The Law of Nations - Emer de Vattel Natural Law and Enlightenment Classics

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who consented to the introduction of so enormous an abuse, were equally wanting to themselves and their people. In our times the court of Spain has been obliged to expend immense sums in order to recover without danger the peaceable possession of a right which essentially belonged to the nation, or its head.

      Even in those states whose sovereigns have preserved so important a prerogative of the crown, the abuse in a great measure subsists. The sovereign nominates indeed to bishoprics <69> and great benefices; but his authority is not sufficient to enable the persons nominated to enter on the exercise of their functions; they must also have bulls from Rome.* By this and a thousand other links of attachment, the whole body of the clergy, in those countries, still depend on the court of Rome; from it they expect dignities,—from it, that purple, which, according to the proud pretensions of those who are invested with it, renders them equal to sovereigns: from the resentment of that court, they have every thing to fear; and of course we see them almost invariably disposed to gratify it on every occasion. On the other hand, the court of Rome supports those clergy with all her might,—assists them by her politics and credit,—protects them against their enemies, and against those who would set bounds to their power,—nay, often against the just indignation of their sovereign,—and by this means attaches them to her still more strongly. Is it not doing an injury to the rights of society, and shocking the first elements of government, thus to suffer a great number of subjects, and even subjects in high posts, to be dependent on a foreign prince, and entirely devoted to him? Would a prudent sovereign receive men who preached such doctrines? There needed no more to cause all the missionaries to be driven from China.

       Convents.

      It was for the purpose of more firmly securing the attachment of churchmen, that the celibacy of the clergy was invented. A priest, a prelate, already bound to the see of Rome by his functions and his hopes, is further detached from his country, by the celibacy he is obliged to observe. He is not connected with civil society by a family: his grand interests are all centred in the church; and provided he has the pope’s favour, he has no further concern: in what country soever he was born, Rome is his refuge, the centre of his adopted country. Every body knows that the religious orders are a sort of papal militia, spread over the face of the earth, to support and advance the interests of their monarch. This is doubtless a strange abuse,—a subversion of the first laws of society. But this is not all: if the prelates were married, they might enrich the state with a number of good citizens; rich benefices affording them the means of giving their legitimate children a suitable education. But what a multitude of men are there in convents, consecrated to idleness under the cloak of devotion! Equally useless to society in peace and war, they neither serve it by their labour in necessary professions, nor by their courage in arms: yet they enjoy immense revenues; and the people are obliged, by the sweat of their brow, to furnish support for these swarms of sluggards. What should we think of a husbandman who pro-<70>tected useless hornets to devour the honey of his bees?* It is not the fault of the fanatic preachers of over-strained sanctity, if all their devotees do not imitate the celibacy of the monks. How happened it that princes could suffer them publicly to extol, as the most sublime virtue, a practice equally repugnant to nature, and pernicious to society? Among the Romans, laws were made to diminish the number of those who lived in celibacy, and to favour marriage:† but superstition soon attacked such just and wise regulations; and the christian emperors, persuaded by churchmen, thought themselves obliged to abrogate them.‡ Several of the fathers of the church have censured those laws against celibacy,—doubtless, says a great man,§ with a laudable zeal for the things of another life, but with very little knowledge of the affairs of this. That great man lived in the church of Rome:—he did not dare to assert in direct terms, that voluntary celibacy is to be condemned even with respect to conscience and the things of another life:—but it is certainly a conduct well becoming genuine piety, to conform ourselves to nature, to fulfil the views of the Creator, and to labour for the welfare of society. If a person is capable of rearing a family, let him marry, let him be attentive to give his children a good education:—in so doing, he will discharge his duty, and be undoubtedly in the road to salvation.

       Pre-eminence.

      The enormous and dangerous pretensions of the clergy are also another consequence of this system which places every thing relating to religion beyond the reach of the civil power. In the first place, the ecclesiastics, under pretence of the holiness of their functions, have raised themselves above all the other citizens, even the principal magistrates: and, contrary to the express injunctions of their master, who said to his apostles seek not the first places at feasts, they have almost every where arrogated to themselves the first rank. Their head, in the Roman church, obliges sovereigns to kiss his feet; emperors have held the bridle of his horse; and if bishops or even simple priests do not at present raise themselves above their prince, it is because the times will not permit it: they have not always been so modest; and one of their writers has had the assurance to assert, that a priest is as much above a king, as a man is above a beast.* How many authors, better known and more esteemed than the one just quoted, have taken a pleasure in praising and extolling that silly speech attributed to the emperor Theodosius <71> the First—Ambrose has taught me the great distance there is between the empire and the priesthood!

      We have already observed that ecclesiastics ought to be honoured: but modesty, and even humility, should characterise them: and does it become them to forget it in their own conduct, while they preach it to others? I would not mention a vain ceremonial, were it not attended with very material consequences, from the pride with which it inspires many priests, and the impressions it may make on the minds of the people. It is essentially necessary to good order, that subjects should behold none in society so respectable as their sovereign, and, next to him, those on whom he has devolved a part of his authority.

       Immunities.

      Ecclesiastics have not stopped in so fair a path. Not contented with rendering themselves independent with respect to their functions,—by the aid of the court of Rome, they have even attempted to withdraw themselves entirely, and in every respect, from all subjection to the political authority. There have been times when an ecclesiastic could not be brought before a secular tribunal for any crime whatsoever.* The canon law declares expressly, It is indecent for laymen to judge a churchman.† The popes Paul III. Pius V. and Urban VIII.55 excommunicated all lay judges who should presume to undertake the trial of ecclesiastics. Even the bishops of France have not been afraid to say on several occasions, that they did not depend on any temporal prince; and, in 1656, the general assembly of the French clergy had the assurance to use the following expressions—“The decree of council having been read, was disapproved by the assembly, because it leaves the king judge over the bishops, and seems to subject their immunities to his judges.* There are decrees of the popes that excommunicate whoever imprisons a bishop. According to the principles of the church of Rome, a prince has not the power of punishing an ecclesiastic with death, though a rebel, or a malefactor;— he must first apply to the ecclesiastical power; and the latter will, if it thinks proper, deliver up the culprit to the secular arm, after having degraded him.† History affords <72> us a thousand examples of bishops who remained unpunished, or were but slightly chastised, for crimes for which nobles of the highest rank forfeited their lives. John de Braganza, king of Portugal, justly

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