Dist. 44, Art. 3, Q. 1
by St. Bonaventure
Source text: Public Domain Mark 1.0. English translation/apparatus/encoding: CC BY-NC 4.0, Wroot Press.
https://bonaventure.wrootpress.com/browse/2/d/44/q/bon-sent-II-d44-a3-q1
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### Article III. *On the necessity of being subject to the power that presides.*

Next there is inquiry concerning the necessity of being subject to the power that presides. And concerning this two questions are asked.

First it is asked, whether Christians are bound to be subject to tyrants in some things.

Second it is asked, whether religious are bound to be subject to their prelates in all things.

### Question I. *Whether Christians are bound to be subject to tyrants or to the secular power in some things.*

Concerning the first one proceeds thus, and it is asked whether Christians are bound to be subject to tyrants or to the secular power in some things. And that they are, it seems.

1. *First Peter*, chapter two: *Servants, be subject in all fear to your masters, not only to the good and the gentle, but also to the froward.*

2. Likewise, *to the Romans*, chapter thirteen: *Let every soul be subject to the higher powers*; and afterwards: *Render to all their dues, tribute to whom tribute is due, custom to whom custom.* And if you say that this is an admonition for the sake of avoiding scandal; on the contrary, a little before: *Be subject of necessity, not only because of wrath, but also for conscience' sake.*

3. Likewise, this same thing is shown by the reason which the Apostle makes in the same place. *There is no power*, he says, *but from God; but the things that are from God are ordained*: therefore every power is ordained by divine ordination: *and so he who resists the power resists the ordinance of God; but he who resists the ordinance of God acquires damnation to himself*: therefore etc.

4. Likewise, to serve a man is neither fault nor evil, nay rather it is meritorious: therefore it seems that one is not absolved from that servitude through baptism: therefore just as non-Christians are servants of others, so too, even if they become Christians, they are bound to serve.

5. Likewise, to this same effect there are many authorities, which may be drawn as it were from all the Epistles of blessed Paul, in which he admonishes servants to be subject to their masters.

**On the contrary:** 1. *Matthew*, chapter seventeen: *Of whom do the kings of the earth receive tribute? of their own children, or of strangers?* and afterwards below: *Then the children are free*; and the Gloss there: «*The children of the kingdom are free in every kingdom; much more are the children of that kingdom free, under which are all kingdoms in any earthly kingdom whatever*»: if therefore good Christians are children of that kingdom, it seems that they are bound under the power of no earthly king: therefore they are not bound to be subject to him in any tribute.

2. Likewise, *James*, chapter one: *But he who has looked into the law of perfect liberty*; the Gloss explains that «*the law of perfect liberty is the law of the Gospel*»: therefore if perfect liberty frees from all servitude, it seems that everyone who cleaves to the law of the Gospel is absolved from all servitude to an earthly king.

3. Likewise, charity makes all the members of Christ one and makes all things common; whence *first to the Corinthians*, chapter three: *All things are yours, whether death, or life* etc. It makes all things one, because the Apostle says both to the Ephesians and to the Colossians: *We are all one in Christ, nor is there distinction of servant and free*: therefore if charity reduces all members to equality and community, it seems then that in those who have charity there is no obligation of servitude.

4. Likewise, the bond of the divine law is greater than the bond of human constitution; but the law of the Gospel absolves from the burden of legal servitude, which indeed had been laid down by God through Moses: therefore much more strongly does it absolve from the burden of human servitude and of the civil law.

5. Likewise, Anselm in the book *Why God Became Man*, chapter five: «*He willed to redeem by himself, that he might restore [man] to his pristine liberty, and that man might be subject to himself, not to a man*»: if therefore *we are bought with a great price*, namely *with the blood of a lamb unspotted and undefiled*; it seems that we are servants of him alone: therefore it does not seem that a Christian man, who is reborn in Christ, is bound to any servitude of an earthly empire.

### Conclusion

> Christians are obligated to earthly masters, yet not in all things, but only in those which are not against God, and which according to right custom have been reasonably established.

**I respond:** It must be said that, since servitude is opposed to liberty, according as liberty is said to be threefold, namely from coercion and from fault and from misery; so servitude can be spoken of in three ways, which is considered in the restriction of liberty. For according to the restriction of liberty from fault there is considered the servitude of sin, of which *John*, chapter eight: *He who commits sin is the servant of sin*; and *to the Romans*, chapter six: *Let not sin reign in your mortal body.* — But according to the restriction of liberty from misery there is considered the servitude of punishment and of death, of which it is said *to the Romans*, chapter six: *Christ rising from the dead dies now no more, death shall no more have dominion over him.* — But according to the restriction of liberty from coercion there is considered the servitude of condition, of which it is said *first to the Corinthians*, chapter seven: *Were you called as a servant? care not for it; but if you can be made free, use it rather.* And this servitude is considered in the restriction of liberty from coercion, not as to the interior motion of the will, which cannot be coerced, but as to the exterior. Whence servitude too was introduced in this, that one conquered another and bound him to his own servitude, so that it is not permitted to do the contrary of what he himself has commanded.

