Folio 234

Clement VI, 1342-1352

printed p. 202 · pdf p. 234

treasure did the good Father acquire from this for the Church militant, so that the mercy of so great an effusion was not rendered useless, vain or superfluous, wishing to lay up treasures for His sons, so that thus the Church is an infinite treasure to men, so that they who use it, become the friends of God [Wisd. 7:14].

551. Indeed this treasure . . . through blessed Peter, the keeper of the keys of heaven and his successors, his vicars on earth, He has committed to be dispensed for the good of the faithful, both from proper and reasonable causes, now for the whole, now for partial remission of temporal punishment due to sins, in general as in particular (according as they know to be expedient with God), to be applied mercifully to those who truly repentant have confessed.

552. Indeed, to the mass of this treasure the merits of the Blessed Mother of God and of all the elect from the first just even to the last, are known to give their help; concerning the consumption or the diminution of this there should be no fear at any time, because of the infinite merits of Christ (as was mentioned before) as well as for the reason that the more are brought to justification by its application, the greater is the increase of the merits themselves.

Errors (philosophical) of Nicholas of Autrecourt1

[Condemned and publicly recalled by him in the year 1347]

553. 1 . . . That through natural appearances no certainty, as it were, be had regarding things; yet that measure can be had in a short time, if men turn their intellect to things and not to the intellect of Aristotle and his commentator.

554. 2 . . . That clearly from the above mentioned evidence from one matter another matter cannot be inferred or concluded, or from the nonexistence of one, the nonexistence of another.

555. 3 . . . That the propositions: "God is" and "God is not" signify entirely the same thing, although in a different way.

556. 9 . . . That the certainty of evidence does not have degrees.

557. 10 . . . That we do not have from our soul the certainty of evidence concerning another material substance.

  1. DCh II 580 f.; DuPl I, I 355 a f.—William called "of the four crowned saints," presbyter, cardinal in the year 1346 on the day before the nineteenth of May, as the legate of Clement VI, decreed that the books of Nicholas of Autrecourt be burned, as "containing many false, dangerous, presumptuous, suspected together with erroneous and heretical" statements, and the propositions from which these, which we have placed above, have been taken he ordered to be recalled as "erroneous, false, doubtful, presumptuous, and suspected," and this Nicholas did in the year 1347. This genuine text is drawn from DCh II 576 ff. n. 1124. ↩