De locis theologicis

BY WHAT ARGUMENTS THE AUTHORITY OF THE CHURCH IS ATTACKED

The third part has been completed, which I wish theologians to know very well. In this fourth book we must now explain and defend the authority of the Church. Ecclesiastical writers have discussed it so extensively that on this single subject they have even published large volumes. What their purpose was is not relevant at present. What pertains to the present work and occasion is to discuss the authority of the Church in judging matters of faith, and to teach briefly whether firm arguments can be drawn from the common understanding of the faithful to establish theological doctrines. Montanus, as Eusebius and Apollinaris testify, was the first to urge his disciples to show no reverence to the Church spread throughout the world. Nestorius then claimed that the whole Church had erred by following ignorant and mistaken teachers, as Vincent of Lérins reported. The Iconoclasts later asserted that the Church had long been deeply and shamefully mistaken in worshipping images, as the seventh Synod stated in its sixth session. Augustine wrote that the Donatists and Rogatists also despised the authority of the Catholic Church—not in words, but in fact—in many places, and especially in letters 48 to Vincent, 50 to Boniface, and 161 to Honoratus. Not to mention everyone, Luther finally followed Wycliffe and said, among other things, that the Church erred by giving communion to the laity under one species, contrary to Christ's law. He even asserted at one point—if Cochlaeus reports correctly—that the Church had erred from the very beginning, since, contrary to Paul, it had held that law and works are necessary for salvation. In short, it is common to all heretics that as soon as they see themselves pressed by the Church's authority, they either despise it or transfer the Church's name and reality to themselves and deny that it exists where it truly does. Heretics try to persuade us of both claims with many arguments, although the two come down to one and the same thing. Their first argument is as follows. Aaron the high priest himself, as well as others among the people, both leaders and common folk, worshipped a cast calf and offered peace offerings and burnt offerings to it. Therefore Christ's Church can likewise worship carved objects and images. If it does so, as it does, it has undoubtedly erred most shamefully in faith and religion. Again, the Church fell away from the worship of the one true God in the times of Isaiah and Jeremiah; what, then, prevents it from erring now in worshipping the one and true God? It is the same Church, and no difference between the old and the new people can be found in this matter. They think the premise of this argument is proved by the clearest testimonies of those same prophets. “The ox,” says the former, “knows its owner, and the donkey its master's manger; but Israel has not known me.… From the sole of the foot to the top of the head there is no soundness in it.” The latter says, “The house of Israel was confounded, they and their kings, princes and priests ¹

and prophets saying to the wood, “You are my father,” and to the stone, “You gave birth to me.” A little later: “Why do you contend with me in judgment? You have all deserted me,” says the Lord. Again: “Go through the streets of Jerusalem and see whether you can find a man who acts justly and seeks faithfulness, and I will be gracious to him. I said, ‘Perhaps they are poor and foolish, ignorant of the way of the Lord, the judgment of their God.’ I will go, then, to the leaders, for they know the way of the Lord.” And behold, these have broken the yoke even more.… Therefore the whole Church was in error at that time. Further, the Church ought not need to be pointed out with a finger; indeed, it cannot exist in obscurity without any visible form. Yet you would wait in vain for its judgment if you were entirely unaware of what it is. They argue for this because among the Jewish people the Church was often so disfigured that no appearance of it remained. What form do we think was prominent when Elijah lamented that he alone had been left? What form remained when that people, scattered among the Babylonians, Persians, and Egyptians, served foreign nations and gods in a foreign land, without priesthood, temple, or scepter? Therefore, even after Christ's coming, the Church may lie hidden in a disfigured state and be so overwhelmed by wars, seditions, and heresies that it shines forth nowhere. Indeed, in his own time Hilary believed the Church to be hidden rather than saw it; so thoroughly had the Arian faction thrown everything into confusion. “You have been seized,” he says, “by a love of walls; you wrongly venerate the Church of God in roofs and buildings; you wrongly invoke the name of peace beneath them. Is there any doubt that Antichrist will sit in them? Mountains, woods, lakes, prisons, and chasms are safer for me, for in these places the prophets either remained or prophesied while submerged.” With these words he modestly and respectfully indicates that Christ's Church must be sought not among bishops, priests, temples, or crowds of people, but among the devout, who sometimes wander like the prophets in fields and desert places, or are hidden in woods, in caves, and in the hollows of the earth. What is more, during the long schism under different pontiffs, no visible appearance of the Church was evident. If the faithful of that age had sought a manifest Church and believed in none other than one visible to human eyes, they would certainly have found none. Was there then no Church because it was hidden? Although the Church has shone clearly and brightly until now, how do we know whether it will always thereafter retain its true and genuine form? If in past ages the Lord punished the crimes of his people by allowing them to be mocked by the most absurd lies and shrouded in the deepest darkness, why should we not fear that Christ's Church may even now be hidden and enveloped in blind night and thick gloom, so that none of its true appearance shines forth? It is as though the Lord no longer judges, and cannot punish the world today by the same kind of penalty with which he once avenged the ingratitude of the ancient people: striking shepherds and sheep with stupor and blindness, and removing the outward knowledge of his Church from human sight. At this point the heretics, as though the matter were settled, insult us and mock us in strange ways for boasting in the words, “The temple of the Lord, the temple of the Lord.” “Samaria was transferred,” they say; and when Jerusalem clung to outward appearances and boasted of the temple, ceremonies, priesthood, sacraments, and Scriptures, it too was transferred. What happened to the Eastern Church can therefore happen to the Western Church as well, so that its form vanishes like smoke or at least is entirely hidden. And who has proved that our sins are

lighter than theirs, or that God will not punish us just as he punished them? Especially since the Apostle prophesies plainly that there will be a falling away in the Church, which certainly cannot come while the Church's true form and appearance remain. What will it be like at that time of which the Lord says, “Nevertheless, when the Son of Man comes, do you think he will find faith on earth?” What, I ask, will it be like when the sacrifice and offering cease? And what will it be like when, as John writes, the smoke from the abyss darkens the sun and the air? Nothing else can be understood from this except that in our age the Church will be so obscured that it can be found only in darkness. Why do we defend the Church's outward appearance and splendor, when all the glory of the king's daughter is within? If the Church is unseen and hidden, then whatever argument is drawn from its authority will also be unexplored and uncertain. Further, the Church is constituted from the number of the predestined alone, and only God knows the number of the elect who are to be placed in heavenly blessedness; therefore the Church is entirely concealed from us and unknown. This first proposition, in which the whole difficulty lies, is supported above all by Augustine's testimony. He expressly asserts that the enclosed garden, sealed fountain, well of living water, and paradise with the fruit of its trees consist only of the predestined, who are hidden within. No believer doubts that all these are properly attributed to Christ's Church. Nor can anyone doubt—although Augustine might not explain it in precisely this way—that the enclosed garden and sealed fountain signify no others than those of whom it is written: “God's firm foundation stands, bearing this seal: The Lord knows those who are his.” Augustine also proves the same point from Peter's saying that the ark was a type of the Church, in which eight souls were saved through water. Therefore only those who are saved should be thought to be inside the ark. For Christ is the head of no other Church than the one whose savior he is, and which he presents to himself in glory, as the Apostle teaches ad Ephesios. Those, then, who will be neither saved nor glorified are not parts of the Church of which Christ is the head. Further, the Church is made up of God's children, since the Church is the mother not of others, but of those whose father is God. It is clear that those are truly God's children who will receive their father's inheritance. “If children,” he says, “then heirs: heirs of God and co-heirs with Christ.” Christ's fold, likewise, is made up only of Christ's sheep; and his sheep are those of whom he says, “My sheep hear my voice, and I give them eternal life, and they shall not perish forever.” Finally, the Evangelist John speaks of some who seemed to have gone out from the Church, although they had never truly been in it. “They went out from us,” he says, “but they were not of us. Why? For if they had been of us,” he says, “they would certainly have remained with us.” Therefore, none belong to the Church except those who remain in the grace they have received. Since it was an obvious passage, Augustine understands it of the predestined in lib. de corret. et grat. cap. 9. et de bono persev. cap. 8., following Jerome in dialogo adversum Luciferianos. Further, Christ's true Church must be perfect and spotless. “You are wholly beautiful, and there is no spot in you.” And again, “One is my dove, my perfect one.” The Apostle himself also describes it as having neither spot nor wrinkle. Isaiah says, “The uncircumcised and unclean shall no longer pass through you.” And as for the Church's being spotless,

