“Hear these things, all peoples; give ear, all who live on earth,” “for I am about to speak of matters which are great” and necessary to you. For I grieve and lament over the iniquities and injustices that have most wickedly been brought upon you all, to the whole world's cost, by him who boasts that he sits in Peter's chair and by some who preceded him in tyranny and wickedness. The anguish I feel is the greater because you do not take the trouble to inquire with careful attention how much such tyranny wickedly usurped over you is contrary to God's honor, dangerous to the Catholic faith, and opposed to the rights and liberties given to you by God and nature; and worse, you reject, hinder, and condemn those who wish to inform you of the truth. But so as not to deserve to be added to the number of those who, dreading the loss of human favor, are too frightened to speak freely, I will in this short work try to attack with a free voice the errors of those who, not content with their own rights, do not fear, trusting in temporal power and favor, to reach out for others' rights, divine as well as human.

The following translation is made with the publisher's permission from the Latin text established by Richard Scholz in his Wilhelm von Ockham als politischer Denker und sein Breviloquium de principatu tyrannico (Stuttgart: Anton Hiersemann, 1944, 1952). Departures from this text are noted in the Appendix. The aim has been to produce a version faithful in meaning and style, as far as possible in plain modern English. For an explanation of the principles employed in pursuing this aim and for notes on some difficult expressions and passages, see the Appendix.

The present volume, along with its companion volume, William of Ockham, Selections from the Major Political Works, is, to our knowledge, the first publication in any modern language of more than a few of the thousands of pages on questions of spiritual and secular power written by one of the major theologians and philosophers of the later middle ages. In contrast with most of the texts translated in the Selections volume, the Breviloquium or Short Discourse is overtly highly polemical. There is accordingly some risk of underestimating the extent to which Ockham built his argument on theological and legal principles which were commonly accepted when he wrote. Many of the notes in the present volume are meant to address this difficulty. Since Ockham is arguing against a pope or, as he thought, a pseudo-pope, his citations of canon law especially need documenting, and these must often be supplemented by consulting the “ordinary gloss,” the standard commentary found in the margins of medieval and early modern editions of the law texts.

CHAPTER I

What has been written above is enough, I think, to show that it cannot be proved from the words of sacred Scripture that the Empire is from the pope, or that the emperor ought to acknowledge that he holds the Empire from the pope. It remains now to see whether that can be shown from the law, especially canon law, or by political or theological arguments. Some think they can show it from the decree of Pope Nicholas, dist. 22, c. I, where we read: “He alone established it,” that is, the Roman Church, “and founded it, and erected it on the rock of a faith soon arising, who gave blessed Peter, the bearer of the keys of eternal life, the rights of both earthly and heavenly empire.” These words show that Christ gave blessed Peter the rights of earthly empire, and consequently blessed Peter had a right over the earthly Empire; therefore it should have been acknowledged as being held from blessed Peter.

But these words of Pope Nicholas, if they cannot or should not be explained contrary to the meaning that on first appearance they convey, must be regarded as absurd and erroneous, because many absurdities would follow from them.

CHAPTER I

Anyone with experience knows that human interests have many zealots while divine have none or very few. For as Gregory testifies, “Those who love this world are strong in earthly matters but weak in heavenly” (quoted dist. 47, c. Omnes). Accordingly, although the right order in dealing with errors arising from the fullness of power which some attribute to the pope would be to deal with errors about divine matters before those about human affairs, I will nevertheless begin from errors about human affairs, so that when lovers of temporal things and rights have clearly seen that some called Roman pontiffs have erred about human affairs they will not regard it as certain that they could not err about the divine, considering the words of Jerome, “For how can one be a faithful steward of the goods of the Lord who cannot show faith to a human lord?” (quoted 23, q. 5, Si apud).

First I will ask whether the pope has by Christ's ordinance any power over the Empire. There are indeed some who say that the Empire is from the pope in such a way that no one can be true emperor unless he has been confirmed or chosen by the pope. Some try to base this assertion on this, that (according to them) outside the Church there is no true lordship of temporal things or any true temporal jurisdiction, because outside the Church all things build toward hell, and outside the Church there is therefore no ordinate power but only power permitted and not granted.

CHAPTER I

It may be that divine providence, which often brings about good from the evil deeds of men, has, because of the sins of the people (for whose faults bishops are sometimes corrupted), allowed some called Roman bishops impermissibly and presumptuously to extend to both divine and human matters a wrongly usurped power, so that their inexcusable wickedness should be revealed, and the skill of experts — their laziness shaken off, examining the divine Scriptures more deeply — should bring to light hidden truths useful for governing and ruling the whole human race, truths by which a curb might be placed upon the wickedness of those supreme pontiffs who have tried to rule like tyrants.

Now just as sometimes from a true principle correctly understood countless truths are inferred, so sometimes from a false principle, or a true one misunderstood, are inferred countless errors; a wise man has said that given one anomaly many follow, and elsewhere it is said that a small error in the beginning is a big one in the end. I believe that this has happened with the power of the pope. For since in certain writings which many venerate as authoritative it is asserted that the pope has “fullness of power” on earth, some called supreme pontiffs, not knowing the true meaning of such words, have gone on, not only into errors, but even into the most blatant wrongs and iniquities.

