Quod amhitiosi dissimulant se uelle quod maxime
The Theater of False Humility
Ambitious men feign reluctance and unworthiness to secure ecclesiastical office through a performance of humility.
They crave it, and they look for excuses to hide their true intent. Yet look: the Church is either forced or tricked into promoting one of these men, telling a domestic enemy, "Friend, move up higher." These fools act stunned, recoil at the mention of high office, and flee from the burden; but they do this only so they can be pushed all the more eagerly—like a ram, as the saying goes, that hits harder when it backs up—retreating with sighs, groans, and sobs that interrupt their fake tears. It's well known that this seat draws and pushes the unwilling, while ambition drives away those it marks. So they try to use arguments and authorities to explain why they shouldn't be made bishops. "I'm not a doctor," they say, "and there's no bread in my house; I have no treasures to bring out for those in need, whether new or old." I can certainly use the prophet's excuse: that I don't know how to speak and that I'm a child—not in age, but in truth, in knowledge, and in the lightness of my character. I've been dressed in filthy clothes from the start, and I've never tried to wash them clean with the blood of the Lamb or with good works.
The Danger of the Unworthy Priest
The author reflects on the spiritual peril of an unworthy leader, using scriptural imagery to show how corruption spreads from the priest to the people.
How, then, can I handle holy things while I am polluted, or how can I cleanse what is defiled, as a priest is required to do? I have constantly ignored the law and, as Ezekiel rebukes, I haven't ceased to defile the holy things of God. My promotion, therefore, is the people's downfall. A wicked priest is the ruin of the people; they become a snare for the people, standing on the watchtower like a net spread out to entangle souls. I am terrified by Haggai’s mystical parable, which expresses the danger of the priesthood and clearly teaches that people catch vices from the habits of their priests more easily than they catch virtues. He says, 'Ask the priests about the law, and tell them: If someone carries holy meat or a holy vessel in the skirt of his garment, does it sanctify whatever it touches?' And when the priests said that it doesn't sanctify, he said to them again: 'If an unclean person touches the garment of a clean person, does it defile it?' And they said that it does. It is better, therefore, for me alone to be consumed by my own vices than for the plague of vice to be spread among many.
The Corruption of Election and Simony
The chapter examines the canonical and moral failures of elections bought through simony or secular influence, illustrated by a prince's rebuke of a monk.
Beyond this, even if a person were entirely praiseworthy, if I weren't tied up in the entanglements of the court, Micah would still harshly block my way, unable to bear Zion being built with bloodshed and Jerusalem with the iniquity of its leaders. In this case, the election is either nonexistent, forced, or faked. He pursues this point as well with a long-winded argument. Finally, he claims he cannot be promoted without the suspicion of simoniacal corruption, since he appears to have bought the right and authority of the seal, the treasury, or the archives—even if he approached it with a different intention, for the sake of serving the power, as the very day he rejected the offered honor bears witness, with his conscience as his witness, all the while desiring to obtain the honor without the burden. He also repeats and reviews the apostolic decrees, which long ago established that those who buy offices in any secular court, or who perform base or servile favors for princes, or whose election is not conducted canonically by the clergy in the church and without the nomination of any worldly power, are to be barred from holy orders and from any hope of promotion; and if they are elected otherwise, the universal Church forbids them to be consecrated under pain of anathema. One of our princes (though I forget his name) is remembered for having performed a remarkable deed in a similar case. Whether it was Henry or Robert doesn't really matter. When a certain ambitious monk was called to the abbey he had previously bought, and he was feigning modesty so that he would be asked more eagerly, trying to refuse the burden, decline the honor, and openly profess himself unworthy of such a thing, the prince said, 'Clearly, you are unworthy, because you bought it secretly by giving me so much money'—and he stated the exact sum.
The Deception of the Ambitious
The author concludes by describing how the ambitious use excuses to bypass canonical barriers, ultimately deceiving the public into accepting their advancement.
But since it isn't my fault that the agreement isn't being fulfilled, it's only fair that I be considered free; so you should go home and let someone worthy be put in charge of the vacant church. Today, however, things work out quite differently for the ambitious person who makes excuses; he multiplies these and many other reasons so that people will believe he doesn't want what he's actually chasing, and so that he can eventually accept for free what he's already paid for. And so, he's seized as if he were a man of singular modesty, dragged to the chair, and led along by the pressure of the crowd while the masses shout and the choirs sing. It's no use for him to pretend he's of humble birth or low status, because the one being sought isn't a successor to an emperor, but to a fisherman; he's a successor to the Son of a carpenter, not to Augustus. A carefully crafted excuse actually reveals his true knowledge, and he's proven to be religious by the very fact that he refused to step up for so long when invited; for the one who delayed clearly seemed to be someone who didn't want it. As for the arguments he raised about the canons, the crowd that shares his path toward honors simply dismisses them, taking into account the time, the place, and the person involved. If they can't rely on the present or the past, they prophesy success for the future. It's just like a crafty horse-trader: while he's selling a horse that rides roughly, or a colt of unknown quality, he promises it will be a smooth pacer in the future, and then he uses high praise to palm off the one that walks with a broken gait into the stable of an unwary buyer.
