission of Sins. So that the Lord might show clearly that sins are forgiven by the Holy Spirit whom he gave to his faithful, not by the merits of men, in a certain place he said thus: “Receive the Holy Spirit”; and immediately added: “If you forgive anyone’s sins, they will be forgiven him”: that is, the Spirit forgives, not you. Therefore, just as one whom a priest takes up in the Church is nevertheless outside the Church and outside the body whose head is Christ if the doorkeeper is not present for him, so it does not follow that one is outside the Church and not of the body if he is compelled to be outside by the prejudgment of a shepherd.

Likewise Ambrose, On the Sacraments. Since Scripture attests that at the prayers of Jeroboam fire descended from heaven, and again, when Elijah prayed, fire was sent which consumed the sacrifices, it is given to be understood that God considers not the merits of persons but the offices of priests. § 1. That visible fire was sent so that they might believe; an invisible one operates for us who believe. § 2. Believe, therefore, that the Lord Jesus, invoked by the prayers of priests, is present, who says: “Where two or three shall have been, there I am in their midst.”

Likewise Pope Gregory. Many secular persons, when they examine the life of priests more than their own, fall into the great crime of contempt for the divine sacraments. For having eyes wounded by a great beam and neglecting it, they perceive the thin splinter in the eyes of others; while they incautiously hasten to pull it out, they slip into the pit of error, paying too little heed to the fact that the life of priests would not harm them if they themselves humbly lent an ear to the good admonitions of priests. But while, after the manner of hypocrites, they judge the reputation of those men more than their own life or the negligences of their life, they spurn holy admonitions and spiritual gifts. Hence it happens that they reject not only the things said by them but—which is worse—also despise the divine mysteries, so that they do not receive either the communion of the body or the blood of our Lord Jesus Christ confected by their ministry, thinking it less sanctified if it is made by the office of those whose life appears ignoble in their eyes. § 1. Alas, into how great a snare they fall, so that they believe divine and hidden mysteries can be made more sanctified by some than by others, although one and the same Holy Spirit, incomprehensibly throughout the Church spread over the whole world, secretly and invisibly sanctifies those mysteries by operating and blesses them by blessing. § 2. Accordingly, brothers, it is called a mystery because it has a secret and hidden dispensation; but a sacrifice, as though a sacred deed, because it is consecrated for us by a mystical prayer in memory of the Lord’s Passion. § 3. A sacrament, moreover, exists in a certain celebration when the thing performed is such that we understand it to signify something which is to be received as holy. The sacraments are baptism, chrism, the body, and the blood; these are called sacraments for this reason: because beneath the covering of bodily things divine power more secretly works the salvation belonging to those sacraments. Hence sacraments are named from secret powers or sacred things. They are therefore performed fruitfully within the Church because the Holy Spirit abiding in her secretly works the same effect of the sacraments. The sacrament of the bread and cup is called eucharistia in Greek and is interpreted “good grace” in Latin. And what is better than the body and blood of Christ? § 4. Therefore, whether it is dispensed through good or evil ministers within the Church, it is nevertheless sacred, because the Holy Spirit mystically gives it life—the same who formerly appeared in visible works in apostolic times. The sacraments are neither enlarged by the merits of good dispensers nor diminished by those of evil ones, because “neither he who plants is anything, nor he who waters, but God who gives the increase.” This is to be understood and held concerning the body and blood of our Lord Jesus Christ, and also concerning baptism and chrism, because divine power operates more secretly in them; and this power or potency belongs to divinity alone, not to human efficacy. We therefore pollute the bread, that is, the body of Christ, when we approach the altar unworthily and, being filthy, drink the clean blood. And below: § 5. “I will curse,” he says, “your blessings”: that is, the things which you now possess by my blessings, or whatever is blessed by you, either because they do not bless holy persons from a true heart, or because those who act iniquitously are blessed by them and they flatter sinners, provided that they are rich.

Likewise Pope Fabian to the Eastern Bishops, [epistle II]. You have indicated, moreover, that very many pay attention to the fact that many persons in ecclesiastical honors themselves do not live in a manner consonant with the discourses and sacraments which are ministered through them to the peoples. O wretched men, who, while looking at these persons, forget Christ! Long before, he both foretold that the law of God was to be obeyed rather than that those who do not do the things they say should appear to be imitated, and, tolerating his betrayer to the end, sent him also to evangelize with the others. For the Apostles neither had such a custom nor taught that it should be had.

Likewise Pope Nicholas to Emperor Michael, [in the epistle which begins, “We had proposed”]. You must take great care to consider not what sort the Lord’s priests are but what they say concerning the Lord; nor, in the vicars of blessed Peter the Apostle, must you attend to what they are, but to what they strive to accomplish for the correction of the churches and for your salvation. For you will not call them inferior to the scribes and Pharisees sitting upon the chair of Moses, concerning whom the Lord commanded, saying: “Whatever they tell you, do; according to their works, do not do.” Therefore, Emperor, consider: if he said that those who sat upon the chair of Moses were to be heard, how much more do you judge that those who sit upon the chair of Peter are to be obeyed?