Chap. I

Of government

1. A people is either under a state of civil government, or in a state of civil war; or neither under a state of civil government, nor in a state of civil war.

2. Civil government is an art whereby a people rule themselves, or are ruled by others.

3. The art of civil government in general is twofold: national or provincial.

4. National government is that by which a nation is governed independendy, or within itself.

5. Provincial government is that by which a province is governed dependendy, or by some foreign prince or state.

6. A people is neither governed by themselves, nor by others, but by reason of some external principle thereto forcing them.

7. Force is of two kinds, natural and unnatural.

8. Natural force consists in the vigour of principles, and their natural necessary operations.

9. Unnatural force is an external or adventitious opposition to the vigour of principles and their necessary working, which, from a violation of nature, is called violence.

10. National government is an effect of natural force, or vigour.

11. Provincial government is an effect of unnatural force, or violence.

12. The natural force which works or produces national government (of which only I shall speak hereafter) consists in riches.

13. The man that cannot live upon his own must be a servant; but he that can live upon his own may be a freeman.

14. […]

This volume presents the texts of James Harrington's first and last political writings, The Commonwealth of Oceana (1656) and A System of Politics (written c. 1661 and published posthumously in 1700), as they were prepared by the present editor for The Political Works of James Harrington (Cambridge University Press, 1977). The seventeenth-century spelling, punctuation and paragraph division of The Commonwealth of Oceana were modernized for that edition, as were those employed by John Toland and his printers for The Oceana and Other Works of James Harrington (1700), the edition in which A System of Politics appeared for the first time. In 1977 as now, the intention was to produce an edition for the eye of the modern reader, leaving detailed textual criticism (if thought necessary; none has been undertaken so far) to be performed upon the published originals. (No manuscripts by Harrington are known to exist.) The 1977 edition also contained an introductory and interpretative essay of 150 pages; this has been drawn upon in writing the introduction to the present volume, which is nevertheless a new piece of work.

CHAPTER I

If the emperor wants to be what he is called, namely, a true emperor of the Romans, if he wants to be numbered among the successors of the first emperors, who on Christ's testimony exercised a true empire, granted and ordinate and not merely permitted, then he should not hesitate at all: he should hold without doubt, according to what has been shown above, that he should not acknowledge the Empire as being from the pope or regard himself as the pope's vassal for the Empire. It therefore seems superfluous, given what has been written above, to try to prove that the imperial power is distinct from the priestly power and in no way regularly dependent on it. But it will not be superfluous, indeed it will be useful and necessary, to answer the arguments by which some try to show, even by the sacred Scriptures, that the Roman Empire is from the pope. By the destruction of these arguments the temporal rights and liberties not only of emperors but of other kings and secular rulers, indeed of all mortals, will shine more clearly into light.

And, indeed, that it cannot be shown from Christ's words “You are Peter” etc. that the Empire is from the pope can be made clear from what was said in Book II, chapters 14, 16, 17, 19, and 20, and in Book IV, chapter 1.

William of Ockham, “the Invincible Doctor,” “the More than Subtle Doctor,” is a giant in the history of thought. In the later middle ages only Thomas Aquinas and Duns Scotus are of comparable stature. Ockham is, however, a highly controversial giant. By some accounts, his early work in theology and philosophy shattered an admirable synthesis of biblical faith and Greek reason achieved, preeminently by Aquinas, in a preceding golden age of scholasticism. In another view, this same work of Ockham's is a “harvest,” not a devastation, of earlier Christian reflection. Ockham thus joins Scotus as a leading figure in the fourteenth-century golden age of Oxford scholasticism. These contrary assessments agree in granting particular significance to Ockham's nominalism and his emphasis on divine omnipotence, but they disagree as to what that significance is. To critics who find Ockham destructive of the Thomistic synthesis, his frequent appeal to the principle that “God can bring about whatever it does not involve a contradiction for God to bring about” seems to menace God's rationality and the intelligibility of the universe. If everything is utterly contingent on God's will, what scope is there for reason, God's or our own? Yet, seen from another angle, the same emphasis on divine power draws a necessary line between subjects which human reason can fruitfully address (the universe God has actually chosen to create) and subjects on which philosophical speculation is largely vain (the divine nature and the things God might have willed but has not).

CHAPTER I

Since I am about to investigate many matters concerning the power of the pope, I have decided, because of the error of some who fear papal power more than God's, to inquire first whether thorough examination of the nature and extent of the pope's power is permissible and without danger of just accusation. There are some — too ready to please men, by whose will they can be now raised, now lowered — who dare assert that no one is permitted to inquire about the pope's power by disputation. They rely on this, that according to the canon and civil laws no one is permitted “to dispute about the ruler's jurisdiction” (C, De crimine sacrilegii, 1. Disputare; 17, q. 4, c. Nemini, and Committunt); therefore, a fortiori, it is not permissible to dispute about the power of the supreme pontiff, lest one commit the crime of sacrilege.

If they were content with only general and ambiguous words such as “it is not permissible to dispute about the pope's power,” they could not be convicted of error. But their actions show clearly that they understand the words badly, for they absolutely refuse to make a thorough examination of questions about the pope's power raised in their presence, and they rebuke those who raise or examine such questions. One must therefore hold this.