I have mentioned the proper jurisdiction of the bishops. It is distinct from the jurisdiction of the Supreme Pastor. The first is ordered to the good of a particular Church, the second to the good of the universal Church. And we know that the good of a whole and the good of a part differ qualitatively as to species, and not merely quantitatively according to more or less. However, the jurisdiction proper to the bishops derives from the jurisdiction of the Sovereign Pontiff. It is contained in the supreme jurisdiction as the lesser perfection is contained in the greater. It can therefore add nothing to it intensively; it can do no more than diffuse and refract its virtue. The power proper to the bishops and the power of the Sovereign Pontiff are indeed many powers, but they do not together make up a higher power: " Papa cuм residuo Ecclesiae non est majoris potestatis jurisdictionis spiritualis quam ipse solus. . . Papa cuм Ecclesia reliqua non facit majus in potestate, sed plures potestates", writes Cajetan. In another field we should say similarly that the creation of the universe adds nothing to the divine perfection, that it does no more than refract it; so that after creation there is no more " being ", more perfection, than there was before, although there are more "beings", more existing subjects.

But, besides this particular jurisdiction which they possess as properly theirs, the bishops, taken as a college, in virtue of their close union with the Sovereign Pontiff, participate in the universal jurisdiction proper to the Pontiff. And just as we distinguish, in the case, for instance, of a harp, the beauty of the sound it gives out at the touch of the strings, from the spiritual beauty lent it by the mind of the artist; or, in the case of a human arm, its mechanical from its intelligent activity; or in the case of Socrates' disciples or Napoleon's marshals, their own personal qualities from the added powers they gain from the genius of their master; so we must distinguish in the bishops the power of particular jurisdiction which finds in each of them its proper subject, from the power of universal jurisdiction which finds in them a supplementary subject. I have said that the particular jurisdiction of the bishops is distinct from the universal jurisdiction of the Pope; it is superadded to it, not so as to make up more power, "majus in potestate", but many powers, " plures potestates ". On the other hand, the collegiate jurisdiction of the bishops is not numerically added to the universal jurisdiction, but is one with it.

In other words, the power to rule the universal Church resides first of all in the Sovereign Pontiff, then in the episcopal college united with the Pontiff; and it can be exercised either singly by the Sovereign Pontiff, or jointly by the Pontiff and the episcopal college: the power of the Sovereign Pontiff singly and that of the Sovereign Pontiff united with the episcopal college constituting not two powers adequately distinct, but one sole supreme power -- considered on the one hand in the head of the Church teaching, in whom it resides in its wholeness and as in its source, and on the other hand as at once in the head and in the body of the Church teaching, to which it is communicated and in which it finds its plenary and integral subject.