Likewise Augustine against Petilian, [book II, c. 22]. The Lord declared that, in one assembly of persons receiving the same sacraments, the uncleanness of some does not harm the clean. § 1. Petilian said: “But if anyone should hold the formulas of a priest in memory, is he thereby a priest because with sacrilegious mouth he publishes the formula of a priest?” Augustine responded: You say this as though we were now asking who is a true priest and not what is true baptism. For in order that anyone be a true priest, he must be clothed not only with the sacrament but also with justice, as it is written: “Let your priests be clothed with justice.” But one who is a priest by the sacrament alone, as was the high priest Caiaphas, persecutor of the one and truest priest, although he himself is not truthful, what he gives is nevertheless true if he gives not his own but God’s. Likewise: § 2. “Cretans, evil beasts, sluggish in heart.” Therefore, if the Apostle himself also bore witness to the testimony of some foreigner because he discovered it to be true, why do we not distinguish, wherever we find that which is Christ’s and is true—even if the man in whom it is found is perverse and false—the truth, which he has not as his own but as Christ’s, from the vice which the man has, and say, “This sacrament is true,” just as he said, “This testimony is true”? Do we therefore say, “The man himself also is truthful,” because we say, “This sacrament is true”? § 3. But you must always err so long as you violate God’s sacraments because of the vices of men, or think that we also assume the sacrilege of your schism because, on account of God’s sacraments which we do not wish to violate in you, we do not violate them. Likewise: § 4. Therefore, the purity of baptism is altogether distinct from the purity or uncleanness of the conscience either of the giver or of the receiver. Likewise: § 5. Remember that the morals of evil men do not harm the sacraments of God, so as to make them either nonexistent or less holy. Likewise: § 6. If Saul did not have the sanctity of the sacrament, what did David venerate in him? But if he had innocence, why did he persecute the innocent? For because of the sacrament of anointing David both honored him while alive and avenged him when slain. And because he cut even a little piece from his garment, he trembled when struck in heart. Behold, Saul did not have innocence and nevertheless had sanctity—not of his own life, for this cannot exist without innocence, but of God’s sacrament, which is holy even in evil men. Likewise: § 7. We say that the sacrifice becomes for each person such as is the person who approaches to offer it and such as is the person who approaches to receive it, and that those eat from the sacrifices of such persons who approach it as such persons as they themselves are. Accordingly, if an evil man offers to God and a good man receives from it, it is for each such as each has been, because it is also written: “All things are clean to the clean.” Through this truthful and catholic sentence, even you were not polluted by the sacrifice of Optatus if his deeds displeased you. For surely his bread was bread of mourning, under whose iniquities all Africa mourned; but the common evil of the schism of all of you makes the bread of mourning common to you all. Likewise: § 8. Thanks be to God, because at last you have confessed that the name of Christ when invoked can avail for the salvation of others, even if it is invoked by sinners. From this, therefore, understand that when Christ’s name is invoked, the sins of another do not harm the salvation of others.

The same in the book of Psalms. What has Christ done to you, who bore his betrayer with so great a patience that he handed to him, as to the other Apostles, the first Eucharist confected by his own hands and commended by his own mouth? What has Christ done to you, who sent that same betrayer of his—whom he named a devil, who before the betrayal of the Lord could not display faithfulness even toward the Lord’s moneybags—with the other disciples to preach the kingdom of heaven, so as to show that the gifts of God reach those who receive them with faith, even if the one through whom they receive them is such as Judas was?

The wickedness of a bishop harms neither the baptism of an infant nor the consecration of a church, because baptism is given by God and does not come from man; so also the Eucharist and all other things whatsoever which are placed upon the altar receive sanctification not from man but from God. GRATIAN. But that saying of Jerome on Zephaniah is objected, [c. 3]:

Priests who serve the Eucharist and distribute the blood of the Lord to his peoples act impiously against the law of Christ, thinking that the words of the one invoking make the Eucharist, not his life, and that only the solemn prayer is necessary and not the merits of priests, concerning whom it is said: “A priest in whom there has been any blemish is not to approach to offer oblations to the Lord.”

Likewise Alexander, [epistle II]. The priests themselves intercede for the people and eat the sins of the people, because by their prayers they erase and consume them; the worthier they have been, the more readily they are heard in the necessities for which they cry out.

Likewise Gelasius to Bishop Elpidius. The sacrosanct religion which contains catholic discipline claims so great a reverence for itself that no one should dare to approach it except with a pure conscience. For how will the heavenly Spirit, invoked for the consecration of the divine mystery, come if the priest who entreats him to be present is condemned as full of criminal actions?

Likewise Gregory in the Register, [book I, epistle 24]. The hand which takes care to wash away filth must be clean, lest, if it is filthy, it contaminate more grievously whatever it touches, holding mud after it; for it is written: “Be cleansed, you who carry the vessels of the Lord.” For those carry the vessels of the Lord who undertake by the example of their conduct to lead the souls of their neighbors to interior things.

Likewise Augustine, [book of Fifty Homilies, homily 26]. I ask you, brothers or sisters, tell me: which seems greater to you, the body of Christ or the word of Christ? If you wish to answer truly, you ought to say that the word of God is not less than the body of Christ. And therefore, with as great a care as we observe, when the body of Christ is ministered to us, that none of it fall from our hands to the ground, with as great a care let us observe that the word of God which is dispensed to us not perish from a pure heart while we either think or speak of something else; because one who has heard the word of God negligently will be no less guilty than one who has permitted the body of Christ to fall to the ground through his negligence.