Read the original Latin
appetunt, et quibus excusationihus propositum tegant. Sed ecce ad aliquem istorum promouendum aut cogitur aut circumuenitur Ekjclesia ut dicat hosti domestico: Amice, ascende superius. Stupidi itaque obstupescunt, nomen dignitatis abhorrent, refugiunt onus et, ut auidius impellantur, more (ut dicitur) arietis ut fortius feriat recedentis, cum suspiriis gemitibus et singultibus interrumpentibus simulatas lacrimas retrocedunt. Notum siquidem est quia sedes haec trahit et impellit inuitos e j quos notat ambitio repellit. Nituntur ergo rationibus et auctoritatibus docere quare eos episcopari non deceat. Non sum, inquit, medicus, et in domo mea non est panis; nec penes me thesauri sunt unde in necessitatis articulo noua et uetera indigentibus proferam. Possum utique uti excusatione prophetica quoniam loqui nescio et quia puer ego sum, etsi non etate, reuera scientia et leuitate morum. Sordidis uestibus ab initio indutus sum et eas numquam sanguine Agni aut uestibus studui dealbare.
Quomodo ergo sancta tractabo aopoUutus aut, quod sacerdotem oportet, polluta mundabo? Nam legem indesinenter contempsi et sancta Dei, increpante lezechiele, polluere non cessaui. Mea ergo promotio populi deiectio est. Ruina siquidem populi sacerdot s mali; facti sunt enim in laqueum populi, existentes in specula et sicut a rete extensum ad inuoluendas animas. Terret me Aggeus parabola mistica sacerdotii periculum exprimens et manif este docens quia populus a sacerdotum moribus facilius uitia contrahit quam uirtutes. Interroga, inquit, sacerdotes legem, et dic eis: Si caro sancta uel uas sanctum contigerit alicuius uestimentum, si sanctificat eum ex eo quod contingit? Et, cum dixissent sacerdotes quia non sanctificat, dixit ad eos rursum: Si immunditia contigerit uestimentum mundi, utrum poUuat euml Et dixerunt quia polluit. Tolerabilius ergo est me unum propriis consumi uitiis quam in multos uitiorum diffundi pestem.
Ad haec si persona esset usquequaque laudabilis, si non essem curiae nexibus illigatus, me Micheas durissime repellit ab aditu, non ferens Syon edificari in sanguinibus et lerusalem in iniquitate principum suorum. Hic aut nulla est aut compulsa aut simulata electio. Hanc quoque partem protensa disputatione prosequitur. Postremo se promoueri non posse sine suspicione simoniacae prauitatis, cum ob hoc ius et auctoritatem sigilli aut cimilii aut scrinii emisse uideatur, licet alia mente ad obsequium potestatis, sicut praesens testatur dies qua delatum honorem respuit, teste conscientia accesserit, affectans ut per hoc sine onere sortiretur honorem. Apostolicas quoque sanctiones replicat et reuoluit quibus pridera statutum est ut a sacris ordinibus et omni promotionis spe arceantur qui cuiuslibet secularis curiae emunt officia aut qui uiles aut seruiles obsecundationes principibus praestant aut quorum electio non est a clero in ecclesia et sine praenominatione cuiusque mundanae potestatis canonice celebrata; quos, si aliter electi fuerint, sub periculo anathematis uniuersalis Ecclesia prohibet consecrari. Vnus principum nostrorum (nominis siquidem immemor sum) in causa simili egregium facinus egisse memoratur. Henricus fuit an Rodbertus non multum refert. Cum ambitiosus quidam monachus ad abbatiam,quam praeemerat, uocaretur et ille modestiam simulans ut auidius peteretur, onus refugeret, recusaret honorem et se palam tantae rei fateretur indignum; Plane, inquit princeps, indignus es, quia eam clam data michi tanta pecunia (summamque expressit) emisti.
Sed, quandoquidem per me non stat quo minus pactio impleatur, liberum me haberi iustum est; et tu domum redeas, et qui dignus est destitutae praeficiatur ecclesiae. Sed nunc longe aliter succedit excusatori ambitioso; haec enim et alia quam plura multiplicat ut credatur nolle quod appetit et tandem gratis accipere quod praeemit. Vnde tamquam uir modestiae singularis capitur, trahitur et ad cathedram conclamantibus turbis, concinentibus choris, multitudine pressus deducitur. Nec prodest ignobilitatem praetendisse carnis aut sanguinis, eo quod imperatori non quaeritur successor sed piscatori; fabri Filio, non Augusto. Scientiam accurata excusatio prodit et religiosus esse conuincitur ex eo quod inuitatus ascendere diutius recusauit; a uisus est enim noluisse qui distulit. Quae uero de canonibus sibi opposuit, habita ratione loci temporis et personae, simili uia tendentium ad honores socia multitudo dispensat. Si de praesentibus niti nequeunt aut praeteritis, futurum uaticinantur profectum. Sic callidus mango, dum qui durius prouehit equum aut puUum probitatis incognitae gradarium promittit in futurum et fractis gressibus mollius incedentem propensiori laude in stabulum incauti mercatoris extrudit.
Policraticus companion
Study the argument weekly; pray the tradition daily
Pair the outline with the Chosen Portion app, which serves short daily portions from the same royal devotional tradition — free on iOS.
John of Salisbury argued that rulers must keep the law of God before their eyes daily; Chosen Portion gives modern readers that same daily discipline in five minutes a morning.
- 8 weeks, one book per week, with the 3-4 key chapters flagged in each
- Discussion questions usable for a reading group from week one
- A daily 5-minute companion portion in the app alongside your weekly study