Note 92 — Chapter V

Thomassin, a very great authority, devotes no fewer than eight chapters of his third folio De Beneficiis to proving from Councils and the Fathers that 'Res Ecclesiae, res et patrimonia sunt pauperum. Earum beneficiarii non domini sunt sed dispensatores.' After voluminous evidence from all the centuries, he holds it superfluously plain that all beneficed men are 'mere dispensers and administrators, not proprietors nor even possessors, of what is truly the patrimony of the poor,' and what is held as trustee for the indigent by Christ Himself; so much so, that when this property of the poor is diverted to support a bishop or other dignitary, he is not entitled to enjoy his house, table, or garments, unless these have a certain suggestion and savour of destitution—necesse est paupertatis odore aliquo perfundi. Thomassin, of course, holds that the Church has a divine right to tithes; but it is a divine right to administer, not to enjoy, them. Knox and the Reformers denied the divine right even to administer: they urged that the State should make the Kirk its administrators.