Since therefore servitude is threefold, one takes its origin from another; for there would be no servitude of punishment, unless the servitude of fault had preceded; nor would the servitude of condition follow, unless that twofold one preceded. When therefore someone is regenerated in Christ and becomes a Christian, he is freed from the servitude of sin; but yet he is not so freed that he does not also have the possibility and the facility and the proneness of returning to the same kind of servitude; and hence it is that, on account of his advancement and humiliation, the Lord leaves to him the servitude of death and of condition. Whence Christians die just as others do; and on account of the proneness to evil and the concupiscences warring in their members, from which arise wars and strifes, they need an earthly ruling prince, just as do other peoples — and therefore not only according to human institution, but also according to divine dispensation among Christians there are kings and princes, masters and servants — and according to the distinction of power they are subjected to him and bound according to more and less. And this the Lord himself says, *Matthew*, chapter twenty-two: *Render the things that are Caesar's to Caesar, and the things that are God's to God.* And the Apostle in *first to Timothy*, the last [chapter], teaches this and condemns those who preach the contrary. For he says thus: *Whoever are under the yoke of servitude, let them count their masters worthy of all honor, lest the name of the Lord and the doctrine be blasphemed. But if anyone teaches otherwise and does not acquiesce in the sound words of our Lord Jesus Christ, he is proud, knowing nothing* etc. And this same thing he proves *to the Romans*, chapter thirteen, and in many other places he teaches and commands. — And therefore it must be granted that Christians are obligated to earthly masters, yet not in all things, but in those alone which are not against God; nor in all these, but in those which according to right custom have been reasonably established, such as tributes and customs and the like. — Whence the authorities and reasons which prove this are to be granted.

1. To that, therefore, which is objected first concerning the text and the Gloss, the seventeenth of Matthew, it must be said that the text is to be understood of Christ, that Christ was not bound to render tribute, and of those who are his perfect imitators, such as the Apostles, for the reason that they were naturally free and had given up all temporal goods; and therefore the kings of the earth ought not to receive census or tribute from them. But in other Christians, either those who are of servile condition, or those who abound in temporal goods, that authority is not to be understood.

2. To that which is objected, that the law of the Gospel is the law of perfect liberty; it must be said that it is therefore called the law of perfect liberty, because it frees from the servitude of transgression, or even from the servitude of the Law, since in it is given the spirit of charity, which is the spirit of liberty according to what the Apostle says *to the Romans*, chapter eight: *You have not received the spirit of servitude again in fear, but the spirit of the adoption of sons*; and therefore from this it does not follow that a man who is under the law of the Gospel is freed from the servitude of earthly dominion.

3. To that which is objected, that charity unites all and makes [all things] common; it must be said that this is true through a certain *participation*, but it is not true through *the authority of dominion*. It also unites all, but this is according to *affection*, not according to *an indistinction of grade and dignity*; for in the body of Christ there is a great distinction of members, although as to the conformity of affections there is a great union.

4. To that which is objected, that the law of the Gospel absolves from the burden of the Mosaic law, therefore much more strongly from human law; it must be said that it is not the same, because this law fulfills and empties that one, as truth does a figure. But it is not so with the law of human institution, which greatly helps toward the observance of the divine law. Whence the Apostle too commands that prayer be made for princes, *first to Timothy*, chapter two: *that we may lead a quiet and tranquil life under them.*

5. To that which is objected, that Christ therefore willed to redeem by himself, that he might restore [man] to his pristine liberty; it must be said that there is noted the full effect of the redemption made by Christ. But yet we do not fully attain that effect in the present, so long as *the creature groans and travails, until it be delivered from the servitude of corruption into the liberty of the glory of the children of God*. Whence here liberty from *fault* is begun, but there liberty from *misery* and from all human power will be consummated. Whence it does not follow that, if we are bought by Christ, on account of this we are not servants of another, because the dominion of Christ is well compatible with the dominion of a man, especially in those who command nothing against God; but it is not compatible with the dominion of the devil or of sin, according to that of *Matthew*, chapter six: *You cannot serve two masters.* Therefore although by the redemption of Christ we are rescued from the servitude of mortal sin, we are not yet rescued from the servitude of condition, or of death.