to consider it so, when all its members have some impurity, is empty and fanciful. No Church of this kind, then, exists at the present time. It seems to have existed only at the time when John truly wrote: “Everyone who sins has not known him. And everyone born of God does not sin; nor can he sin, because he is born of God. By this the children of God and the children of the devil are manifest.” If all who share in the Church's fellowship must be without sin and blemish, then either there are none at all or they are hidden from us and unknown. The Apostle seems to affirm this when, distinguishing the Church of Christ from the Synagogue, he describes it not as tangible and touchable, but as spiritual and untouchable, consisting, indeed, only of the perfect and predestined. “You have not come,” he says, “to a tangible mountain and blazing fire, but to Mount Zion and the city of the living God, the heavenly Jerusalem, the assembly of the firstborn who are enrolled in heaven, and the spirits of the just made perfect.” Add that the faithful are bound to believe not in just any Church, but in the holy Church. In a holy assembly, only holy people are understood. “The Church of the righteous,” he says, “is the children of wisdom.” If you point to some group of people of whom even one is unjust, you would falsely call them just. Just as if one man out of ten were sitting while the others ran, it would be false to say that all ten were running. There is also another very powerful reason: if the wicked are members of the Church, they will also be members of Christ. Yet they are without doubt members of the devil. They would therefore be citizens at once of Jerusalem and Babylon, and members of both Christ and the devil. What could be more absurd to say or imagine? Unless, perhaps, light has fellowship with darkness, or Christ agreement with Belial. Certainly the members of one body cannot be opposed to one another; but good is opposed to evil, life to death, and the just man to the sinner, as the Wise Man says. Therefore the just and the sinner are not members of the ecclesial body. Aristotle too, a most authoritative teacher on this subject, whom St. Thomas also agrees with, teaches that dead limbs are members no more than painted or sculpted ones. Since the sinner is dead, then, he is not truly and properly a member and part of the Church, but only so by equivocation and figure. Further, “we, though many, are one bread and one body,” as the Apostle taught in priore ad Corinthios epistola. As Cyprian argues pointedly to Magnus, bread is formed by the union of many grains. Sinners, therefore, who are chaff, do not enter into the composition of the bread, nor into that of the Church's body. Augustine clearly attests this, and in so many places that there can be no doubt that this was his firm and abiding judgment. Libro enim contra Petilianum secundo, he says: “The wicked are not to be considered members of Christ's body, which is the Church, even if they share bodily in its sacraments.” Likewise, libro contra Cresconium secundo: “One who seems to be within but is outside because of a perverse mind has already been judged by Christ himself.” Later he says: “Those condemned by Christ on account of an evil and defiled conscience are no longer members of Christ's body, which is the Church, even if the Church does not know it, since Christ cannot have condemned members. Accordingly, they too baptize outside the Church. Let it be far from us to count all these monstrosities among the members of that one dove.” Without doubt he is speaking of sinful believers, as is clear from what precedes and follows. Libro de unitate ecclesiae as well, he affirms that the wicked are not counted in the Church.

libro quarto de baptismo contra Donatistas et libro sexto, Augustine plainly affirms that those who act against Christ's commands do not belong to that Church which Christ cleanses by the washing of water, and of which it is written, “My dove is one.” In book 7 he says that the wicked do not belong to the structure of the house that is the Church, but are in it no otherwise than chaff is in the grain. In that same book he also reports that Cyprian, in epistola ad Magnum, was not only an author of this view but a confirmer of it. He confirms it with the prophetic testimony, “He makes those who are of one mind dwell in a house.” Those, then, who are neither one soul nor one heart in the Lord do not dwell at all in the Church, which is God's house. Jerome too says: “The Church of Christ has neither spot nor wrinkle. Therefore one who is a sinner and stained by some defilement cannot be called part of the Church of Christ. But a sinner can run to the physician, have his wounds healed, and become part of the Church, which is the body of Christ.” If the Church to whose authority we defer must be holy, and therefore consist only of the devout and just, then it will never establish certainty in theology until there is reliable proof that it is holy. But it cannot do this, since God alone knows the hearts of human beings. They also ask us why we are mad about identifying the Church, when Christ marked it out with an unmistakable sign: “I am that good shepherd, and I know my sheep and mine know me; my sheep hear my voice, and I know them, and they follow me.” Whoever does not hear Christ's voice does not belong to Christ's fold and therefore is not even a part of Christ's Church. Moreover, if both the good and the wicked made up the Church, then by the same reasoning by which it is called holy on account of a few just people, it would much more properly be called an unjust Church on account of its many wicked people. Accordingly, one and the same assembly would be both Christ's Church and Satan's synagogue. Only the good, then, make up Christ's Church. For this reason it is unseen by human beings, and even less known than to provide a testimony that establishes faith as certain and proved. Furthermore, there are two Churches, the Greek and the Latin, and, they say, it is not clear enough which one should be believed. It is usually answered that the Greeks are schismatics, and that the Church has therefore perished among them. On what basis? Because by separating from the Roman Pontiff they lost the privilege of the name “Church.” What then? Do not those who fall away from Christ, the true head of the Church, lose it even more? Before Christ's birth there was one Church of all the former peoples, yet it did not have one shepherd or ruler. The name and truth of the Church, then, do not depend on one pontiff. The Greek Church will therefore be a Church, even if it does not obey the bishop of Rome. Even after that bishop's death, one Church nevertheless remains, itself the pillar and foundation of truth. The truth and unity of the Church do not therefore arise from this. But if it has one Lord, one faith in Christ, and one baptism; if it acknowledges one Son, worships one Spirit, and accepts one God and Father of all, it will be one Church of Christ. For the Apostle defines Christ's one Church by these things. There is therefore no reason why the Greeks, among whom all these things are found and among whom there are also many good men, should not constitute Christ's Church. The Latin Church arrogantly claims for itself the name of the Catholic Church in judging matters of faith. Accordingly, unless it agrees with the Greek Church, it lacks the authority of the universal Church, and we are not bound to revere its judgment as if it were truly Catholic.