Likewise, [book IV On the Trinity, c. 14]. For it cannot be rightly offered except through a just and holy priest, nor can that which is offered be received except by those for whom it is offered, and it must be without vice so that it can be offered for cleansing the vicious. Certainly all who wish a sacrifice to be offered to God for themselves desire this. GRATIAN. When the life of priests is said to be necessary to the Eucharist, this is to be understood not for consecration but for its effect; for it does not confer the effect of salvation upon one whom his merits make unworthy. Rather, that saying of the Apostle is fulfilled in him: “He who eats and drinks unworthily eats and drinks judgment for himself.” Therefore, that saying of Jerome is understood to have been spoken against those who think they can be cleansed by the frequent offering of sacrifice while not ceasing to act impiously against the law of God. But that a priest, even if evil, nevertheless transmits grace to men according to the office of his dignity is attested by Augustine in the book Questions of the Old Testament, [c. 11]:

It was said by the Lord to Aaron in Numbers: “You place my name upon the sons of Israel; I, the Lord, will bless them,” so that the transmission of grace through the ministry of an ordained person may pour it forth upon men, and neither the will of the priest may harm or profit, but the merit of the one seeking the blessing. § 1. Moreover, we perceive from this how great is the dignity of the priestly office or order. Among other things it was said concerning the most wicked Caiaphas, killer of the Savior: “He did not say this of himself; but, since he was high priest of that year, he prophesied.” Through this it is shown that the Holy Spirit of graces follows not the person of the worthy or unworthy man but the order of transmission, so that although someone may be of good merit, nevertheless he cannot bless unless he has been ordained so that he may perform the office of ministry. But it belongs to God to bestow the effect of the blessing. GRATIAN. The assertion that sacraments of dignity ministered through heretics lack effect is rejected by the authority of Pope Anastasius, who approves the ordination of Acacius, although a heretic, as ratified in such a way that he asserts that the guilty person did no harm at all even to those whom Acacius baptized or ordained after his condemnation. But Felix and Gelasius, who excommunicated Acacius before Anastasius, and Hormisdas, who, third after that Anastasius, condemned the same Acacius, prove that he did this illicitly and uncanonically, indeed contrary to the decrees of his predecessors and successors. Hence he is also repudiated by the Roman Church, and is read in the deeds of the Roman Pontiffs to have been struck by God in this manner: “Anastasius the Second, a Roman by nation, etc.” Seek this above in the treatise on decretal epistles.

Likewise that saying of Augustine to Parmenian concerning even condemned heretics is objected:

What certain persons say—that one who departs from the Church does not lose the baptism which he received but does lose the right of giving which he received—appears in many ways to be said fruitlessly and vainly. § 1. First, because no reason is shown why one who cannot lose baptism itself can lose the right of giving it. For each is a sacrament and each is given to a man by a certain consecration, the one when he is baptized, the other when he is ordained; therefore neither is permitted to be repeated by a catholic. § 2. For if at any time even prelates coming from that party have been received for the good of peace after the error of schism was corrected, and if it seemed needful that they should exercise the same offices which they had exercised, they are not to be ordained again; but just as baptism, so ordination remained integral in them, because the vice was in the severance—which was corrected by the unity of peace—not in the sacraments, which are the same wherever they are. And when it seems expedient to the Church that their prelates, coming to catholic fellowship, should not administer their honors there, nevertheless the sacraments of ordination themselves are not taken away from them, but remain upon them. And therefore the hand is not imposed upon them, lest injury be done not to the man but to the sacrament itself. § 3. But just as in baptism there is something which can be given through them, so in ordination there is the right of giving. They have each to their own perdition so long as they do not have the charity of unity. Nevertheless, not to have is one thing, to have perniciously another, and to have salvifically another. Whatever is not possessed must be given when there is need that it be given; but as for that which is possessed perniciously, when perdition has been driven away through correction, it must be brought about that it be possessed salvifically. If a layman, compelled by necessity, has given baptism to someone who is perishing—baptism which, when he himself received it, he learned how it was to be given—I do not know whether anyone would say that it was piously to be repeated. If it is done when no necessity compels, it is a usurpation of another’s office. But if necessity presses, it is either no offense or a venial one. But if it is usurped when there is no necessity and is given by anyone to anyone, that which has been given cannot be said not to have been given, although it can rightly be said to have been given illicitly. Therefore, the disposition of one remembering and repenting corrects the illicit usurpation. But if he has not corrected it, what has been given will remain for the punishment of the usurper—either of the one who illicitly gave it or of the one who illicitly received it—yet it will not be held as not given. § 4. For if some persons, secretly and extraordinarily, not in the public mints, had stamped gold or silver by striking it, when it had been discovered, would not the recognized royal mark, after those persons had been punished or freed by indulgence, be gathered into the royal treasuries? And a little later: § 5. If perhaps one who is not serving as a soldier has fearfully recoiled from the military character upon his body, fled to the emperor’s clemency, and, after obtaining pardon, then begun to serve as a soldier, is that character repeated after the man has been freed and corrected, and is it not rather recognized and approved? Or perhaps do the Christian sacraments have less than this bodily mark, when we see that even apostates do not lack baptism, which certainly is not restored when they return through penance, and therefore is judged incapable of being lost? § 6. Concerning those who are separated from the unity of the catholic Church there is now no question that they have it and can give it, but they have it perniciously and hand it on perniciously because they are outside the bond of peace. § 7. Injury is to be done to neither sacrament. § 8. Just as one who departs from unity does not have it rightly but nevertheless has it, and therefore it is not restored to him when he returns, so also one who departs from unity does not give rightly but nevertheless gives, and therefore what was received from him is not repeated when the receiver comes to unity. Below: § 1. Just as what the returning person also had outside is not restored to him, so what the arriving person had received outside is not to be repeated. Hence it is consequently understood that the perversity of men is to be corrected, but the sanctity of the sacraments is to be violated in no perverse person. For it is established that it remains unpolluted and inviolable in perverse and criminal men, whether in those who are within or those who are without; and when evil persons are said to pollute it, they are said to do so so far as lies in themselves, although the sacraments remain unpolluted. But in the good they remain unto reward; in the evil they remain unto judgment. Below: § 10. How do catholics not glorify the Lord, when they pursue his sacraments with such due veneration that, even if they have been handled by the unworthy, those men being condemned by their own perversity, the sacraments are shown to remain in undefiled sanctity?

