Question III

GRATIAN. But it is still objected that those about to enter a monastery who give money buy not the purpose of religion but participation in the stipends of the Church. Therefore, since they buy temporal things, not spiritual things, they are by no means to be held simoniacs. § 1. To these things the response is thus: Not only those who receive spiritual things for a price, but also those who receive temporal things annexed to them, are judged simoniacs. Hence Malachi, speaking in the person of the Lord, says: “Who is there among you who closes the doors and kindles my altar gratuitously? I have no will in you, says the Lord of hosts, and I will not receive a gift from your hand.” To close the doors is not an office of a sacred gift, but only annexed to it. Likewise Gregory writes to all the Bishops of Spain:

We have heard, most beloved, what it was proper for us to hear, but certainly it was not pleasing to hear: namely, that there are certain professors of sacred orders who, through the giving or acceptance of gifts, usurp for themselves the churches of God or their benefices. We greatly marvel that you did not correct this crime sharply some time ago; for each is justly to be corrected and removed from the thresholds of holy Church: both the one who lavishes gifts for the ambition of obtaining a church and the one who presumes to accept anything in order that he may enter a church. The former indeed presumes to buy the gift of God, but the latter to sell it. I would also say that this offense is not unlike sacrilege, since that which ought to have been done freely and by the sacred judgment of deliberation is occasioned by a bargain for money. Therefore, dearest brothers, carefully undo the things done in such a manner, prevent those not yet done, and do not hesitate to strike those resisting your commands with the fitting bond of anathema.

The same to the Bishop of Rouen and to all the Gallic bishops. If any giver or receiver has obtained churches of God or ecclesiastical benefices—which some call prebends—through the intervention of money, whether by giving he bought or by receiving he sold, he is not excluded from Simon's perdition. But if he has persevered, let him be punished with perpetual condemnation. For if one who wishes to serve God under the appearance of religion accepts anything, he both loses his merit and is deprived of the benefice accepted. By the force of reason, therefore, he is compelled to restore what he received unjustly and not to retain whatever he had received for the sake of base gain.

Likewise Pope Gregory VII, [book VI of the Register, in the Synod, c. 4]. If any bishop has sold prebends, archdeaconries, provostships, or any ecclesiastical offices, or has ordained otherwise than the statutes of the holy Fathers prescribe, let him be suspended from office. For it is fitting that, just as he received the episcopate freely, so he should distribute freely the members of that same episcopate.

Likewise from the Council of Pope Urban II held in Auvergne. The question was raised concerning bishops who repeatedly compelled monasteries to redeem for money altars given to them, because a certain practice of simoniacal depravity had now long grown established in parts of Gaul: churches or tithes—which among them are called “altars” in common speech—given to monasteries are repeatedly sold by bishops under cloaked avarice, whenever, to be sure, the clerics whom they call “persons” die or are changed. With God as our author, we drive every venality both from ecclesiastical things and ministries, and by apostolic authority prohibit this from being done hereafter, just as we also forbid all prebends to be sold. Moreover, whatever altars or tithes monasteries are known to have possessed for thirty years or more under redemption of this kind, we establish that they shall possess them henceforth peacefully and without any molestation. § 1. The annual due of the bishops which they were accustomed to have from those same altars is, of course, reserved.

The same, [in the Council of Piacenza, cc. 1 and 2]. We too confirm, both by judgment and by apostolic authority, the things established by the holy Fathers concerning simoniacs. Therefore, whatever has been acquired in sacred orders or ecclesiastical things by money either given or promised, we decree to be void and never to obtain any force.

Whatever is possessed is understood under the name of money. Likewise Augustine, On Christian Doctrine. Everything whatsoever that men have on earth, all the things of which they are masters, are called money: a slave, vessel, field, tree, cattle; whatever is among these is called money. § 1. It is called money for this reason: because the ancients had what they possessed in cattle.

Likewise Pope Paschal. If anyone objects that consecrations are not bought, but rather the things which arise from consecration, he is proved utterly foolish. For since a corporate church, such as a bishop, abbot, or something of that kind, profits nothing without corporeal things, just as a soul does not live bodily without a body, whoever sells either one of these things, without which the other does not arise, leaves neither unsold. Therefore, let no one buy a church or prebend or anything ecclesiastical, nor pay a pastellum or a meal before or afterward for such a thing.