Further, the Catholic Church is called Catholic because it is spread among all nations and throughout the whole world, as Augustine showed lib. 2 contra Petilianos. This alone binds and obliges us by its judgment, since Sacred Scripture commends this Church, and no other, to us, as Augustine shows in many places. Therefore the Church that exists now, if indeed it exists at all, does not have certain authority, since it has ceased to be Catholic, that is, universal. Further, no argument at all can be drawn from the view of the universal Church. How can we seek the sense of all the faithful in a question of faith? It is therefore futile to try to draw an argument from the Catholic Church. Perhaps someone will say: the pastors represent the Church and are, indeed, the Church itself; therefore it is enough to seek their view, since the Church's view is altogether the same. But there was a Church in Jerusalem in the time of Isaiah, and he says this of its pastors: “All its watchmen are blind; they are all ignorant. They are dumb dogs, unable to bark, seeing vain things, sleeping and loving dreams. The shepherds themselves have no understanding. They have all turned to their own way, from the highest to the lowest.” The Church also continued for a time in Jeremiah's day; let us hear what he says about its pastors: “How can you say, ‘We are wise, and the law of the Lord is with us’? Truly the lying stylus of the scribes has worked falsehood. The wise are confounded, terrified, and captured; for they have rejected the word of the Lord, and there is no wisdom in them.… From the least to the greatest, all pursue greed; from prophet to priest, they all practice deceit.” Why, by this reasoning, would they not count as the Church the four hundred prophets who all lied to Ahab? Yet the true Church of God—that is, all the devout people among them—stood on Micaiah's side. Certainly, if the matter is as they claim, the prophets and priests would have put forward the appearance of the Church when, in opposition to Jeremiah, they all confidently boasted that the law could not perish from the priest, counsel from the wise, or the word from the prophet. Yet one Jeremiah is sent against them all by the Lord to declare that the law would perish from the priest, counsel from the wise, and the word from the prophet. If priests and pastors constitute God's Church, whose testimony must be revered, it follows that they were alien to God's Church and fought against it. In Israel, Elijah, Micaiah, and those like them; in Judah, Isaiah, Jeremiah, and the rest of their kind—not only were they alienated by the priests, pastors, and prophets of their age, but they were cursed and execrated by them. If it is absurd and impious—and, I would say, even foolish—to think this, then let it stand that the priests and pastors were not God's Church, but an impious conspiracy against God, an assembly of the worst people, from whose agreement one had to break away. Since pastors today may also be like those of old, they certainly do not represent Christ's Church, and doctrines of faith are not proved by their judgment. If God's Church consists of pastors and bishops, then where in the world does it reside, since the Council of Basel deposed Pope Eugene and put Amadeus in his place? As far as outward rites are concerned, the Council was legitimate and was called not by one pontiff alone but by two. There Eugene was condemned for schism, rebellion, and obstinacy, together with the whole company of cardinals and bishops who opposed the Council. From the ranks of those schismatics, rebels, and obstinate men came every Pope, cardinal, bishop, abbot, and priest who followed.

To which side, then, will the name of the Church be assigned? Shall we deny that the general Synod was a Church, though it was consecrated under the presidency of the legate of the Roman See? Or shall we acknowledge Eugene as a schismatic, with the whole company from whom all succeeding bishops received consecration? Either pastors gathered even in a general Council do not represent God's Church, or all of them have been ordained by heretics and schismatics. The Lutherans chiefly abuse these arguments. As for Calvin's further claim that the Church has two marks—the sincere preaching of the word and the proper administration of the sacraments—and that in the Catholic assembly a doctrine fabricated from lies reigns in place of the ministry of the word, that the foulest sacrilege has taken the place of the Lord's Supper, that public gatherings in temples are schools of idolatry and impiety, and that therefore the true and genuine Church of Christ is not among us but rather a deadly and sacrilegious conspiracy of Satan: since this accusation is made rashly, shamefully, and maliciously, it need not be addressed here.

WHAT IS MEANT BY THE WORD “CHURCH”

I shall proceed and do what I consider should be done at the beginning of every disputation, and especially this one: explain what the subject of the dispute is, so that the argument is not forced to wander and go astray because those who disagree do not understand the subject in the same way. “Church,” then, is a Greek word; if rendered word for word, it means in Latin “assembly,” either because it calls everyone to itself, as Julius and Rabanus thought, or because all who come together in it do so not through their own merits and righteousness, but through God's grace and calling. I hope readers will also approve this etymology of the name. For writing to the Church of Rome, Paul says, “To all who are in Rome, called saints.” And in priore ad Corinthios epistola he says, “To the Church of God which is in Corinth, called saints.” A little later he says, “God is faithful, through whom you were called into fellowship with his Son Jesus Christ.” Since this fellowship is undoubtedly with Christ's Church, let those who arrogate that title to themselves consider whether they falsely claim, in the manner of heretics, that the Church exists among them. I will not linger over the origin of the name. Certainly “Church” means an assembly, whence “Ecclesiastes” means “preacher.” Although this word has sometimes been used generally for any assembly, whether of the wicked or the devout, unbelievers or believers, as far as I can recall an assembly of unbelievers is nowhere called “Church” in the New Testament. This usage has become so firmly established among Christians that no gathering is now recognized as a Church unless it has been formed by the faith and calling of Christ. “Church” also means both the place where a crowd gathers and the crowd itself in the proper sense. There are many examples of both meanings in the Sacred Scriptures. The holy writers observed this distinction between “Synagogue” and “Church”: the old people were called both Church and Synagogue, but neither Sacred Scripture nor any approved author has ever called the Christian people a Synagogue. This was either done to distinguish the two commonwealths, or because there is some difference between a gathering, which “Synagogue” denotes, and a calling together, which is what “Church” signifies.

For herds of cattle are accustomed to be gathered together, which is why we speak of flocks—not properly of human beings but of livestock or beasts; only human beings are customarily called together. So far does Christ's Church surpass the Synagogue. Although the fellowship of angels and human beings is sometimes called a Church, and the kingdom of heaven—which consists of the blessed in heaven and those journeying on earth—is sometimes called one, our present intention is to discuss only the Church militant, that is, the company of faithful wayfarers. There is no need to show these meanings of the word with examples, since they occur everywhere in the Sacred Scriptures and in the books of all the saints. Certainly, just as it conflicts not only with the truth but even with common sense to include unbelievers not yet baptized under the name of Christ's Church, so we must establish that heretics are not parts of the Church. This is common to all theologians, not only those who have written recently, but also those held in greatest esteem for their antiquity. Cyprian, Augustine, Gregory, and the Concilia Lateranense et Florentina testify to it. Pope Nicholas therefore rightly defines the Church as an assembly of Catholics. Those who define the Church more strictly do not hesitate to say that it is made up only of the faithful; those who are more lenient still do not dare call those members of the Church whom they do not see to be Catholics. For it is absurd to say that those who are not parts of the Catholic Church are parts of Christ's Church. Yet a pope who is a heretic, until he is deposed by the Church, will still retain his authority and therefore remain head of the Church; heretics, then, will be counted among the Church's members. The Apostle too, after saying that Hymenaeus and Philetus had departed from the truth and overturned the faith of some, adds that in a great house there are not only vessels of gold and silver but also of wood and clay, some for honor and others for dishonor. By these words, as Augustine says, Paul signifies that even those who have strayed from the faith are in the great house—not as vessels for honor, but as vessels for dishonor. He confirms this view altogether by Cyprian's testimony as well. But since we are hastening to fulfill what we promised, we do not intend to resolve every difficulty that arises along the way. Why should we weigh here whether a pope can be a heretic? Or whether, as soon as he falls into heresy, he ceases to be head of the Church? Yet it was necessary to explain both questions in answering the first argument. That is beyond the scope of this brief work and does not pertain to the subject we have undertaken. If anything must be said about these matters, it will be said more suitably elsewhere. We shall explain the first question in book 6; Cajetanus noster in libro de auctoritate Papae et concilii secundo latius tractavit. Lest we seem to turn our backs, deterred by the difficulty of this argument, we must understand that “Church” can be said in two senses. First, it means the congregation of all the faithful from the beginning of the world to its end, as St. Thomas speaks of the Church in 3, q. 8, a. 3, as do all who say that the Church now is the same Church that existed among the Jewish people under the Law of Moses and among devout people of old under the natural law. In this sense catechumens are most truly members of the Church. For this Church is distinguished not by the sacrament of baptism but by faith, which at all times distinguished God's people from gatherings of unbelievers. Second, “Church” also means the assembly formed in Christ's name through baptism, which is the sacrament of faith, properly makes people members and parts of the Church, and distinguishes Christ's Church from the Synagogue.