Part XII. GRATIAN. From these words of Augustine it is established that in all persons—apostates as well as heretics or the condemned—the sacraments of Christ remain true in themselves and holy, and, unless aid has been given by penance or indulgence, they arrive at the condemnation of the usurper, whether the one possessing, giving, or receiving. What, then, does it profit that they are true and holy, when they equally destroy their usurpers as if they were evil and noxious? Crassus thirsted for gold and drank gold; he perished by true gold just as by true poison. § 1. Likewise, gold is equally true in the chest of a thief as in the treasures of a king. But it is illicitly given or received by the thief because it is illicitly possessed; by the king, however, it is licitly possessed, given, and received. Therefore, as Gelasius attests to Emperor Anastasius, both the thief himself and the participant in the theft—unless perhaps he has cleared himself of knowledge of the theft—will justly and worthily be condemned. § 2. But the following is opposed to this sentence of Augustine: The power of giving baptism, the right of consecrating the Lord’s body, and the right of bestowing sacred orders differ greatly among themselves. For when a priest has been suspended or deposed, no power of sacrificing is left to him. Nevertheless, if the sacrament of baptism has been ministered not only by a deposed priest or catholic layman but even by a heretic or pagan, it will be violated by no repetition; but no reason permits those who receive the oil of sacred—indeed, execrable—anointing from the hands of a layman or pagan to be held among priests. Therefore, it is not consequently gathered that, if the right of baptizing is left to those departing from the faith, the power of distributing sacred orders is also left to them, although each proceeds from consecration. For a degraded bishop does not have the power of bestowing sacred orders, yet he has not lost the faculty of baptizing. § 3. But lest we reject Augustine altogether in this sentence, let us understand that the power of distributing sacred orders is one thing and the execution of that power another. Those who, established within the unity of the catholic Church, receive priestly or episcopal anointing obtain from consecration both the office and the execution of their office. But those departing from the integrity of the faith retain, as far as the sacrament is concerned, the power received, but are wholly deprived of the effect of their power, just as married persons who depart from one another do not dissolve the marriage once entered upon, yet are found estranged from the conjugal work. § 4. Therefore, Augustine speaks concerning those who, after receiving priestly power, depart from the unity of the catholic Church, not concerning those who, while established in schism or heresy, receive priestly anointing. Otherwise, he would be contrary to the Council of Chalcedon, in which those ordained by simoniacs are judged to profit in nothing, and to Innocent, who attests that those ordained by other heretics obtained through a depraved imposition of the hand only condemnation and a wound of the head. § 5. Although it can be said generally that sacraments which are celebrated among heretics no differently than in the Church of God are true and ratified in themselves, but false and empty as to effect, both in those by whom they are wickedly handled and in those by whom they are wickedly received. Nor is this marvelous. For our Salvation himself gave the morsel to Judas; immediately with the morsel not a good but a malignant spirit entered. Why? Not because the good one did not give a good thing, but because the evil man received the good thing wickedly; and thus the good thing did not have a good effect because it did not find a place in which to produce it. § 6. Likewise, the Lord was present in his own country, present and true; not through an evil minister but through himself he could do nothing, because he did not find faith. Because of the perfidy of others, he did not lack his own truth but the effect of good power. § 7. To show this plainly in all the sacraments, he was transfigured twice while he was in the flesh. In one transfiguration he appeared marvelous like the sun, so that the faith of believers might be increased to contemplate heavenly glory raised above itself. In the other, as a stranger and unrecognizable to those doubting concerning him, he feigned that he was going farther, and held their eyes lest he be recognized. For what else, except that, because he was not in their hearts through faith, he showed himself departing farther from them; and because they did not believe him to be what he was, they also saw him as other than he was? Behold, in each vision there was his presence and truth; but in one, faith was exercised so that they might believe more than they believed, while in the other, unbelief was restrained lest they recognize even what they saw. Therefore, the sacrament of his body and blood is for some unto salvation, for others unto judgment. Faith also, although true, is nevertheless dead without works. So also all ten virgins were equally virgins, but of these five were foolish and five prudent. The truth of virginity was equal, but because of the intention of that same virginity, the identity of merit was not equal in all. So also martyrdom or almsgiving which does not know charity is sounding brass or a tinkling cymbal. If a blind man ministers the truth of a lamp to a blind man, nevertheless neither thereby illumines his own blindness more. So also an evil man ministers true sacraments to an evil man, but not thereby spiritual gifts, because the Holy Spirit is impeded by their evil merits from working in them that which is his own. Hence Innocent, although conceding that the baptism of heretics is ratified, nevertheless does not concede that the Holy Spirit is possessed from that baptism. And Leo does not permit those who received the form of baptism to be rebaptized, but commands that through his invocation and the imposition of the hand they obtain from catholic priests the Holy Spirit, whom no one received from heretics. It must be known, moreover, that the sacraments of heretics are called invalid, or even damnable, false, and empty, not in themselves, since they are holy and true even when celebrated by a heretic, but because, while they are unto judgment for the perfidious who give them illicitly, they do not confer the Holy Spirit upon those who receive them illicitly. They are called invalid and untrue because they do not bestow what they promise and are believed to confer, and therefore damnable, so that the giving or receiving of them from heretics is not approved but interdicted. For they are not polluted in themselves, although they are said to be polluted by heretics. Hence Gregory calls the communion of Arius an execration, and Innocent calls the ordination of Bonosus a condemnation—not because they are such in themselves, but because they effect this for those who give or receive them wickedly. So also Jerome on Hosea calls their sacrifices the bread of mourning, not in themselves but as to effect, which he himself shows, adding: “Whoever eat of it will be contaminated, because they receive it unto judgment for themselves.” Hence also Augustine in book II Against the Epistle of Parmenian, [c. 5]:

