nize." Thus much Augustine, who limits the clergy's power to loose or bind as it stands in their own estimation.
To the same purport are the words of Richard, de potest. ligandi et solvendi [Migne, 196: 1167]. He says: "So far thou goest and sayest: if I am not able to bind or absolve anything or to retain and remit the sins of all persons whatsoever, what does that mean, which was said in a general way unto Peter: 'Whatsoever thou shalt bind, whatsoever thou shalt loose'? Just as it was also laid down as a general rule spoken to the apostles in common: 'Whosesoever sins ye remit, they are remitted unto them; and whosesoever sins ye retain, they are retained.' Properly should this question move you had the Lord said to Peter, 'Whatsoever thou shalt wish to bind shall be bound, and whatsoever thou shalt wish to loose shall be loosed,' but he did not say this nor did he wish to be understood in this way—namely, if any one shall wish to bind what he is not able to bind, shall that sin, therefore, be bound? Who said this? Therefore, he did not say, whatsoever thou shalt wish to bind, but whatsoever thou shalt bind, shall be bound in heaven. He verily is bound who is bound by the just debt of satisfaction in accordance with the nature of his confession. That person is really absolved by the sacerdotal office whose sin is justly remitted in view of a deserved satisfaction. God, therefore, binds and absolves those who by a priest's sentence justly deserve absolution,[1] but, beyond any doubt, the sins of those are retained to whom the absolution of sins has been justly denied and not those to whom it has been unjustly denied.
"What the Lord, therefore, said to Peter means the same as if he had said in other words: 'What has been bound or loosed by thee, shall be bound or loosed with me. He who is held with thee by the command of a required satisfaction is held with me as a debtor owing the same satisfaction. And because[2] he deserved from thee the just absolution for
