Unam Sanctam: Papal Authority Defined
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Miguel VasUnam Sanctam: Papal Authority Defined
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Miguel VasUNAM SANCTAM
Bull of Pope Boniface VIII promulgated November 18, 1302
Urged by faith, we are obliged to believe and to maintain that the Church is one, holy,
catholic, and also apostolic. We believe in her firmly and we confess with simplicity that
outside of her there is neither salvation nor the remission of sins, as the Spouse in the
Canticles [Sgs 6:8] proclaims: 'One is my dove, my perfect one. She is the only one, the
chosen of her who bore her,' and she represents one sole mystical body whose Head is Christ
and the head of Christ is God [1 Cor 11:3]. In her then is one Lord, one faith, one baptism
[Eph 4:5]. There had been at the time of the deluge only one ark of Noah, prefiguring the one
Church, which ark, having been finished to a single cubit, had only one pilot and guide, i.e.,
Noah, and we read that, outside of this ark, all that subsisted on the earth was destroyed.
We venerate this Church as one, the Lord having said by the mouth of the prophet: 'Deliver,
O God, my soul from the sword and my only one from the hand of the dog.' [Ps 21:20] He has
prayed for his soul, that is for himself, heart and body; and this body, that is to say, the
Church, He has called one because of the unity of the Spouse, of the faith, of the sacraments,
and of the charity of the Church. This is the tunic of the Lord, the seamless tunic, which was
not rent but which was cast by lot [Jn 19:23- 24]. Therefore, of the one and only Church there
is one body and one head, not two heads like a monster; that is, Christ and the Vicar of
Christ, Peter and the successor of Peter, since the Lord speaking to Peter Himself said: 'Feed
my sheep' [Jn 21:17], meaning, my sheep in general, not these, nor those in particular,
whence we understand that He entrusted all to him [Peter]. Therefore, if the Greeks or others
should say that they are not confided to Peter and to his successors, they must confess not
being the sheep of Christ, since Our Lord says in John 'there is one sheepfold and one
shepherd.' We are informed by the texts of the gospels that in this Church and in its power are
two swords; namely, the spiritual and the temporal. For when the Apostles say: 'Behold, here
are two swords' [Lk 22:38] that is to say, in the Church, since the Apostles were speaking, the
Lord did not reply that there were too many, but sufficient. Certainly the one who denies that
the temporal sword is in the power of Peter has not listened well to the word of the Lord
commanding: 'Put up thy sword into thy scabbard' [Mt 26:52]. Both, therefore, are in the
power of the Church, that is to say, the spiritual and the material sword, but the former is to
be administered for the Church but the latter by the Church; the former in the hands of the
priest; the latter by the hands of kings and soldiers, but at the will and sufferance of the priest.
However, one sword ought to be subordinated to the other and temporal authority, subjected
to spiritual power. For since the Apostle said: 'There is no power except from God and the
things that are, are ordained of God' [Rom 13:1-2], but they would not be ordained if one
sword were not subordinated to the other and if the inferior one, as it were, were not led
upwards by the other.
For, according to the Blessed Dionysius, it is a law of the divinity that the lowest things reach
the highest place by intermediaries. Then, according to the order of the universe, all things
are not led back to order equally and immediately, but the lowest by the intermediary, and the
inferior by the superior. Hence we must recognize the more clearly that spiritual power
surpasses in dignity and in nobility any temporal power whatever, as spiritual things surpass
the temporal. This we see very clearly also by the payment, benediction, and consecration of
the tithes, but the acceptance of power itself and by the government even of things. For with
truth as our witness, it belongs to spiritual power to establish the terrestrial power and to pass
judgement if it has not been good. Thus is accomplished the prophecy of Jeremias concerning
the Church and the ecclesiastical power: 'Behold to-day I have placed you over nations, and
over kingdoms' and the rest. Therefore, if the terrestrial power err, it will be judged by the
spiritual power; but if a minor spiritual power err, it will be judged by a superior spiritual
power; but if the highest power of all err, it can be judged only by God, and not by man,
according to the testimony of the Apostle: 'The spiritual man judgeth of all things and he
himself is judged by no man' [1 Cor 2:15]. This authority, however, (though it has been given
to man and is exercised by man), is not human but rather divine, granted to Peter by a divine
word and reaffirmed to him (Peter) and his successors by the One Whom Peter confessed, the
Lord saying to Peter himself, 'Whatsoever you shall bind on earth, shall be bound also in
Heaven' etc., [Mt 16:19]. Therefore whoever resists this power thus ordained by God, resists
the ordinance of God [Rom 13:2], unless he invent like Manicheus two beginnings, which is
false and judged by us heretical, since according to the testimony of Moses, it is not in the
beginnings but in the beginning that God created heaven and earth [Gen 1:1]. Furthermore,
we declare, we proclaim, we define that it is absolutely necessary for salvation that every
human creature be subject to the Roman Pontiff.