The catechumens are not parts of this Church, while all those who bear the character of Christ's baptism are its parts, unless after open heresy they have been cut off by a public judgment of the Church. For as long as someone serves as an official of a commonwealth and exercises its authority and power, he can and must be called part of it. In this sense, then, just as the Church—that is, the Christian commonwealth—is constituted not only by interior faith but also by the outward sacrament of baptism, so its parts are separated not only by interior unbelief but also by schism and division through an external judgment. Therefore, if in Nicholas's definition the Church is understood in this second sense, the term “faithful” must refer not to faith in Christ but to the sacrament of faith. But more on this in the final chapter of this book. I answer the later argument as follows. If the Apostle applied those words to Hymenaeus and Philetus, he did not refer to the time when they had already left the common household of the faithful for their own sect. Rather, he referred to the time when they were included in the great house through their profession of faith and baptism. This is Augustine's view in the very passages we cited. Yet because of Cyprian, whose authority he says is pressed against him, Augustine also admits that heretics are in a certain way in the great house because of the same sacraments, in whose administration they agree with the Church. But Augustine, as I said, added this reluctantly, for he gladly follows the earlier point. To speak as I truly think, I do not understand why Augustine took Cyprian's words in a sense so far from Cyprian's meaning as heaven is from the nature of earth. To pass over the fact that in the passages I cited just before, Cyprian himself plainly excludes heretics from the Church, certe in epistola ad Antonianum, whose testimony Augustine misuses, he does not depart from that view but confirms it more plainly, saying: “As for Novatian's person, you should know that we need not be inquisitive while he teaches outside. Whoever he may be, and whatever kind of man he may be, he is not a Christian if he is not in Christ's Church.” Cyprian had no other reason for denying the baptism of heretics than his constant and firm conviction that they were outside the Church and baptized outside it. In the words Augustine reports, Cyprian means nothing other than the arrogance and pride of the Novatians, who thought they could do what was not granted even to the Apostles: separate the weeds from the wheat, chaff from grain, and choose vessels of gold and silver after casting out those of wood and clay. By vessels of wood and clay Cyprian did not mean those whose speech had spread like a cancer, but precisely those whom he had called weeds and chaff—that is, the frail and weak, who are mistaken and always mixed in with the strong and perfect in the Church. Since the Novatians could not endure them, they forgot humility and leniency and tried to cast them out of the Church before the time. Yet to refer vessels of wood and clay only to the wicked, as Cyprian does, seems insufficiently justified not only to Augustine but to me as well. The Apostle's meaning, then, is clear. After saying that some had fallen away from the truth, lest everyone be thought frail and we consequently fear for the faith of the Church, he adds, “But God's firm foundation stands.” Since someone might ask why God has some strong and others weak in his Church, allowing these to stand and those to fall away, the Apostle answers: in a great house there are not only vessels of gold and silver but also of wood and clay. There is another interpretation of this apostolic testimony, which also refutes the Manicheans, Pelagians, Cathars, Donatists, Begards, and Beguines

—and the errors into which Hymenaeus and Philetus perhaps fell. For it is not plausible that they also fell into the claim that the resurrection of bodies had already taken place. Rather, infected with the false conviction that they were absolutely holy, they maintained that life in mortal flesh was like the life the just would have with the angels after the resurrection, wholly free from all frailty and imperfection. For that reason the Apostle, the vessel of election, says that they asserted the resurrection had already taken place. Paul refutes their vain and futile opinion in a few words: “But God's firm foundation stands.” If I am not mistaken, these words have this meaning. The election of the faithful is certain and unchangeable on God's part. He calls it a foundation because it is the first beginning of human salvation. “Those whom he predestined, he also called; those whom he called, he also justified; those whom he justified, he also glorified.” God's firm foundation therefore stands, bearing this seal: “The Lord knows those who are his.” Our election, obscure and unknown to us ourselves, is enclosed as though sealed with a signet in God's knowledge alone, so that it is uncertain and hidden from us but fixed and stable with God. Yet since our salvation also depends on our own choice, no one should promise himself certain and enduring righteousness on the basis of God's election; no one, puffed up by carnal understanding, should preach in mortal flesh the religion of angels; no one should claim perfect impeccability and virtue; and no one should disdain the company of other believers in whom he sees that something human still remains. This is what Paul adds: “Let him depart from iniquity.” He also says that each should first strive by good works to make his calling sure, and not trust so much in his own purity that he fails to fear that he could be stained and defiled by iniquity. Next, he should understand that in a great house there are not only vessels of gold and silver, but also of wood and clay; some are for honor, others for dishonor. If he sees some vessels broken, let him repair and mend them as best he can, taking care that he too might not be broken. And if a vessel seems to him to be for honor, let him patiently bear with vessels for dishonor and not leave the great house in disgust at them. For these dishonored and inglorious vessels have been turned to dishonor by their free choice, and by that same freedom they can be turned to honor. From these points not only is that argument refuted, but also what is most sought in this definition is established: the Church is constituted by the assembly of all the faithful, the strong and the weak, the just and the wicked alike. If we establish this plainly and briefly, neither we nor the reader will regret our effort.

WHO THE FAITHFUL ARE, OF WHOM THE CHURCH TRULY AND PROPERLY CONSISTS

Indeed, we have observed three errors about who counts as part of the Church. The first belonged to those who thought the Church had no part where there was no solid purity and integrity of life. The Cathars of old were such, as were the Donatists, who approached their madness. Today among the Lutherans are the Anabaptists, who, with the Pelagians, hold that the faithful possess perfect

righteousness even in this mortal life, and, with the Cathars and Donatists, tolerate no weakness in the Church. Others granted a place in the Church only to those predestined for glory. The chief authors of this error are found to be John Wycliffe and John Hus, condemned in concilio Constant.. More recently, some have thought that only the upright belong to the Church and the wicked in no way do; not all Lutherans affirm this, but their most distinguished writers do. I do not intend to restate in detail here what Catholics have argued against these errors. I shall therefore briefly report the arguments by which each is refuted. The first error is refuted above all by precisely the testimonies with which the Pelagians and Donatists of old were refuted. “If we say that we have no sin, we deceive ourselves, and the truth is not in us.” Again, “Forgive us our debts”—the prayer Christ taught his Apostles, who were surely members of the Church. Again, “We all offend in many things.” Again, “Every high priest taken from among men is appointed for men in matters pertaining to God, to offer gifts and sacrifices for sins. He can have compassion on those who are ignorant and err, because he too is surrounded by weakness; and for this reason he must offer for his own sins just as for the people's.” Again, “Do not enter into judgment with your servant, for no living person will be justified in your sight.” Again, “There is no human being who does not sin.” Again, “Who can say, ‘My heart is clean; I am pure from sin’?” Again, “There is no just person on earth who does good and does not sin,” and other similar passages, which are commonly cited from Job and Daniel. If, then, the Church had to be entirely free from every stain and fault in each of its members, there would certainly be no Church on earth, since, as these testimonies prove, there is no mortal anywhere who is perfect and spotless in every respect. Further, Cephas was undoubtedly a part of the Church and its pillar; yet the Apostle opposed him to his face because he was blameworthy and was not walking uprightly according to the truth of the Gospel. The members of the Church therefore need not be so pure that no stain or blemish remains in them. Moreover, the Apostle recognized the Church among the Thessalonians, yet noted that some of those very people walked disorderly and busied themselves in idle matters. He teaches that they are not to be treated as strangers and enemies, but corrected as brothers. Christ's brotherhood and fellowship, then, include some imperfect brothers and companions. What more? Does the Apostle not affirm that some in the Church are little ones and weak? “I gave you milk to drink, not solid food, as to little children in Christ.” And again, “Receive the one who is weak in faith.” What of this? “He gave some to be apostles, some prophets, others evangelists, others pastors and teachers, for the perfecting of the saints, for the work of ministry, for the building up of Christ's body, until we all come to the unity of faith and knowledge of the living Son of God, to a perfect man, to the measure of the stature of Christ's fullness, so that we are no longer children tossed about.” And immediately he says, “Let us grow in every respect into him who is the head, Christ; from him the whole body, fitted and joined together through every supporting joint, according to the working in measure of each part, makes the body grow ¹