Likewise Urban [II], Bishop, servant of the servants of God, to his beloved son L., Provost of the church of Saint Vincent at Pavia, greeting and apostolic blessing. The Savior foretells in the Gospel that near the end of the age false Christs and false prophets will arise and seduce many, and that his faithful will suffer many afflictions in the world, but nevertheless that the gates of hell will not prevail. Therefore—just as the Apostle says, “There must be heresies, so that those who are approved may be made manifest”—we must rise up in opposition with the Prophet and set up a wall for the house of Israel, and with the Apostle enter the kingdom of God through many tribulations, since the sufferings of this time are not worthy to be compared with the future glory which will be revealed in us. § 1. Therefore, because you made known to us that this objection is put to you—whether it is simoniacal to sell an ecclesiastical thing—that this is simoniacal is openly gathered from what the blessed Apostle says to Simon: “May your money be with you unto perdition, because you thought the gift of God to be possessed by money.” The Holy Spirit is indeed the gift of God, and a thing offered to the Church itself is a gift of God. And, if you attend carefully, Simon Magus, who approached the faith, wished to buy not the Holy Spirit, of whom he was himself unworthy—for, as it is written, “The Holy Spirit of discipline will flee the false”—but his gift, so that from the sale of the signs which would be performed through him he might gain multiplied money. Nor did the Apostle abhor in that Simon the purchase of the Holy Spirit—which he knew could not rightly be made—but the ambition for such gain and the avarice which is the service of idols, and he struck it with the dart of a curse. Therefore, whoever sells or buys ecclesiastical things—which are gifts of God, given by God to the faithful and by the faithful to God, and which are received freely from him and therefore ought to be given freely—for the sake of his own gains, thinks with that same Simon that the gift of God is possessed by money. And therefore, one who bestows or obtains them not for that for which they were instituted, but for his own gains, through a service of the tongue, an undue service, or money, is a simoniac, since Simon's principal intention was the sole cause of money, namely avarice, that is, idolatry, as the Apostle Paul says. Otherwise, why does the Synod of Chalcedon of 630 bishops so prohibit the procurator or defender of a church, or anyone subject to a rule, from being ordained through money that it also anathematizes the intermediaries of so great a crime, unless it judges them to be simoniacs? But if the aforesaid soldiers of the Church are thus struck for a crime of this kind, no wise person will deny that those not serving the Church ought to be struck much more damnably for this cause, that is, for selling or buying. But our blessed predecessor Paschal affirms concerning consecration that whoever sells either of those things without which the other does not arise leaves neither unsold, and through this he understands that one who sells or buys a thing of the Church is a simoniac. § 2. Under the name of procurator, the aforesaid synod understands any administrator of ecclesiastical things, as, for example, a provost, economist, or vidame; under the name of defender, an advocate or castellan, and a judge; under one subject to a rule, an archpriest, archdeacon, canon, monk, or anyone assigned to ecclesiastical office. § 3. But that one who sells or buys a provostship or something of this kind sells or buys the Holy Spirit, so far as lies in him, hear Augustine upon John:

“O how many provostships they divide off! Primianus has one provost at Carthage, Rogatus another in Mauretania, that man or this another in Numidia, whom we no longer suffice even to name. Therefore someone goes around to buy the dove; each praises his own provost whom he sells, etc.” Behold, the venerable Augustine, treating the alienation of a provostship, understands under the name of the dove the sale or purchase of the Holy Spirit, as do all the expositors of this Gospel chapter. § 4. It must be considered with what penalty those who sell or buy things already offered to God and his Church are to be punished, if those who sold or bought the things to be offered to God were driven out of the temple of God with whips. If it was said concerning the sellers or buyers of things to be offered, “You have made my Father's house a house of business and a den of robbers,” what will be said concerning the sellers or buyers of things already offered to the Church? § 5. And lest some madman object that the Lord rightly punished this so bitterly because those things were then sold in God's temple, whereas ecclesiastical things are now alienated outside the temple, attend to Augustine above: he does not delimit the place for the sale or purchase of provostships, but only says indefinitely, “Someone goes around to buy the dove; each praises his own provost whom he sells,” not adding “inside the temple” or “outside the temple.” Let these things suffice against the sellers or buyers of sacred things.