Through Isaiah the Lord says: “The criminal who sacrifices a calf to me is as though he killed a dog; one who prepares fine flour, as though swine’s blood; and one who offers incense as a memorial, as though a blasphemer.” § 1. Whoever, wherever he may offer sacrifice, does so with such a heart or deeds that he merits to hear this, brings perdition upon himself, not upon those good persons who receive from such persons the same sacraments, who according to the prophet Ezekiel groan and mourn the sins and iniquities which are performed in their midst, although they do not separate themselves bodily from them. Below: § 2. The sacrifices of the impious harm those who offer impiously. For it is one and the same sacrifice because of the name of the Lord which is invoked there, and it is always holy, and it becomes for each such as the heart with which he has approached to receive it. “For he who eats and drinks unworthily eats and drinks judgment for himself”—not for others, but himself. Below: § 3. We admonish that this is to be understood in almost all questions of this kind: namely, that although all the sacraments harm those who handle them unworthily, they nevertheless profit those who receive them worthily through such persons. Below: § 4. The Holy Spirit is present in a prelate or minister of the Church in such a way that, if he is not false, he operates through him both his reward unto eternal salvation and the regeneration or edification of those who through him are either consecrated or evangelized. But if he is false, because it is most truly written, “The Holy Spirit of discipline will flee the false,” although he is absent from the man’s salvation and removes himself from his thoughts, which are without understanding, he nevertheless does not desert his ministry, through which he operates the salvation of others by means of him. GRATIAN. It is therefore established, as Innocent says concerning other heretics, that those ordained by simoniacs have a head wounded by the depraved imposition of the simoniacal hand. § 1. But it is objected that in the ordination of simoniacs this alone is found reprehensible: that the grace of the Holy Spirit is thought to be reduced to a price; in other respects, however, the integral form of the sacraments is preserved in all things. Therefore, when the illicit usurpation of the sacrament has been corrected through penance, so that the grace of the Holy Spirit is thought gratuitous and not saleable, the integral effect of the anointing ought to be present. Indeed, even if penance does not follow, although consecrated simoniacally, he is nevertheless to be reckoned truly consecrated, just as those who formerly were admitted to the regeneration of sacred baptism and participation in holy communion only after a price had been given, although simoniacally, nevertheless were not for that reason reckoned any less baptized or participants in holy communion. But this alone was established by the sacred canons: that thereafter the sacraments of Christ are not to be distributed simoniacally.

Hence Gelasius, [to the Bishops throughout Lucania, epistle I, c. 7]:

Let priests set no prices for the faithful who are to be baptized and signed, nor desire to harass those being reborn by imposing any payments, because we are commanded freely to give what we freely received. And therefore let them not attempt to exact anything at all from the aforesaid persons, lest, either deterred under compulsion of poverty or turned away by indignation, they rightly despise the causes of their redemption; holding it certain that those who are discovered to have admitted prohibited things, or rather have not of their own accord corrected things committed, will undergo the peril of their own honor.

Likewise from the Sixth Synod, [c. 23]. Let no bishop, priest, or deacon who dispenses sacred communion exact any price from the one receiving the grace of communion. For grace is not sold, nor do we give the grace of the Holy Spirit for a price, but we concede to the worthy that they participate in the gift without deprivation. But if any of those numbered among the clergy has exacted any price from one to whom he dispenses sacred communion, let him be deposed as an imitator of simoniacal fraud.

Likewise from the Eleventh Council of Toledo, [c. 8]. Whatever is bestowed by the consolation of invisible grace ought never at all to be sold for profits or any rewards, as the Lord says: “Freely give what you have freely received.” And therefore, whoever hereafter, being established in ecclesiastical order, has received any prices or rewards—unless voluntarily offered—for baptizing and signing the faithful, for chrism, or for promotions of grades, through ambition of this kind: indeed, if with the bishop of the place knowing it anything of this kind has been perpetrated by his subjects, that bishop is to be subjected to excommunication for two months, because by his knowledge he concealed evils and did not procure the necessary correction. But if, without his knowing it, any of his men has believed that he was to receive anything under the aforesaid heads, if he is a priest, let him be punished with four months’ excommunication; if a deacon, three; but a subdeacon or cleric serving these cupidities is to be punished with a suitable penalty and the excommunication due.