for its own building up in love. Therefore, not all members of the Church are entirely perfected and complete in every respect. But it would be idle to spend more time refuting this error, especially since Augustine and Jerome have worked very diligently on almost the same question. Let us proceed to the rest. Our forebears first rejected the second heresy because several other most pernicious heresies, condemned at the same Council, are necessarily linked to it: if the pope is reprobate, he has no power over the faithful unless perhaps granted by Caesar; no one can reasonably assert, without revelation, that he is the head of a particular Church; present righteousness and grace do not make anyone a member either of Christ or of the Church; even unbelievers predestined for glory are always members of Christ and the Church. Consequently, Paul was never a member of the devil, nor Judas of Christ. All these claims are plainly false in themselves and strongly opposed to the Catholic faith. The commonwealth of Christ would certainly have been established most foolishly if the authority of its magistrates were shrouded in such darkness that it were entirely invisible to the faithful. For since all the faithful are unsure whether the Supreme Pontiff, bishops, priests, and other ministers of the Church are predestined, they must also be unsure whether they are bound by their decrees and judgments. It would follow that all the Church's and Councils' doctrines are doubtful, and all its laws feeble and unfit to restrain anyone. What could be more foolish than to say that citizens cannot know who the magistrates of their own city are? Those who think this way make Christ a foolish founder of the commonwealth and overturn all its ordinances, commands, and decrees, and the entire power of the Church. Among them, it must waver and collapse, since it is hidden, uncertain, and weak. We need no arguments drawn from reason to refute what is not an irrational opinion, but madness, since the clearest testimonies of Scripture suffice. “You,” he says, “are the light of the world. A city set on a hill cannot be hidden; nor do they light a lamp and place it under a bushel.” Again, “If he does not hear them, tell it to the Church; and if he does not hear the Church…” The Church must therefore be manifest and known to the faithful. Christ also taught that the servant who was handed over to the torturers because he did not show mercy to his fellow servant belonged to the kingdom of heaven and his household. Therefore, not only predestined servants are included in Christ's household, which is the Church. Again, “The kingdom of heaven is like a king who held a wedding feast for his son,” into which even the man who was sent into the outer darkness entered. Again, “The kingdom of heaven is like ten virgins,” five foolish and five wise. He does not say it is like five, but ten; and yet the door was shut to five of them. Again, Christ's parable shows the Church to be a mixture of the predestined and reprobate: it is compared to a net that gathers fish of every kind, which are not sorted until they are brought onto the shore, where the angels will separate the wicked from the just and cast them into the furnace of fire. The parable comparing the Church to a field shows the same: the field, sown with good grain, is infected by the enemy's deceit with weeds, and is not cleansed until the harvest has been brought to the threshing floor, when the weeds must be gathered and tied into bundles to be burned. Since we are pursuing all the points, the Church is also that threshing floor where the wheat has been gathered in such a way that it lies hidden beneath the chaff until it is cleaned with the fan and sieve and finally stored in the barn; but the chaff is burned in unquenchable fire.

Moreover, this passage shows that a people, city, or household is named not from God's foreknowledge but from its present righteousness: “You were once not God's people, but now you are God's people.” Likewise: “At that time you were without Christ, alienated from the community of Israel and strangers to the covenants.… But now you are no longer strangers and foreigners, but fellow citizens with the saints and members of God's household.” Otherwise everyone predestined for glory would be blessed and just even while wretched and impious. We are properly named, then, not from foreknowledge but from present righteousness. “He gave them power,” it says, “to become children of God.” To whom? To those whom he foresaw would believe? No, but to those who believe in his name. Again: “You were once darkness, but now you are light in the Lord; walk as children of light.” Again: “Do you not know that your bodies are members of Christ? Shall I then take the members of Christ and make them members of a prostitute?” Again: “The one who practices righteousness is just; the one who commits sin is of the devil.… By this the children of God and the children of the devil are manifest.” Again: “We, though many, are one body in Christ, and individually members one of another”—which is true of us only by present righteousness. Again: “In one Spirit we were all baptized into one body.” Therefore, we enter Christ's body through baptism and not through the grace of predestination. We have said enough in refuting this error. Let us now refute the third and final error. This is established above all by precisely the same parables of the Gospel that we used earlier. Cyprian, Jerome, and Augustine also argue from them. For in the Lord's field, among the thriving crops, weeds, thistles, and barren oats abound. In the threshing floor, chaff covers the grain. The net encloses good and bad fish alike; in the great house are vessels of wood and clay, for honor and dishonor. In the kingdom of heaven, foolish virgins are found with the wise. In Christ's household there is a wicked servant—not only the one who refused mercy to his fellow servant, but also the one placed over the household who, when he supposed his master was delaying, cast off his former fear and began to beat the menservants and maidservants, to eat and drink, and to get drunk. What? Do we not read in the Apocalypse of Churches whose angels and ministers God urges to repent of the crimes they have committed? Does the Apostle not call them Churches ad Galatas, even though he reproves them for being corrupted by error? Inter Corinthios too there was not just one kind of sin, but many; their errors were not trivial, but shameful crimes. Yet the Apostle not only acknowledges and proclaims them as a Church, but also as the holy fellowship of Christ. If the Church remains inter Corinthios, where factions, parties, rivalries, lawsuits, and quarrels are raging; where a crime that even the pagans would abhor is tolerated; where Paul's name is slandered, though they ought to honor him as a father; where divine gifts serve ambition rather than charity; where some mock the resurrection of the dead; and where many things are done indecently and in disorder—who would dare strip those of the title “Church” who cannot be charged with even a tenth of these crimes? What, I ask, would these people, who rage with such severity against present-day Churches, have done ad Galatas and Corinthians, who all but abandoned the Gospel? The Church therefore has its carnal members, whom the Apostle warns the spiritual not to abandon. It has the sick and weak, to whom Christ's physicians administer the remedies prepared in the sacraments. For the sacrament of penance is prepared for those who are within. It would be useless in the Church if there were no sinners in it. Since the Lutherans wish to evade the judgments of the Church so that they are not forced to admit that the wicked possess ecclesiastical authority, they deny that these people are parts of the Church, and therefore for themselves

they invent a Church that no human being can see, one that dwells in inaccessible darkness—a Church I certainly do not understand. I would be ashamed to say that I do not understand it if those who defend it understood it themselves. But they want to envelop and obscure what Christ set in clear light, lest they seem to have departed from the unity of the Catholic Church. “There is no security of unity,” Augustine says, “except with the Church, which, set upon a mountain, cannot be hidden; therefore it must be known in every part of the world.” Augustine also rightly said that where the Church is not manifest, Christ too cannot be manifest, for through the Church he is made known not only to human beings but also to principalities and powers in the heavens. Therefore the Church is a lamp for us, set on a lampstand for all in the house to see. Such it was to the people of Antioch when they went up to Jerusalem to settle their dispute. Such is what the Lord prescribed when he said, “Tell it to the Church.” Otherwise, what are those to do who consider the Church hidden when they fall into serious controversies about law and religion? Must they remain always in suspense, unable to stand on any firm ground? Certainly, if the Church is among the devout alone, everything will be uncertain. In every judgment of the Church, the person against whom the sentence is given will object that the judges are not devout. Those, therefore, who define the Church as consisting only of the just both deprive wicked pastors of the Church of all authority and weaken the force of ecclesiastical judgments; they can have no firm doctrines of the Church. And if Christ did not understand that the wicked would sometimes be not merely any members but even the chief members of his Church, he certainly would never have warned us: “The scribes and Pharisees sit on Moses' seat. Do whatever they tell you, but do not act according to their deeds.” What of Paul? “It is required here,” he says, “among stewards, that someone be found faithful. As for me, it is a very small thing that I should be judged by you.” If good conduct were necessary for someone to be a member and minister of the Church, the Apostle would not consider it a very small thing to be judged by human beings, since he saw that such judgment was connected with the ruin of apostolic authority. But since he saw that what some Corinthians demanded was not necessary for the steward's authority, he says, “It is a very small thing to me,” and so forth. How many and what powerful scruples and confusions would be imposed even upon the minds of stewards if, because of sin, they were at once made alien to the Church and lost all its authority? The Apostle rightly adds, “But I do not even judge myself,” and so forth. And how rash human judgments would be if the membership and offices of the Church depended on inward virtue! Therefore he added, “Do not judge before the time.” How many schisms we would see every day in the Church, as one person said to another, “You are not of the Church because you are wicked; I am of the Church because I am good!” And if one condemned someone whom another defended, how much material for lawsuits and quarrels do you think there would be? The Apostle therefore concludes very well: “I have applied these things to myself and Apollos, so that no one may be puffed up for one against another.” Let the name of the Church therefore remain broad enough to include all the faithful, both the good and the wicked. This is what we undertook to explain in this chapter.

