Humbert of Romans on the Papacy before Lyons II (1274): A Study in Comparison with Thomas Aquinas and Pope Gregory X’s Extractiones

Abstract

Humbert of Romans on the Papacy before Lyons II (1274): A Study in Comparison with Thomas Aquinas and Pope Gregory X’s Extractiones Andrew Hofer O.P. THOMAS AQUINAS’S understanding of papal power has been the subject of close theological scrutiny. It has often been compared to the thought of other Scholastics of the thirteenth century and to medieval canonists. It has been studied in the contexts of the mendicant controversies and efforts at reunion with the East, and evoked in questions about the papacy’s role in the faith, sacraments, and the unity of the Church. In studies of developments in ecclesiology, Thomas often draws attention for his articulations of the papal preservation from error when canonizing saints and the pope’s plenitudo potestatis. Special attention has been given to Thomas’s influence on subsequent theological and doctrinal formulations regarding the papacy’s jurisdiction vis-à-vis local bishops and state governments, as well as on papal teaching authority over the universal Church.1 [End Page 51] By contrast, there has been little study in ecclesiology of Humbert of Romans, the fifth Master (1254–63) of the Order of Preachers to which Thomas belonged. Humbert’s views on the papacy are known better by historians specializing in the thirteenth century than by theologians today.2 Humbert wrote a consilium in preparation for the Second Council of Lyons [End Page 52] (1274),3 which he offered probably at the personal request of Pope Gregory X, as Simon Tugwell argues, rather than as a response to one of two general letters preparing for the council.4 Of all extant reports that prepare for the council, Humbert’s Opus (or Opusculum) tripartitum is by far the most thorough.5 As its name suggests, it is divided into three parts to meet the three needs of the Church that would be discussed at [End Page 53] Lyons: crusade, union with Greeks, and reform in the Church.6 Especially remarkable is the Secunda pars, the most comprehensive extant medieval analysis of the schism written by either a Latin or a Greek. Composed in a clear Scholastic style, the consilium addresses political, theological, social, psychological, linguistic, and philosophical matters that are required in order for reunion to become a reality. Humbert is, as Burkhard Roberg says, an independent thinker.7 Humbert writes this plan under the aspect of advising the pope on what he should do and why he should do it in light of the ad hoc needs of the Church. While scholarship has given attention to Humbert’s proposal (although its effort for Christian unity is still not as well known as it deserves), no study has been devoted per se to his understanding of the pope as laid out in this treatise.8 The following study compares Humbert’s view of the pope with that of Thomas. While there is no evidence that Humbert borrowed from Thomas’s teaching on the papacy, studies of the two together can be mutually illuminative—especially for an audience much more familiar with Thomas’s teachings on the Church.9 While Humbert does not rival Thomas in genius, he [End Page 54] offers additional practical insight and frank criticism for understanding the papacy, not found in Thomas.10 The two friars wrote in different genres and contexts, with different literary emphases and perspectives: Humbert, as a highly respected retired head of the Dominicans and prolific writer for his Order; and Thomas, as a renowned master of the sacred page with several scattered treatments of the papacy in academic disputes. Some scholars, such as Leonard Boyle and Paul Murray, have shown how Thomas was likely influenced by Humbert in his own writing.11 While Humbert’s proposal for [End Page 55] Pope Gregory X seems to have been composed too late (March/April–December 1272) to have influenced Thomas’s writing on the papacy,12 it can illuminate what Thomas wrote, and did not write, on the papacy. Examining Humbert’s text against the backdrop of Thomas’s theology can also shed some light on Humbert’s own distinctiveness. Certainly, neither is sufficient to explain the other. Yet, putting Humbert alongside Thomas—two of the most...