Distinction LXXXIX

GRATIAN. Part I. It is also necessary that one be well set over his own house, so that from it certain proofs, as it were, of his future administration may be taken. But in the administration of the Church let him know that this rule is to be observed: that he commit no two offices at the same time to any person, however experienced, nor commit ecclesiastical property to secular men to govern.

Hence Gregory writes to all the Bishops:

We command that the individual offices of ecclesiastical law be committed individually to each individual person. For just as in one body we have many members, but all the members do not have the same action, so in the body of the Church, according to the truthful saying of Paul, in one and the same spiritual body this office is to be conferred upon one person and that one committed to another. For the offices of two affairs are not to be committed at one time to one person, however experienced: because, if the whole body were the eye, where would be the hearing? For just as the variety of members through diverse offices both preserves the strength of the body and represents its beauty, so the variety of persons, with diverse offices distributed among them, likewise manifests both the strength and the comeliness of the holy Church of God. And just as it is unbecoming that in the human body one member perform the office of another, so it is undoubtedly harmful and at the same time most shameful if the individual ministries of affairs are not distributed among just as many persons.

Likewise Gregory to the Subdeacon Anthemius, [book IX, epistle 66]. Part II. We will that our brother Paschasius appoint for himself both a vice-lord and a master of the household, so that he may be able to stand capable and prepared both for arriving guests and for the causes which arise. But if you perceive him to be negligent, or deferring to fulfill those things which we say, all his clergy ought to be assembled, so that by common counsel they may themselves choose those whose persons can be appointed to the things we have said before. GRATIAN. The office of the vice-lord is to order the episcopal household. Hence Gregory to the Patrician Clementina, [book I, epistle 11], after other things:

But as for the deacon Anatolius, whom you requested to be sent to you, the nature of the cause rather than the authority of severity makes us unable to do this. For we appointed him vice-lord, to whose judgment we committed the ordering of the episcopal household.

Likewise from the Council of Chalcedon, [c. 26]. Because in certain churches, as has come to us, bishops handle ecclesiastical property without a steward, it has pleased the council that all churches having bishops also have stewards from their own clergy, who are to govern the property of the Church according to the judgment of their bishop, so that the governance of the ecclesiastical property itself be not without testimony, and so that it not thereby happen that the property of the same Church is dispersed and disparagement is engendered against the priestly dignity. But if anyone does not observe this, let him be subject to the divine rules.

Likewise Gregory to John, Bishop of Cagliari, [book VII, epistle 66]. It has been indicated to us that you committed the care of your patrimony to certain laymen, who afterward were detected in plundering and in wearing down your peasants. If this is so, it is fitting that the matter be strictly examined by you and that the cause between them and the peasants of your Church be investigated more subtly. And whatever fraud is found, let them be compelled to restore it with the penalty established by the laws. But henceforth your fraternity must beware lest the property of any church be committed to secular men and those not living under your rule, but rather to approved clerics from your office, in whom, if anything of depravity can be found, you may, as in subjects, be able to amend what has been done unlawfully; so that, namely, among you they may administer the office of their habit more fittingly than bring it under accusation. Part III. GRATIAN. Let him not dare to commit ecclesiastical offices to relatives or even to those joined to him by favor. Hence in the Tenth Council of Toledo, [c. 3]:

It fittingly pleases all that such a deed be rescinded in the present and not be done hereafter. Therefore, whichever of the pontiffs henceforth attempts to entrust such gains either to blood relatives or to any persons bound to him by favor, to the ruin of his wicked presumption, let what was commanded be revoked as void, and let the one who appointed them be subject to excommunication for a year. But whatever things may perhaps have been taken are to be restored twofold by him who took them.

GRATIAN. Moreover, why the offices themselves are so to be distinguished and all not committed to one person is given to be understood from the authority of Gregory and from the authority of Pope Boniface, who says:

For this purpose the foresight of ordering established that diverse grades and orders be distinct, so that, while lesser persons displayed reverence toward greater persons and greater persons bestowed affection upon lesser persons, a true concord might be made, a weaving from diversity, and the administration of the individual offices might be rightly conducted. Nor could the whole subsist by any other reason unless a great order of difference of this kind preserved it. That a creature cannot be governed or live in one and the same quality, the example of the heavenly hosts instructs us, because, while there are angels and there are archangels, it is evident that they are not equal, but one differs from another in power and order, as you know.