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Pope Boniface VIII, Unam Sanctam

In late 1302, after several years of bitter conflict with King Philip IV of France over control and taxation of the clergy in France, Pope Boniface VIII issued a papal bull declaring the official church position on the proper relationships between church and state. Throughout, the pope uses the “royal we,” that is, the plural “we” instead of “I” when talking about himself.

We are obliged by the faith to believe and hold — and we do firmly believe and sincerely confess — that there is one Holy Catholic and Apostolic Church, and that outside this Church there is neither salvation nor remission of sins. . . . In which Church there is “one Lord, one faith, one baptism.” . . . Of this one and only Church there is one body and one head — not two heads, like a monster — namely Christ, and Christ’s vicar is Peter, and Peter’s successor, for the Lord said to Peter himself, “Feed my sheep.” “My sheep” He said in general, not these or those sheep; wherefore He is understood to have committed them all to him. . . .

And we learn from the words of the Gospel that in this Church and in her power are two swords, the spiritual and the temporal. . . . Truly he who denies that the temporal sword is in the power of Peter, misunderstands the words of the Lord, “Put up thy sword into the sheath.” Both are in the power of the Church, the spiritual sword and the material. But the latter is to be used for the Church, the former by her; the former by the priest, the latter by kings and captains but at the will and by the permission of the priest. The one sword, then, should be under the other, and temporal authority subject to spiritual. . . .

If, therefore, the earthly power err, it shall be judged by the spiritual power; and if a lesser power err, it shall be judged by a greater. But if the supreme power [the papacy] err, it can only be judged by God, not by man. . . . For this authority, although given to a man and exercised by a man, is not human, but rather divine, given at God’s mouth to Peter and established on a rock for him and his successors in Him whom he confessed, the Lord saying to Peter himself, “Whatsoever thou shalt bind,” etc. Whoever therefore resists this power thus ordained of God, resists the ordinance of God. . . . Furthermore, we declare, state, define, and pronounce that it is altogether necessary to salvation for every human creature to be subject to the Roman pontiff.

EVALUATE THE EVIDENCE

Source: Henry Bettenson, ed., Documents of the Christian Church (Oxford: Oxford University Press, 1963), 385w from pp. 115–116. Used by permission of Oxford University Press.