I’ve discovered through a conversation with a Protestant this quote
The emphasized is wrong, right? What is the correct quote? If anyone knows…
The actual quote is:
Papa tantae est auctoritatis et potestatis, ut possit quoque leges divinas modificare, declarare, vel interpretari . . . .
Which I would translate approximately as
The Pope is of such great authority and power, that he can also modify, declare, or interpret divine laws.
The remaining portion (“since his power is not from man but from God,” etc.) seems to be a quotation from Petrus de Ancharano which Ferraris cites.
You can read the original
here. It does indeed seem to be full of more or less the statements that you see attributed to it, though with some caveats. I see references which claim that Ferraris says that whatever the Pope may do “seems to proceed from the mouth of God,” whereas he actually uses the subjunctive, which I would render more or less, “let it be seen as proceeding from the mouth of God” – in other words, calling for obedience and unquestioned respect, but not actually claiming that he speaks with the literal voice of God.
Yes, Ferraris is a bit over the top, not least when he calls the Pope “quasi Deus in terra” (“like God on earth”). Even so, it seems that he is speaking in terms of the Pope’s
authority – that, on earth, he reigns supreme and unquestionable – and not saying, as some Protestant sources take it, that the Pope himself is a living God like one of the deified Caesars.
