in his polemical treatises the Franciscan William of Ockham (c. 1288–1347)—a vociferous critic of Clement VI—deduced various radical consequences from the principle that the power which God had given to men was crucially limited. Certain restrictions had been imposed on the power of St. Peter, which should not be transgressed by his successors. As a mortal man and hence imperfect, there is no way in which the pope can possess all the power which Christ, even as mortal man, possessed.51 Far from being infallible, the pope “may not add any ‘novelties’ to the evangelical law, especially such as would be grave or onerous.” Indeed, “without the consent of the faithful he cannot regularly command any special fast or abstinence.”52 Ockham goes so far as to say that, in the interests of the greater good of the universal Church, circumstances might arise whereby it was better for it not to be ruled by any pope—or, alternatively, to be ruled by many popes.53 Such remarks are devoid of any belief in the mystical inevitability of the figure and office of the pope.
Remarkably similar discourses and dilemmas characterize the late-medieval construction of priestly power and responsibility, as may be illustrated with reference to scholastic discussion of the ministration of the sacraments. Can the sacraments be conferred by evil ministers? Thomas Aquinas puts forward three powerful arguments against this proposition— arguments which we find reiterated, again and again, in academic affirmations of the unsubjective authority of ordained ministry.54 First is the challenging question posed by Ecclesiasticus 34:4, “who can be made clean by the unclean?” When ministers lack grace themselves, surely it is impossible for them to confer grace on others? Second, the power of the sacraments derives from Christ, but if the wicked are cut off from Christ, surely they have lost the power of conferring the sacraments? Third, the minister required for a sacrament is one who lacks the stain of sin, as Leviticus 21:17–18 indicates (“Whosoever of your seed throughout their families has a blemish, he shall not offer bread to his God, neither shall he approach to minister to him”). But against all these arguments, Aquinas continues, stands the authority of St. Augustine, who claimed that “the ministry was destined to be transmitted in full to both good and evil. What difference does a bad minister make to you when the Lord is good?”55
Aquinas resolves the issue by applying the principle of instrumentality. A minister may be seen as a sort of an instrument, and an instrument acts not of its own accord but through the power which moves it. True, it may possess some other form or power in addition to that which it needs to function as an instrument. But this is irrelevant to its instrumentality. For example, a physician’s body is the instrument of a mind which possesses certain skills: and it makes no difference to those skills whether the body is healthy or infirm.56 (In other words, a physician who is himself sick can make others well.) According to the same principle, it is unimportant whether the channel “through which water is passed is made of silver or lead.” Hence, Aquinas concludes, “the ministers of the Church can confer the sacraments even when they are evil.” They do not cleanse men from their sins, or confer grace upon them, through their own power; the power involved belongs rather to Christ, who works through them as His instruments. But is not the evil minister cut off from the power of Christ? He may be, explains Aquinas, but good effects can be produced through an instrument which itself is lifeless. “Therefore Christ works in the sacraments both through the wicked as through instruments lacking life and through the good as through living members.” Finally, he argues, the minister of the sacrament should indeed live a life which is free from the stain of sin, because that is appropriate and fitting behavior for such a person—but personal goodness is not essential for effective conferral of the sacraments.
What, then, of preaching the word of God, another major aspect of the priest’s ministry? This was not in and of itself a sacrament, but ordination was, and in the later Middle Ages the ordained priest had preaching as one of his crucial responsibilities and prerogatives. And here again the issue of whether the human agent was a mere instrument or something more important—and potentially more problematic—troubled the schoolmen. Is preaching while in a state of mortal sin itself a mortal sin? How much bearing on this issue has the fact that certain individuals are obliged to preach by dint of their priestly office? Or that, in one case, the preacher’s sins may be public knowledge to his congregation, while in another case they may be secret? Is it permissible for a priest to preach if his sinful state is concealed and private? If, however, his sin is public knowledge, then, irrespective of whether he is preaching ex officio or not, surely he sins mortally on account of the scandal he creates?
Some of the answers offered to such perplexing questions will be discussed below in Chapter 1. The Parisian theologian Henry of Ghent (d. 1293) will receive special attention, since his distinction between what might be termed “public” as opposed to “private” sin is one of the most elaborate of its kind.57 But his treatment of the problem did not meet with universal approval; in particular, he was criticized by the Carmelite theologian Gerard of Bologna (d. 1317),58 another figure whose views feature prominently in our first chapter. The very fact of such a lack of consensus may serve to indicate to us the somewhat tentative nature of scholastic speculation regarding the “non-public” (to use the safest term) ethics of the public man. Moreover, such disagreements mark (yet again) just how important it is to avoid anachronism in seeking to interpret what, in medieval terms, belongs to the “public” and “private” spheres. When medieval writers spoke of the performance of the officium praedicatoris as a public duty59 they had in mind matters relating to location (preaching as an activity conducted in church) and audience (preaching as a performance which was, in theory, open to all, whatever one’s status, sex, or ability, offering instruction of a kind which was necessary to help all Christians toward salvation). This contrasted with “private” or “extra” teaching in special circumstances, which could involve one-to-one instruction or addresses to small groups, and did not always require the services of an ordained priest.
Examples of “private” instruction included an abbess teaching her nuns, a layman instructing his wife or familiars in the rudiments of the faith, and a mother educating her children in like manner. These activities were confined within the supposedly “private,” domestic, or reserved (because removed from public view) spaces of family home or nunnery, with proper hierarchical relationships being maintained within each sphere. Women could teach other women or children; it was not permitted for them to teach mixed audiences which included men, due to the perils of sexually provocative female speech. Besides, so the argument ran, men would regard it as unseemly and shameful to be instructed by women. They lacked the authority to preach on account of their inferior subject-position; their bodies were blemished with natural weakness and impurity, and besides only the male form could image Christ sacramentally: hence the ordination of women was deemed to be impossible. Aristotle had described a woman as a “deformed male,” as already noted, and medieval medicine commonly held that male semen naturally tended to produce males, the female being procreated only through a hindrance of this process. For its part, medieval theology held that the sexus or gender of women was, in effect, a deficiency which constituted a categorical impediment to female ministry, as our discussion in Chapter 3 will attempt to explain. Even if a bishop attempted to ordain a woman, declared John Duns Scotus O.F.M. (c. 1265–c. 1308), the imprint or character would simply not work on her female body.60 Caroline Walker Bynum’s highly influential Holy Feast and Holy Fast suggests that, through passionate identification of their bodies with the crucified body of Christ, some exceptional Christian women sought, maybe even attained, a “quasisacerdotal” role.”61 But no matter how much suffering the consuming and consumed female body could achieve, the facts of its biological markers ensured that its possessor could get nowhere near the site of institutional clerical power and authority—the priesthood.
What about those female prophets referred to in the Bible? Did they not constitute a precedent and model for contemporary female preachers? The orthodox answers tended to emphasize that those (very special) women were given their gift for private rather than public instruction, and if men were taught thereby this was by a special dispensation, wherein divine grace did not respect sexual difference.62 Such answers will be discussed fully in Chapter 3, with reference
