Liber Primus, Caput VI. Non tam episcopis, quam principibus judiciariam potestatem competere.

Liber Primus, Caput VI. Non tam episcopis, quam principibus judiciariam potestatem competere.

But listen to the Apostle — what does he think about matters of this kind?^✦ Isn't there even one wise person among you, he says, who can judge between one believer and another?^✦1 And he adds — I say this to your shame — appoint the most despised people in the church to judge your cases.^✦2 So then, according to the Apostle, you who hold an apostolic office are unworthily seizing a lowly role — the rank of the despised.³ This is why a bishop, instructing a bishop, used to say: No one serving God entangles himself in worldly affairs.^✦4 But I'll spare you. I'm not making impossible demands — only reasonable ones. Do you think these times could bear it — if, while people are fighting over an earthly inheritance and demanding a legal ruling from you, you answered them with the voice of your Lord: 'O people, who appointed me judge over you?'^✦5 Into what sort of judgment are you about to come? What does a rude and unskilled man say, one who ignores his own preeminence, dishonors that highest and lofty seat, and belittles apostolic dignity? And yet those who say this won't point out, I think, where any of the Apostles ever sat as judge of men, dividing boundaries or apportioning lands. I do read that the Apostles stood to be judged; I do not read that they sat as judges. That will be, it never was. Is a servant a threat to dignity if he doesn't want to be greater than his lord, or a disciple if he doesn't want to be greater than the one who sent him, or a son if he doesn't overstep the limits set by his fathers? Who appointed me judge? That Lord and Master said so, and it will be a wrong done to the servant and the disciple unless he judges everyone. But to me, someone doesn't seem like a good judge of things if he thinks it's beneath the apostles or apostolic men not to judge such matters—they've been given authority over greater things. Why shouldn't they disdain judging people's earthly little possessions, when in heavenly matters they'll also judge angels?^✦ So your authority lies in crimes, not in possessions, because you received the keys of the kingdom of heaven for the sake of those, and not for these—certainly to exclude transgressors, not to be possessors.^✦ So that you may know, he says, that the Son of Man has authority on earth to forgive sins, etc.^✦ Which seems greater to you—both the dignity and the authority of forgiving sins, or of dividing estates? But there's no comparison. These weak, earthly matters have their own judges—the kings and princes of the earth. Why do you invade someone else's boundaries? Why do you reach your sickle into someone else's harvest? Not because you're unworthy, but because giving your time to such things is beneath you, given that you're occupied with greater matters. Finally, when necessity demands it, hear what the Apostle advises: 'If this world is to be judged among you, are you unworthy to judge the smallest matters?'