Likewise from the Second Council of Braga, [c. 4]. It has pleased the council that no bishop exact anything further for the small amount of balsam, blessed for the sacrament of baptism, which is given throughout the churches—because they are accustomed individually to exact a tremissis for it—lest perhaps, just as Simon Magus wished to buy the gift of God with money, we who sell that which is consecrated for the salvation of souls through the invocation of the Holy Spirit be damnably sold.

Likewise from the same, [c. 7]. It has pleased the council that each bishop bring this about throughout his churches: that if those who offer their infants for baptism voluntarily offer anything according to their vow, it is to be received from them. But if through the necessity of poverty they do not have anything to offer, let no pledge be violently taken from them by clerics. For many poor persons, fearing this, withdraw their children from baptism; if perhaps, while it is deferred, they depart this life without the grace of baptism, it is necessary that their perdition be required from those through fear of whose depredations they withdrew themselves from the grace of baptism.

Likewise from the Council of Elvira, [c. 48]. It has pleased the council that this be corrected: that those who are baptized not put coins into the basin, as was customarily done, lest the priest appear to sell for a price what he received freely. Nor are their feet to be washed by priests or clerics.

Likewise from the Council of Tribur. It was said that in certain places coins customarily are given for the reception of chrism, similarly for baptism and communion. The holy synod detested and anathematized this as simoniacal heresy, and established that thereafter they exact nothing either for ordination, chrism, baptism, balsam, burial, or communion; but let the gratuitous gifts of Christ be given by gratuitous dispensation.

Likewise from the Council of Chalon, [in the time of Charlemagne, c. 16]. We establish that, just as nothing is to be received for dedicating basilicas and giving orders, so also priests who are to receive chrism are to give nothing either for balsam or for buying lights. Accordingly, let bishops buy balsam from the resources of the Church, and each the lights in his churches. Part XIII. GRATIAN. Therefore, just as these sacraments, although ministered simoniacally, nevertheless confer the effect of blessing upon the receiver, so also priestly anointing, although ministered simoniacally, nevertheless ought not to lack its effect. But, as was said above, those sacraments are of necessity, this one of dignity, and therefore their privileges cannot generate the common law of these. Simoniacs, therefore, have a wounded head through the depraved imposition of a simoniacal hand. But this is understood of those whom neither ignorance nor the violence of being dragged excuses, who are ordained by persons whom they indubitably know to be simoniacs, whether they are ordained by them simoniacally or non-simoniacally. For, as Pope Nicholas distinguishes, some are ordained simoniacally by simoniacs, others simoniacally by non-simoniacs, others non-simoniacally by simoniacs. He indicates this distinction in chapter II, saying:

We have established a decree concerning simoniacs who simoniacally ordain or are ordained, concerning simoniacs ordained simoniacally by non-simoniacs, and concerning simoniacs ordained non-simoniacally by simoniacs. § 1. Let simoniacs simoniacally ordained or ordaining fall from their own grade according to the ecclesiastical canons. Likewise, let simoniacs ordained simoniacally by non-simoniacs be removed from the office wickedly received. § 2. But simoniacs ordained non-simoniacally by simoniacs we mercifully permit, through the imposition of the hand, to remain in office because of the necessity of the time. GRATIAN. But this is to be understood of those who are ordained by simoniacs whom they did not know to be simoniacs. Not the guilt of the crime but the ordination of a simoniac makes these simoniacs. Concerning these Pope Urban [II, in the Council of Piacenza, cc. 3 and 4] says:

If any have been ordained by simoniacs non-simoniacally, provided they can prove that when they were ordained they did not know those persons to be simoniacs, and those persons were then held as catholics in the Church, we mercifully sustain the ordinations of such persons, if nevertheless a praiseworthy life commends them. But as for those who knowingly permitted themselves to be consecrated—rather, execrated—by simoniacs, we decree that their consecration is altogether invalid.

Likewise Nicholas the Younger, [the same is Alexander II]. For the future we establish that, if anyone hereafter has permitted himself to be consecrated by one whom he does not doubt to be a simoniac, the consecrator and the consecrated are to undergo no dissimilar sentence of condemnation; but let each be deposed and perform penance, and persist deprived of his own dignity.

