WRITING AUTHORITY IN LATE MEDIEVAL ... - Cornell University

creature; the old things passed, and look they are made new,’ as an individual’s relation to law. 76
To claim that law is no different than its embodiment is to follow Paul in saying that “iustificatio
legis impleretur in nobis qui non secundum carnem ambulamus sed secundum Spiritum” ‘the
justification of the law is fulfilled in us, who wonder not according to flesh but according to
Spirit.’ 77 Closely following Paul, Hostiensis argues that the ontology of sovereignty is
inseparable from the ontology of Christianity. Just as Christianity resides in the translation of
Word to flesh, authority also resides in the translation of power to action.
It is this Pauline ontology that Vladimiri’s arguments indict by denying the translatability
of law, and they do so most explicitly at the end of his De Potestate when he addresses what
Hostiensis can mean by translation:
` Translato ergo sacerdotio, per consequens translata est lex, id est, potestas legis interpretandae. Et
haec connexitas est accessorii et sui principalis, quia lex dependet a sacerdote. Cum autem alii
infideles dictam legem non receperunt, nec sacerdotium fuit apud ipsos, non videtur aliud probare
dicta allegatio, nisi quod potestas condendae vel interpretandae legis a Iudaeis est translata in
Petrum, etc.; non autem dominia, iurisdictiones et possessiones infidelium, quae non huiusmodi
lege divina tenentur, sed iure gentium, ut supra dictum est. Quod quidem ius gentium nullam
connexitatem habet cum sacerdotio.
[According to Hostiensis] therefore, having translated/handed over the priesthood [from the
pagans to the Church], consequently, the law was translated, that is, the power of interpreting the
law. And this is the connection to the corollary and principal argument [he makes], because the
law depends on the priest. Since however other infidels did not receive such a law, nor was the
priesthood amidst them, the aforesaid allegation does not seem to prove the other, except that the
power of founding or interpreting the law is translated from the Jews into Peter, etc.; not however,
infidel dominion, jurisdiction, and possessions, which are not held of this way by divine law, but
by the right of peoples, as it is said above. Because this same right of peoples has no connection
with the priesthood [My emphasis]. 78
According to Vladimiri, Hostiensis uses the Old Testament to argue that just as the priesthood
was translated from the infidels (namely the Jews) to the faithful, so can the law be translated
because “potestas legis interpretandae” ‘the power of the law to be interpreted’ was translated. In
other words, Hostiensis argues that law is basically nothing other than its semantic interpretation.
76 2 Corinthians 5:17.
77 Romans 8:3.
78 Belch 2.843-844.
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