Likewise Alexander [II], Bishop, servant of the servants of God, to the clergy and people of the church of Lucca in perpetuity. We have learned that for a long time this detestable evil has become established within your church: that an ecclesiastical benefice was never conceded to any cleric, however religious and however endowed with knowledge and morals, except to one who had endeavored to buy it with the profane gift of money; and thus the church and its property were made venal, like some earthly and cheap merchandise exposed to sale by merchants. How detestable this evil is and how contrary to God and the saints both the sacred canons teach and is manifest to nearly everyone. This sentence is found in the second chapter of the Synod of Chalcedon. § 1. For the Council of Chalcedon, one of the principal councils, condemns with a similar penalty those who acquire an ecclesiastical benefice through the intervention of money and those who are known to bargain for the sacred imposition of the hand, through which the Holy Spirit is conferred. By its unconquerable authority it commands each group to be expelled: the former from the benefice, the latter from sacred order. Hence the Redeemer of the human race, driving all buyers and sellers from the temple, overturned the seats of those selling doves and poured out the money of the money-changers, declaring by the authority of his command and saying: “Do not make my Father's house a house of business.” § 2. In that same deed consider this also carefully: nowhere through the whole text of the holy Gospel is the Lord found to have corrected sinners with such severity and so strict a censure of justice, since he not only rebuked them in speech but, also in deed, striking them with a whip of cords, drove them all from the temple, openly showing that such traders are not to be corrected like other sinners but are to be cast far from the temple of God, that is, from holy Church. For just as those who endeavor to sell the sacred imposition of the hand are denoted by the sellers of doves, so the sellers of ecclesiastical benefices are designated by the money-changers, who, as the Gospel testifies, make the house of God a den of robbers. § 3. For this reason I, Alexander, bishop—or rather unworthy minister—of the holy Roman Church and Apostolic See, perceiving so many and so great evils to be done in many churches, and especially in the church of Lucca, from wicked covetousness, have decreed to extirpate and root them out entirely, lest the blood of the wicked be required from our hand by the strict Judge. We therefore establish and confirm by the present decree, just as our predecessors are known to have done of old, that henceforth no bishop shall ever dare to confer upon clerics a benefice of a church—which some call a canonry or prebends—or even orders, for any price or gift, but that they shall take care to ordain all ministers and servants of the Church in holy Church freely and without any venality. Nor shall they choose in the house of the Lord those who bring larger sacks of money, but those who, rich in morals and knowledge, are able to sustain the Church herself according to their office. We establish and confirm in the same way that no cleric of whatever grade shall dare to contribute anything for an ecclesiastical benefice, whether for the fabric of churches, as gifts to churches, or even as something to be given to the poor, because, as Scripture testifies, one who accepts something wickedly in order to dispense it well is burdened rather than helped. But if anyone, unmindful of divine precepts and of the salvation of souls, led by wicked covetousness presumes with rash daring to buy or sell the aforesaid ecclesiastical benefice, we decree, as was defined in the Council of Chalcedon, that he shall be subject to the peril of his grade; nor may he minister in the church which he desired to make venal for money; and in addition, pierced by the blade of a terrible anathema, unless he comes to his senses, let him be severed in every way from the Church of God, which he injured.

Likewise Gregory, homily XIII. Christ drove the sellers and buyers from the temple because he condemns either those who confer the imposition of hands for a gift or those who strive to buy the gift of God. Likewise: § 1. Sellers in the temple are those who grant for a reward what belongs to certain persons by right. For to sell justice is to observe it for the acceptance of a reward. Buyers in the temple, however, are those who, while unwilling to render to a neighbor what is just and while scorning to do a thing owed by right, purchase sin by giving a price to patrons.

Likewise Bede, [on John c. 2]. Those alone are not sellers of doves and makers of the house of God into a house of business who seek sacred orders by offering a price of money, praise, or even honor; but also those who exercise a grade or spiritual grace in the Church which they received through the Lord's generosity, not with simple intention, but for the sake of any human recompense, contrary to that saying of the Apostle Peter: “Whoever speaks, as the words of God; whoever ministers, as from the power which God supplies, so that God may be honored in all things.” Therefore, whoever are such, if they do not wish to be taken from the Church when the Lord comes, let them take these things away from their deeds, lest they make the house of God a house of business. GRATIAN. Teaching that no one ought to convert to his own right, either by force or by any gift, the things of the Church which arise from consecration, Saint Urban says:

Whoever sells or buys ecclesiastical things—which are gifts of God, since they are given by God to the faithful and by the faithful to God, and are received freely from him and therefore ought to be given freely—for the sake of his own gains, thinks with that same Simon that the gift of God is possessed by money.

Likewise Gregory VII. An evil report has reached us that certain bishops confer the tithes and offerings of Christians not upon priests of their own dioceses but rather upon lay persons, namely soldiers or servants, or—what is more grievous—kinsmen. Hence, if from now on any bishop is found to transgress this divine precept, let him be held not the least among the greatest heretics and antichrists; and, as the Nicene Synod decreed concerning simoniacs, both the bishop who gives and the laymen who receive from him, whether for a price or as a benefice, shall be consigned to the fires of eternal burning.

Likewise Paschal II. No one of the faithful is ignorant that to grant an altar and tithes for money and to sell the Holy Spirit is the simoniacal heresy.

Likewise Pope Innocent [II, in the Roman Synod, c. 2]. If anyone has acquired prebends, a priorship, a deanery, an honor, any ecclesiastical promotion, or any ecclesiastical sacrament—for example, chrism, holy oil, or consecrations of altars or churches—through money, with the execrable ardor of avarice intervening, let him lack the honor wickedly acquired, and let buyer, seller, and intermediary be struck with the mark of infamy. Let nothing be exacted either for a meal or under the appearance of any custom before or afterward, nor let him himself presume to give anything, since it is simoniacal; but let him freely enjoy the dignity and benefice conferred upon him without any diminution. GRATIAN. What the sacred canons determine concerning the second and third questions has been disclosed by the authorities brought forward on each side.