The same, [a little below]. We have decreed that no mercy is to be shown toward simoniacs in preserving their dignity, but according to the sanction of the canons and the decrees of the holy Fathers we condemn them altogether and sanction by apostolic authority that they are to be deposed. GRATIAN. It is to be understood: unless he was dragged violently. For concerning these and those violently ordained by any heretics Innocent says, [to the Bishops of Macedonia, epistle XXII, c. 5]:

It is established that many persons suffered violence and were dragged unwillingly and, while resisting, were ordained by heretics. But if any such person, after such an ordination, did not participate when they confected the sacraments, if he did not participate in their communion, if, immediately when they departed, he renounced their most evil assembly and returned to the Church, such a man can have some color of excuse. But those who returned after a month or more, when they consider themselves ordained by heretics—certainly persons who received nothing from them—are guilty of usurped dignity. GRATIAN. The imposition of a catholic hand, with satisfaction and the medicine of penance, often reforms such persons from a regard for piety. But we read the condemnation of simoniacs and of those who consented to them; we do not read of an authoritative medicine expressly named for this heresy, except that, just as it was employed among the Novatians or Donatists—lesser heretics, certainly—not canonically but from a regard for piety, so we gather that it can also be done concerning these persons, for this reason also: that in other respects they have the orthodox faith in all things, except that they believe the Holy Spirit to be saleable. And, as blessed Augustine says, when heretics return, let them be healed in that part by which they severed themselves from the Church, but recognized in that part by which they adhered to her. Hence Leo also writes to Bishop Januarius, [of Aquileia, epistle III]:

Every cleric of any order who, forsaking catholic unity, has stained himself by the contagion of a heretical or schismatic association, if he returns to the Church with lawful satisfaction and condemnation of his error, is to have this as a great benefice: that, with hope of every promotion taken away, he may remain in the order in which he is found. GRATIAN. But concerning those who are ordained simoniacally by non-simoniacs—for example, those who, after giving money to the archdeacon or the bishop’s counselors, with the bishop unaware, bring it about that they receive sacred orders from his hand—Gregory VII writes, [book 6 of the Register, in the Synod held at Rome, A.D. 1078, 19 November, c. 5]:

Ordinations which are performed with a price, prayers, or service rendered to some person with that intention intervening, or which are performed without the common consent of clergy and people according to canonical sanctions and are not approved by those to whom consecration pertains, we adjudge to be false, because those who are ordained in this manner enter not through the door, that is, through Christ, but, as the Truth itself attests, are thieves and robbers. Part XIV. GRATIAN. Therefore, because simony is noted in three ways in this chapter, it must be seen in how many ways a price is given in this heresy. Blessed Gregory clearly expounds this in a tractate on the Gospels, [homily 4, at the end], saying:

There are some who indeed do not receive monetary rewards from ordination, yet bestow sacred orders for human favor and seek from that bestowal only the recompense of praise. Without doubt these do not freely give what they freely receive, because from the office of holiness bestowed they seek the coin of favor. Hence, when the Prophet described a just man, he rightly said: “One who shakes his hands free from every gift.” For he did not say only “from a gift,” but “from every gift,” because one gift is from service, another from the hand, another from the tongue. A gift from service is service unduly rendered. A gift from the hand is money; a gift from the tongue is favor. Therefore, one who bestows sacred orders shakes his hands free from every gift when in divine matters he seeks not only no money but not even human favor.

The same in the Register. If anyone, neither excelling in holy morals nor called by the clergy and people or compelled by their insistence, shamelessly receives the episcopal or priestly dignity of Christ—already polluted by any crime, through unjust love of heart, or sordid entreaties of mouth, or attendance, or manual service, or a fraudulent little gift, supported not by the gain of souls but by avarice for empty glory—and in his life has not left it voluntarily, and unexpected death has not found him in penance, beyond doubt he will perish eternally. Hence Gregory writes to John, Bishop of Corinth, [book IV, epistle 55]:

We have decreed under strict prohibition that anything be received for ordinations. Therefore, you must consent or permit no persons to be brought to sacred orders either through a gift, favor, or the supplication of certain persons.

The same to all Bishops established throughout the province of Greece, [the same book, epistle 56]. From the accounts of certain persons I have learned that in those parts no one arrives at sacred order without the giving of a benefit. If this is so, I say with weeping and announce with groaning that, when priestly order has died inwardly, outwardly also it will not be able to stand for long. For we know from the Gospel what our Redeemer did through himself: entering the temple, he overturned the seats of those selling doves. For to sell doves is to receive a temporal benefit from the Holy Spirit, whom almighty God, consubstantial with himself, bestows upon men through the imposition of hands. From this evil, as I foretold, it is believed already to have happened that the seats of those who presumed to sell doves in the temple of God have fallen, with God as judge. § 1. This error clearly is propagated with increase among subjects. For each person who is brought to sacred order, being already corrupted in the very root of his advancement, is more ready to sell to others what he bought. And where is that which is written: “Freely you have received; freely give”? And since the simoniacal heresy arose first against the holy Church, why is it not weighed, why is it not seen, that one who ordains another with a price acts by advancing him so that he may become a heretic? And therefore we exhort that none of you permit this to be done again, nor dare to promote anyone to sacred orders either through the favor or supplication of anyone, except one whom the quality of his life and action has shown worthy for this. For if we perceive it done otherwise again, know that it will be restrained by strict and canonical vengeance.

Likewise Symmachus, [to Caesarius, epistle I, c. 5]. Therefore, let no one be permitted to approach episcopal honor through canvassing. For since this excess is blamed in lay conduct, who doubts that it brings reproach upon religious persons and those serving God?

Likewise Gregory, [to Bishop Adeodatus, book II, indiction XI, epistle 48]. Be especially solicitous, therefore, in ordination, and by no means admit to sacred orders any except those more advanced in age and clean in work. First examine the life and morals of those who are to be placed in sacred order, and let not the power or supplication of any persons steal upon you against this, so that you may be able to employ persons worthy of this office. Therefore, when it is necessary to treat of these things, employ grave and experienced men as participants in your counsel, and weigh this with them by common deliberation.

