Distinction IX

GRATIAN. Part I. That positive law yields to natural law is proved by manifold authority. For Augustine says to Boniface [the count, epistle 50]:

[PALEA. When emperors establish evil laws for falsehood against truth, those believing rightly are tested and those persevering are crowned; but when they establish good laws for truth against falsehood, the raging are terrified and those who understand are corrected.] §1. Whoever is unwilling to obey the laws of emperors that are enacted for God’s truth acquires a great punishment. Whoever, therefore, is unwilling to obey the laws of emperors that are enacted against the will of God acquires a great reward. [§2. For even in the times of the prophets, all kings who did not prohibit and overturn those things instituted among the people of God contrary to God’s precepts are blamed, while those who prohibited and overturned them are praised above the merits of others. And King Nebuchadnezzar, when he was a servant of idols, established a sacrilegious law that an image should be adored; but those who refused to obey his impious enactment acted piously and faithfully. Yet the same king, corrected by a divine miracle, established for truth a pious and praiseworthy law that whoever uttered blasphemy against the God of Shadrach, Meshach, and Abednego should utterly perish together with his household.]

[PALEA.

Likewise from the words of Isidore, Book III of the Sentences, On the Supreme Good, c. 53. It is just for a prince to obey his own laws. For then may he consider his laws to be observed by all, when he himself also shows reverence for them. Princes are bound by their own laws, nor is it fitting that they can condemn in themselves the laws that they establish for their subjects. For the authority of their voice is just if they do not permit themselves what they prohibit to the peoples.]

The same, in the prologue to Book III On the Trinity. Part II. Do not be subservient to my writings as though to canonical Scriptures. Rather, in the latter, when you find even what you did not believe, believe it without hesitation; but in the former, do not hold firmly even what you held as certain unless you understand it to be certain.

The same, to Vincentius, Book II [Book IV On the Soul and Its Origin, c. 1]. I cannot and ought not deny that, just as in the greater works themselves, so also in my many works there are many things that can be faulted by a just judgment and without rashness.

The same, to Jerome, epistle VIII [XIX]. I have learned to render this fear and honor only to those books of the Scriptures that are now called canonical, so that I dare not believe that any of their authors erred in writing. And if I encounter in them anything that appears contrary to truth, I do not doubt that either the manuscript is faulty, or the translator did not grasp what was said, or I myself have understood it not at all. I read others, however, in such a way that, however much they excel in holiness and learning, I do not think something true merely because they themselves thought it so, but because they were able to persuade me, through other authors or canonical Scriptures or probable reasons, that it does not depart from truth.

The same. Just as the fidelity of the books of the Old Testament is to be examined from the Hebrew volumes, so that of the New requires the norm of the Greek language.

The same, in Epistle I to Jerome [epistle IX]. If even well-intentioned falsehoods are admitted into the holy Scriptures, what authority will remain in them? What judgment from those Scriptures will at last be pronounced whose weight may crush the wickedness of contentious falsehood?

The same, Book II On the One Baptism [likewise, On Baptism against the Donatists, Book II, c. 3]. Who does not know that holy canonical Scripture, both of the Old and the New Testament, is contained within its fixed limits, and that it is so placed before all later letters of bishops that it is altogether impossible to doubt and debate concerning it whether whatever is established as written in it is true or right? But letters of bishops that either were written or are written after the canon was confirmed may be reproved—by perhaps the wiser discourse of anyone more skilled in that matter, by the weightier authority and more learned prudence of other bishops, and by councils—if anything in them has perhaps deviated from truth.

The same, to Vincentius [epistle XLVIII, against the Donatists]. Brother, do not wish to gather calumnies against so many, so illustrious, and so indubitable divine testimonies from the writings of bishops, whether of our own, such as Hilary, or of Cyprian and Agrippinus before the party of Donatus was separated; first, because this kind of writing is to be distinguished from the authority of the canon. For they are not read in such a way that testimony is brought forth from them as though it were unlawful to think contrary to them if anywhere they perhaps thought otherwise than truth requires. For we are in that number that does not disdain to accept as spoken also to us what was said by the Apostle: “And if in anything you think otherwise, this also God has revealed to you.”

The same, in the epistle to Fortunatus [likewise, to Fortunatianus, epistle III]. Nor ought we to hold the disputations of any persons whatsoever, although they are Catholic and praiseworthy men, as canonical Scriptures, in such a way that it is not lawful for us—while preserving the honor due to those men—to disapprove and reject something in their writings if perhaps we find that they thought otherwise than truth stands, whether understood by others or by us with divine assistance. Such as I am in regard to the writings of others, such do I wish the readers of mine to be.

The same, to Casulanus [to Marcellinus, The City of God, Book I, c. 22, §2]. Sound reason is indeed to be placed even before examples. Examples also agree with it, but those examples are the more worthy of imitation to the extent that they are more excellent in piety.

GRATIAN. Since, therefore, nothing else is commanded by natural law than what God wills to be done, and nothing else is forbidden than what God prohibits from being done; finally, since nothing is found in canonical Scripture other than in the divine laws, while the divine laws stand by nature, it is clear that whatever things are shown to be contrary to the divine will or to canonical Scripture are also found to be opposed to natural law. Hence, whatever things are judged to be placed after the divine will, canonical Scripture, or divine laws, natural law must be preferred to those same things. Therefore, enactments, whether ecclesiastical or secular, if they are shown to be contrary to natural law, are to be entirely excluded.