Nor, secondly, could he loose one who would not repent, and so he said to Simon Magus: "Repent, therefore, of this thy wickedness and pray the Lord if perhaps it may be forgiven you," Acts 8:22. Thirdly, Peter had no power to loose the marriage bond, for the Saviour said: "What God hath joined together, let not man put asunder," Matt. 19:6. And fourthly, he was not able to absolve Judas from sin, because the Saviour said: "Not one of them perished but the son of perdition, that the Scripture might be fulfilled," John 17:12.
Therefore, if Peter in virtue of that saying of Christ, "Whatsoever thou shalt loose on earth shall be loosed in heaven," had presumed to have power to loose in any of the four cases just adduced, would they have been loosed in heaven? Certainly not! For the will of God would have opposed it in the case of the Scriptures, marriage, Judas, and in the case of the one refusing in his pertinacity to repent. Therefore, it does not follow that the vicar, who thinks that he is able to loose or to bind whomsoever he chooses, really does it. On this point, St. Augustine, de vera et falsa Penitentia,[1] speaks, when he says: "God, who had already raised up Lazarus from the grave, offered Lazarus to the disciples that they might loose him,[2] thereby showing the power of loosing imparted to priests: and God said, 'Whatsoever ye shall loose on earth shall be loosed in heaven,' that is, I, God, and all the ranks of the heavenly army and all the saints who give praise in that heavenly glory join with you in confirming those whom ye bind and loose. He did not say, 'whom ye think ye bind and loose, but those towards whom ye exercise works of righteousness or mercy. But your other works done towards sinners I do not recog-
- ↑ Migne, 40: 1122. The work is printed in the Appendix of Augustine's Works. It is quoted by Gratian and Peter the Lombard as Augustine's. That the work was not from Augustine's hand, Erasmus showed.
- ↑ "Jesus said unto them, loose him and let him go," John 11:44. Richard of St. Victor also uses Lazarus, Migne, 196: 1166.