The same to Bishop Columbus, [book II, indiction XI, epistle 47]. Let boys by no means be admitted to sacred orders, lest they fall the more perilously the more quickly they hasten to climb to higher things. Let there be no venality in ordination; let the power or supplication of persons obtain nothing against the things which we prohibit. For beyond doubt God is offended if anyone is promoted to sacred orders not from merit but from favor—which may it not be—or venality. GRATIAN. To the contrary, that same Gregory is read to have ordained one acolyte and another deacon upon the supplication of certain persons, as he himself writes, [book VII, indiction I, epistle 2], to Peter, Bishop of Corsica, among other things:

Through the intercession of your holiness we made the bearer of these presents an acolyte and have sent him for service to you, so that, if he has served more in gaining souls, he may be able to advance more.

The same to Elias, priest and abbot, [book IV, epistle 30]. You directed that we should promote your son Epiphanius to sacred order and transmit him to you. But in the one matter we heard you; in the other we could not hear you. He was indeed made a deacon; but whoever has once received sacred order in this Church thereafter has no license to depart from her. Although I was unable to see you, I have consolation from this matter, because I rest in your son. GRATIAN. Therefore, ordinations performed through the prayers of just any persons are not adjudged false, but only those which are performed through the prayers of the person to be ordained or of his friend, offered from a carnal rather than spiritual affection, when otherwise they would not have occurred—ordinations which not intervening charity but supplicating ambition extorts. Moreover, the Supreme Pontiff is able not only to ordain the clerics of any bishop in the Roman Church, but, when opportunity demands, can also summon and invite monks and any clerics whatsoever. Hence Pope Nicholas, [to Emperor Michael, in the epistle which begins, “We had proposed”]:

Through the preeminent power of the blessed Apostles Peter and Paul, we have the right not only over monks but also, whenever it may be necessary, to summon to us any clerics from any diocese and to invite them when ecclesiastical opportunities demand it. Part XV. GRATIAN. Therefore, when any gift whatsoever intervenes, the ordination is adjudged false. And just as sacred orders are not to be bestowed when a price intervenes, so neither are they to be restored. For, as blessed Ambrose says, sacred orders are neither to be bought for a price nor bought back. Hence Gregory VII also says, [book VI of the Register, in the Council held A.D. 1078, the sixth year of his pontificate, c. 9]:

Let no bishop impose upon his abbots or clerics a burden or servile service from custom contrary to the ecclesiastical norm, or restore an interdicted priestly office when a price intervenes. If he has done this, let him undergo the peril of his office. GRATIAN. Those who receive money so as not to bestow sacred orders upon those to be ordained, or so as not to give assent to a canonical election, or who withhold a blessed stone or consecration from churches to be built or consecrated, are proved by many arguments to be guilty and infamous by reason of the money received.

For Paschal II says:

There are some who, either through violence or favor, do not permit churches to be ordered regularly. We decree that these also are to be judged sacrilegious.

In book IX of the Code, under the Julian Law on Extortion, Emperors Gratian, Valentinian, and Theodosius. We command and exhort that, if perhaps anyone among honored men, decurions, possessors, or finally even tenants has for any reason been shaken down by a judge of any order; if anyone knows that a sentence at law was saleable; if anyone knows that a penalty was either remitted for a price or imposed through the vice of cupidity; if, finally, anyone has been able for any reason to prove a corrupt judge: let him come forth in public either while that man is administering or after the administration has been laid down, bring the charge, and prove what is charged; when he has proved it, he will carry away both victory and glory.

Likewise in book III of the Digest, in the title Concerning Calumniators, Ulpian in book X On the Edict, [law] 1. Against one who is said to have received money so that, for the sake of calumny, he would perform or not perform a transaction, within a year an action in factum lies for fourfold the money which he is said to have received; after a year, for the simple amount.

In the same place, book XLVII, title [13, law 2], Concerning Extortion by Intimidation, Marcellus in book I On Public Trials. A trial for extortion by intimidation is not a public trial. But if anyone received money because he threatened an accusation, there can be a public trial under the decrees of the senate by which those who have conspired to accuse innocent persons, or who have received money for accusing or not accusing, denouncing or not denouncing testimony, are commanded to be held under the penalty of the Cornelian Law.

In the same place, book XLVIII, title 11, On the Julian Law on Extortion, [law 3], Marcellus in book I On Public Trials. One is held under the Julian Law on Extortion who, while having some power, received money for judging, not judging, or decreeing; Venuleius Saturninus in book III On Public Trials: or so that he would do anything more or less from his office.

The same, [in the same title, law 6]. Under the same law are held those who have received money for denouncing or not denouncing testimony. § 1. It is provided by the Julian Law on Extortion that no one receive bronze for selecting or sending a soldier, or receive money for delivering an opinion in the senate or public council, or for accusing or not accusing. § 2. Marcellus in the same place. The Julian Law on Extortion commands that no one receive anything for granting, changing, or ordering a judge or arbiter, or for not granting, changing, or ordering one; or for assessing a suit, or holding or not holding a trial concerning a person or money. § 3. Today they are punished extraordinarily under the Law on Extortion, and very often are punished either by exile or even more harshly, according as they have transgressed. § 4. One condemned under this law is prohibited from giving testimony publicly, being a judge, or making a legal application.