WHAT AUTHORITY THE CATHOLIC CHURCH HAS IN MATTERS OF FAITH

We have said what seemed necessary about the name “Church,” matters we could neither omit nor ought to have omitted. Let us now address the subject at hand and show that the Church's authority has such force to establish faith that it also provides theologians with the firmest arguments. Before doing so, it is worth pointing out that “Church” means not only the assembly of Catholics who through baptism have given themselves to Christ and have been consecrated as a distinct and new commonwealth, but also the ecclesiastical leaders and rulers themselves, in whom the authority of this commonwealth chiefly resides. We neither invent this from a recent opinion nor assert it without testimonies of Scripture. Aristotle's famous saying is relevant: “…a city is above all what is primary in it.” For whatever the leaders and rulers of a city do and think, the city is said to do and think. There is a sacred example of this: “All the elders of Israel assembled with the tribal leaders and the heads of the families of the children of Israel before King Solomon in Jerusalem.” A little later: “The king turned his face and blessed the whole assembly of Israel; for the whole assembly of Israel was standing.” This is similar: “Moses came, summoned the elders of the people, and set before them all the words the Lord had commanded. All the people answered together, ‘We will do everything the Lord has said.’” The faithful should therefore not shrink from the word “Church” in this sense, as heretics are accustomed to do out of hatred for ecclesiastical power, which Christ willed to reside not among the common people but with the Church's priests and pastors; this will be explained elsewhere, at another time, if opportunity allows. For now we shall conclude, in the scholastic manner, the whole matter that forms the subject of this book in four conclusions. Let the first conclusion be: The faith of the Church cannot fail. For through faith it is Christ's bride, as it is written, “I will betroth you to me in faith.” If the Church lacked faith, the marriage of bridegroom and bride would be dissolved, although their union is indissoluble and everlasting. “I will betroth you to me forever,” he says. And the bride says, “I held him and will not let him go.” He says again, “Behold, I am with you all days, even to the end of the age.” Leo uses this testimony to prove the point in epistola ad Augustam et Theodoram. In his decrees Julius also proves it by that testimony from the Psalm: “Surround Zion and encompass her… for this is God, our God forever and ever; he will rule us forever.” Anyone who reads the Psalm will understand, even without my showing it, that this must be understood of Christ's Church. The same is shown by this: “He will reign over the house of Jacob forever, and there will be no end to his kingdom.” If, then, Christ's Church is sustained forever by his hand, armed by his protection, upheld by his power, and governed by his wisdom, faith will certainly remain in it, without which Christ's kingdom on earth would be no kingdom.

This is confirmed by Isaiah's clearest prophecy: “This is my covenant with them, says the Lord: my Spirit who is upon you, and my words which I have placed in your mouth, will not depart from your mouth, nor from the mouth of your offspring, nor from the mouth of your offspring's offspring, says the Lord, from now and forever.” This is like the passage, “I have made a covenant with my chosen ones; I have sworn to David my servant: I will establish your offspring forever.” Likewise, Psalm 131: “The Lord has chosen Zion; he has chosen it for his dwelling. This is my resting place forever.” Jeremiah's passage is very similar: “Behold, the days are coming, says the Lord…” Further, the Lord describes a wise man who built his house upon rock; therefore Christ founded his house upon rock. Neither rain, rivers, nor winds can overwhelm it. “For by faith we stand,” as Paul says; therefore the Church will always have faith, since otherwise it would not stand but fall. What is more, the Lord promises the Church's firmness in faith in express words: “Upon this rock I will build my Church, and the gates of hell will not prevail against it.” Hell, then, cannot take away the Church's faith. The second conclusion: The Church cannot err in believing. Some interpret the Church's perpetual faith to mean that God is with the Church until the end of the age, so that true faith and charity will never be lacking to it; yet it may still be ignorant, plausibly, of any particular matter, and its ignorance of that matter would not mean that the Church had lost faith. Let us suppose for the sake of argument that it had not been revealed by God that the Blessed Virgin was preserved from original sin. There is nothing to prevent our using an invented matter as an example, to make the issue easier to understand—although the example is true, as we shall show later. They say, then, that even if the Church believed and defined that all must believe that the Holy Virgin was conceived without sin, it would not be considered to have suffered a loss of faith. Although it would be mistaken, an error that was plausible and inculpable would not exclude the Church's faith. At first glance, the interlinear Gloss on “the gates of hell will not prevail against it,” as it is called, seems to hold this view; so too St. Thomas in 4 dist. 6 quaest. 1, art. 3. quaest. 2. ad 3.; Cardinal Torquemada in lib. Summae ecclesiae, 2. cap. 91.; and Alphonsus a Castro Zamoren. de iust. haeres. pun. lib. 1, cap. 5.. But in fact we established the proposition above, namely, that the Church will always have faith. This is true—who denies it? But, in addition, the claim that the Church cannot err in faith must be understood by the faithful to mean that whatever the Church holds as a dogma of faith is true, and that nothing false is believed or taught by it as something to be believed. Since the Church is Christ's body, as the Apostle teaches ad Ephes., it is surely moved and governed by its head. Therefore an error of the Church would be attributed to Christ as its author. It can in no way err in faith. For the Spirit of truth is the soul of this body: “There is one Spirit,” he says, “and one body.” If the Church is led by the Spirit of truth, it cannot be moved to any error, even unknowingly. The Church also has a splendid promise that it will never be abandoned by Christ, but will be led by his Spirit into all truth. “I will ask the Father,” he says, “and he will give you another Paraclete, to remain with you forever, the Spirit of truth… You will know him, because he will remain with you.” And later: “The Paraclete, the Holy Spirit, whom the Father will send in my name, will teach you all things and bring to your minds whatever

“I will tell you.” Again: “When the Spirit of truth comes, he will teach you all truth.” I am not unaware that heretics try to evade this argument in two ways. First, they say that such words must be understood of the Apostles alone and do not pertain to their successors in the Church. Then they assert that Christ promised the Spirit of truth not only to the twelve as a group, but also separately to each Apostle, and even to other disciples, whether those he had already taken up or those who would come later. For if we interpret such promises as given not to any Christians but to the whole Church collectively, they say we would do nothing but take away from all Christians the consolation that should have come to them especially from this promise. In both points they babble crudely and ignorantly. First, it is clear above all from the words “who will remain with you forever” that these words must be referred not only to the Apostles but also to their successors. The same is true of “Behold, I am with you all days, even to the end of the age.” Again, it is also clear from this: “Sanctify them in truth; your word is truth. For them I sanctify myself, that they too may be sanctified in truth. I do not pray for them alone, but also for those who will believe in me through their word.” Isaiah seems to me not only an illustrious prophet but also an interpreter of this promise: “My Spirit who is upon you… shall not depart from your mouth or the mouth of your offspring, from now and forever.” Therefore, unless we wish the Church to have been abandoned by the Lord after the Apostles died—and, indeed, to have neither the counsels nor commandments of the Gospel apply to it—Christ promised the same Spirit of truth to the Church that would exist after the Apostles. For they claim that what the Lord said to the Apostles concerned only them and not those who would come after them in the Church. What could be said more foolishly? The second evasion is equally empty and ridiculous. For if they want this to have been said commonly to the faithful in such a way that it applies individually to each, it follows that the Spirit of truth is with every faithful person forever, teaching each all truth and reminding each of everything said in the Gospel. But suppose that all have the Spirit of wisdom, understanding, light, and truth. Can we deny that whatever is given in particular to each member belongs entirely and fully to the whole body? Let us hear Calvin's reply. “Although this,” he says, “has some appearance of truth, nevertheless I deny that it is so.” O foolish man, resisting manifest truth! Does he not know that the gifts of the Holy Spirit distributed to the individual members are bestowed together on the whole? Does the eye see, while the person sees less? Is not the eye the lamp of the body? What could be more absurd than that a member could do something the body cannot, or that the part possessed what the whole lacks? “To each one of us,” he says, “grace was given according to the measure of Christ's gift.… He gave some to be apostles.… For the perfecting of the saints, for the work of ministry, for the building up of Christ's body.” Later: “Let us grow in every respect into him who is the head, Christ; from him the whole body, fitted and joined together, according to the working in the measure of each member, makes the body grow for its own building up in love.” Therefore, since a member is what it is as a part of the whole body, it claims nothing for itself, but contributes everything to the body, so that its actions and perfections seem to belong more properly to the body than to the member.

