committing mortal sin, and so disobedience to authority involves a serious offence. Therefore this statement, taken from the proposition of the doctors, "the Roman church and prelates are to be obeyed by inferiors in all things," etc., means this much: "that we ought to obey under pain of mortal sin."
Therefore, following this sense, they now cry out that I am disobedient to the Roman church, and for this they excommunicate me. And it is clear from God's law and from the canons that no one is to be excommunicated except for mortal sin, as I have stated in another place.
Letting this proposition stand, I lay down this conclusion, that to no apostolic seat of the Roman church, that is, to no pope with the cardinals (as these are understood by the doctors), and to no prelates do inferiors owe obedience in all things which are neither purely good nor purely evil.
It is proved that king, marquis, duke, baron, soldier, citizen or rustic is bound to obey under pain of mortal sin no Roman church and no prelates so as to be prevented from holding worldly possessions or from entering marriage. These two things, the possession of goods and the entrance upon marriage, belong, in the case of the persons mentioned, neither to the class of purely good things nor things purely evil. Hence the conclusion. The consequence has been noted and the minor premise is presented in St. Bernard's letter to the monk Adam [Migne, 182:96], when he says: "Truly it must be known that things intermediate often cease to be so. For marriage may be lawfully contracted or not, but when once contracted it cannot be dissolved. Therefore, what before marriage is permitted to be a thing intermediate obtains, when the parties are married, the force of a thing absolutely good. Likewise, the possession of private property is for a secular man a thing intermediate for he may or may not have property, but for a monk, because he is not permitted to hold property, it is a thing absolutely evil." So much Bernard.
