# Synodical Conference Convention Proceedings_St. Louis Missouri_1894_S33
# AI translation — CHI Digital Archive (demonstration)

of the Ev. Luth. Synodical Conference of North America. 1894. 33

of the pope are enumerated, 15 names, among them: "High priest, prince of priests, vicar of Christ, head of the body of the Church, foundation of the church building, father and teacher of all believers, bridegroom of the Church, universal bishop." Book IV, Chap. I: "The pope is the highest judge in disputed questions of faith and morals." In § 4 he recalls that he has already shown in the section on the Word of God that Scripture is not judge, but the Church, that is, "the church prelates," yet in council. — Then, he says, he will show in the section on councils that the judgment of a council is firm and valid only when it has received the confirmation of the pope, since the final judgment belongs to the pope. Book IV, Chap. XXIII he explains that as the apostles had all power (jurisdictio) from Christ, so it stands (Chap. XXIV) with the pope: All bishops receive the Jurisdictio from the pope. And this is demonstrated precisely from the essence of the Church as a spiritual hierarchy. One must be the source for all others. The proposition is energetically attacked that the bishops have their rights directly from God and not from the pope. That wherever the papists speak of the power of the Church the pope is always meant, the papists say flatly. So Gregory de Valentia says, Vol. III on Thomas: "By the name of the Church we understand its head, the Roman pope." Bellarmine says the same in his Book III de verbi divini interpretatione, Chap. III, §§ 11 and 12. First he says: "Scripture must be interpreted from the Spirit," and the question now (§ 12) is where the Spirit is. Answer: "In the Church, that is, with the pope together with the council, that is, according to Book IV de summo pontifice, C. II: With the pope without a council, with the pope alone. For infallibility rests not in the council of bishops, but in the pope alone." And the Vatican Council of the year 1870 has resolved this.

That the Antichrist can and may make laws binding the conscience for faith and life is likewise openly stated by the papists. Bellarmine answers the objection of the needlessness of such laws, since the Church after all has the Gospel, or, as he calls it, the evangelical law: "These laws are too general and do not suffice to direct our actions (actiones) unless they are made particular in a fitting way. Hence the Council of Trent in its fifth session and resolution on the reception of the Holy Supper under one kind, Chap. 2, declares that the Church, that is, the pope, has power in the administration of the sacraments to change what contributes more to the benefit of those who partake and to the esteem of the sacrament, and in the second canon condemns those who do not acknowledge that for just reasons the pope introduced the change in the Holy Supper, that is, the withdrawal of the cup. All, then, who do not want to believe that the pope had to make the change