Accordingly, it is absurd that those with whom we now dispute fail to take the care they ought to take, and instead take the care they ought to lack. They do not prove that Christ's words do not pertain to the Church; they prove that they pertain to individuals, which is the opposite of what they needed to do if they intended to weaken the force of the argument. We know that the soul is first and foremost the act and perfection of the whole organic body, and secondarily of each of its individual members, in which it performs various functions; yet all those functions properly belong to the body and are naturally given to the members for the body's sake. In the same way, we refer the Spirit of truth first to the body of the Church, and then, for the Church's sake, to each part of the Church—not equally, but in a fitting analogy and proportion, according to the measure of each member. “One body,” he says, “and one Spirit.” “To each one of us grace was given according to the measure of Christ's gift.” What is this measure of Christ? “According to the working,” he says, “in the measure of each member.” The Spirit, then, is promised to each in its own way, teaching the great and teaching the little ones too. To the little ones he gives milk to drink; to the mature, solid food. To the former he speaks of Christ, and him crucified; to the latter he speaks of wisdom hidden in a mystery. The Spirit of truth is present to the individual members in such a way that he is not only present to the whole body, but is understood to be present first and more properly to the body than to its members. Indeed, if truth is a gift of all the members, it will be stronger and more certain when all the members concur in it together. Therefore, if the Church held anything false as a dogma of the Catholic faith, the Spirit of Christ would not remain with the faithful forever, nor would he teach them all truth. These promises cannot be true and reliable unless we make Christ's promises neither empty nor ineffective. And if the Church believed something false, or proposed it for belief, even if it did so through ignorance, how would it be the pillar and foundation of truth? Certainly, if truth rests upon the Church's shoulders, it cannot be absent from it altogether, unless Christ is absent from his Church and truth itself from Christ. In short, if the Church could be deceived in a question of faith, it could also receive as divine a book that was not from God, since the same reasoning applies to one book and to any one dogma. The argument “The Church regards Matthaei evangelium as canonical, therefore it is canonical” would then fail. Since it would be most impious and absurd to say this, let us say instead that the faithful rightly believe the Catholic Church not only in the sense that its faith will never fail, but also in the sense that it can neither believe nor teach anything contrary to true faith. Calvin and Bucer interpret our view cunningly and deceitfully, as though we deny that the Church can err in this sense: that, relying on the Spirit's favor and presence, it can go wherever it wishes, even without the word, and still be safe. Thus, they say, if it believes, establishes, or defines anything beyond God's word, that must be regarded no differently from a certain oracle of God. They claim that the difference is this: we place the Church's authority outside God's word, while they wish it attached to the word and will not allow it to be separated from it. Calvin takes great pains to gather passages in which the prophets, Apostles, and even Christ himself are said to have brought nothing of their own, but to have spoken from the Lord's mouth. He concludes that it is much more fitting for Christ's Church, as his disciple, to depend constantly on his mouth, and to know or think nothing of itself, but to set a limit to its wisdom where he has finished speaking. For St. Chrysostom says most piously: “Many, ¹

Chrysostom says, “Many boast of the Holy Spirit, but those who speak their own thoughts falsely invoke him.” Just as Christ testified that he did not speak of himself, so if anything beyond the Gospel is pushed on us under the title of the Spirit, we must not believe it. Certainly, Christ declares nothing further to be expected from his Spirit than that he illumine minds to understand the truth of his teaching: “The Spirit,” he says, “will lead you into all truth.” How? “Because he will remind you of everything I tell you.” So much for Calvin. Bucer spoke much more ignorantly: the Church is to be believed, he said, when it pronounces according to Scripture rightly understood. But by saying this he makes everything defined by the Church uncertain. For if it can pronounce otherwise than correctly understood Scripture requires, we will always make this exception: the Church is mistaken in that it falsely understands Scripture. Who, then, will judge whether the Church interprets Scripture rightly or wrongly? Those who grant the Church authority not absolutely but conditionally therefore contribute nothing. If the matter stands in this way, I too must be believed when I pronounce according to Scripture rightly understood. For this is to believe not me, but Scripture. The people believed the Lord and his servant Moses absolutely, not conditionally. The people also believed the prophets and Apostles absolutely. How would it be to detract from the faith of prophets and Apostles who were speaking by adding the exception that they had understood God's words incorrectly? What if the other exception were added as well: “You speak falsely; the Lord our God did not send you”? It is astonishing how shameless these scoundrels are. What authority will the Church have in the end if every dogma, law, and definition can be evaded in two ways: either the Church does not speak on its own, or, if it is the Lord's speech, it is not correctly understood? But I return to Calvin. When that familiar testimony of the Lord was brought against him—“If he does not hear the Church, let him be to you as a pagan and a tax collector”—he finally admits that the Church must be obeyed, since it never consents to anything but God's truth and pronounces nothing but what comes from the Lord's word. He insists on this: the Church is not permitted to devise new teaching or hand down as an oracle anything more than the Lord has revealed in his word. Yet among his own people he babbles astonishingly about this and either foolishly fails to understand or maliciously lies, when he says that we regard as an oracle of faith what human beings have customarily held without God's revelation. We certainly want our faith to be joined to God's word by an unbreakable bond, and we confidently and firmly uphold no assent of the Church unless we know that it came from God and hold this fixedly in our minds. But we are also firmly persuaded that the Lord is constantly and continuously present to his Church and governs it by his Spirit, so that it hands down nothing as a doctrine of faith that God did not also hand down to the Apostles. Thus we abhor all profane innovations and reject in the judgment of faith everything the Apostles did not hand down to the Church. The chief point of dispute is not this, but rather that the Lutherans deny that the Church received anything from the Apostles without writing, while we assert that it received many such things. We have often said much on this subject before and shall say much more later. Although in the preceding book the question was explained so fully and at length that nothing further seems needed, the truth itself took me by the hand, compelled me to pause and linger briefly while explaining the first conclusions. We must therefore hasten more quickly to the later ones.

Let the third conclusion be this: not only could the ancient Church not err in faith, but neither can nor will the Church that exists now or will exist until the end of the age err in faith. This conclusion was partly shown in libri secundi capite septimo and is partly proved by what we have just said. For Christ's promises about his presence, the Spirit of truth, his everlasting kingdom, and the body of which he was to be the head must pertain not only to the Church that existed in the time of the Apostles, but also to the Catholic Church that was to exist until the end of the age. Since this clearly follows from the arguments given to confirm the earlier conclusions, it would be futile either to do again what we have already done by repeating the same arguments, or, if we offer new ones, to use arguments entirely unnecessary for a matter beyond doubt. Certainly, one who insists on denying the present Church the Spirit of truth will deny it the power to bind and loose, and will deny all the sacraments and priesthood, and indeed all the gifts of the Holy Spirit. The Church of Christ would thus be reduced to a bare name and become a fictitious word without reality. Enough about the third conclusion. The fourth conclusion. Not only does the universal Church—that is, the assembly of all the faithful—have this everlasting Spirit of truth, but the Church's leaders and pastors have it as well. For we have said that the word “Church” is used both for the faithful people and for the Church's pastors. The earlier conclusions therefore asserted that whatever the Church, that is, the assembly of all the faithful, holds is true. This conclusion asserts that the Church's pastors and teachers cannot err in faith, but that whatever they teach the faithful people concerning the faith of Christ is entirely true. I shall show this conclusion shortly, after first pointing out that the error of one pastor or another, or even of all the pastors, does not undermine the faith—just as the error of a few of the faithful does not undermine the faith of the Christian people. We therefore maintain that all the pastors and teachers can never depart from the faith. So it is. In my opinion, this is first plainly demonstrated by that testimony of the Apostle: “He gave some to be apostles, some prophets, others evangelists, others pastors and teachers, for the perfecting of the saints, for the work of ministry, for the building up of Christ's body, until we all come to the unity of faith and knowledge of the Son of God, to a perfect man, to the measure of the fullness of Christ's stature, so that we are no longer little children tossed about and carried by every wind of doctrine, by the wickedness of men and the cunning with which they scheme to deceive.” Certainly, if pastors and teachers wandered here and there and departed from the straight path of faith, the sheep too would wander and stray, scattered without a shepherd. For when the shepherd goes over a precipice, the flock must follow, as Gregory says. Nor can it happen otherwise than that the other members are led wherever the eyes direct their power and sight, and the head inclines and turns. Paul therefore rightly asserts that it is part of divine providence to give pastors and teachers to the Church so that by their authority the people, by nature restless and changeable, may be held firm in the constancy of faith by heavenly grace.

If Christ gave no pastor to his Church, then that good Shepherd would undoubtedly abandon his own fold. It would be much better for the Church to have no pastors than to have mistaken ones. If all the pastors without exception were to depart from the truth, Christ would have abandoned his sheep most of all. Further, if all the pastors were in some error, they would either dislodge the people from their state and position or at least make them waver and fluctuate. Christ's house would then not be the pillar and foundation of truth. Let us also suppose that all the bishops together agreed on the same opinion and proposed it to an unlearned people as something to be believed. I ask: should the people follow them or not? If they should, then the people must also err along with the erring priests and bishops. The error of all the priests would therefore be the error of the whole Church. But if the people may regard the teaching of all the pastors as worthless, consider whether anything more absurd can be said or imagined. If pastors on one side and sheep on the other are split into opposing camps, the separation of a body fitted together and joined at every joint will break up all the unity of the Church. It will overthrow not only the fellowship Christ established between the leaders and the people but also the common association of the faithful with one another, whose closest bond is the same agreement and accord of faith, with its parts not torn apart. But all the parts will be torn apart if the members of the people are separated from their heads. Once an unlearned people have departed from the common judgment of their teachers, whose teaching will they follow afterward? If they have thrown away the salt, with what will they be salted? If they have turned their mind's sight away from the light, what will they see but darkness? If the eye is evil, will the whole body not be dark? Where then is this: “The scribes and Pharisees sit on Moses' seat; whatever they tell you, do”? Will the scribes and Pharisees be in a better state and condition than the pastors and teachers of Christ's Church? Certainly, if the Lord had spoken only to those then present and not also to those in the future, as the author of the unfinished commentary argues, those words would have been spoken, not written. They were spoken for those people, but written for these. Moreover, as we established in secundo libro and must confirm libris etiam quinto et septimo, in Catholic controversies the truth of faith is not to be sought from the people. First, because it would be an endless task to ask the opinion of all the faithful to decide every question. Second, even if it could be done most conveniently, it would not be fitting to seek and await the judgment of cobblers or womenfolk one by one. Whether you ask each person separately about a disputed question, or want to gather everyone together in a council, this sort of inquiry would surely be ridiculous. Thus no controversy could be settled by the Church's authority at all, if we had to seek the agreement of the whole people in order to settle it. We should add something we said long ago: certain matters belong to the Church's doctrine and faith which the common people entirely ignore, such as that the Father and Son are one principle of the Holy Spirit; that the intellectual soul is the substantial form of the human body; Librum Esther esse canonicum; and similar matters. To seek the people's judgment on these would be so absurd that it would not occur even to the minds of fools, let alone wise people. No one could approve of such great matters being judged by the votes of an unlearned crowd. Further, in epistola Ephesini concilii ad Nestorium id a Nestorio requires of Nestorius, if he wishes to satisfy the Church rightly, that he swear he believes and teaches what all the bishops and leaders of the people throughout East and West believed and taught. Which

The same epistle was also confirmed by sexta synodus, action. II. Likewise, at the council too, Trident. Sess, 3, it was defined that it belongs to the Church to judge the true sense and interpretation of Scripture. But it would be madness for the whole congregation of the faithful to wish to pass judgment on a matter of this kind. The pastors and teachers of the Church, therefore, are those to whom such judgments belong. Eusebius of Caesarea records in his writings Egesippus’s most diligent inquiry into the faith: when Egesippus was traveling to Rome, he did not seek the opinion of ordinary people about the faith, but thought he had done enough to confirm his own faith if, in conversation with bishops in each place, he found all the preachers and teachers of the same faith. Again, when Irenaeus brings the authority of the Church against heretics, he brings forward only the judgment of the bishops, according to the succession of those who follow the apostles; he considers their understanding and faith to be the understanding and faith of the Church, and whoever opposes them to oppose the Church. Cyprian too, in libro de simplicit. praelat, says: “Does he seem to be with Christ who acts against Christ’s priests? He who separates himself from the fellowship of the clergy carries arms against the Church and resists God’s arrangement … who, despising the bishops and abandoning God’s priests, dares …” And in his letter to Pupianus: “Christ,” he says, “speaks to the apostles, and through them to all the rulers who succeed the apostles by a deputy ordination: ‘He who hears you hears me, and he who rejects you rejects me.’” Later he asserts that the Church is not a multitude of the disobedient, but a people united to its priest and a flock clinging to its shepherd. Hence those who are not with the bishops are not in the Church, and those who have not kept peace with the priests flatter themselves in vain. “Since the Church, which is one and Catholic, has not been split, but is joined together and bound by the bond of priests who are mutually united …” Finally, Augustine—since it would take too long to mention everyone—when he relies on the authority of the Church against heretics, clearly understands the bishops who succeed the apostles down to his own time. ²

OBJECTIONS AGAINST THIS LAST CONCLUSION

What has been said would suffice amply for explaining and confirming these conclusions, were it not that some theologians raise this objection against the last one: at the time of the Lord’s Passion all the apostles lost faith in Christ, and therefore all bishops who succeed the apostles can lose faith in Christ. For they say that the candle that alone is not extinguished in the offices of those days signifies that faith remained in the blessed Virgin alone; from her the disciples received the light they had lost. Since this argument also seemed weak to them, they confirm the same point with testimonies both of the ancient saints and of Sacred Scripture. Their first argument, then, is drawn from Matthew’s saying: “You will all suffer scandal because of me on this night; for it is written: ‘I will strike the shepherd, and the sheep of the flock will be scattered,’” that is, they will be loosened from the unity of faith. For the Glossa interlinearis explains it this way.

Second, from what is read in Luke: the words of the women announcing Christ’s resurrection seemed to the apostles like nonsense. Third, from Mark’s account that Christ reproached all the apostles for their unbelief and hardness of heart. Fourth, from Augustine on the psalm “My eyes have failed”: “All the disciples,” he says, “despaired that he was the Christ. The apostles were overcome by the thief, who believed then, while they failed.” Cardinal Turrecremata also reports that Ambrose, Jerome, Gregory, and Isidore say the same. But it is difficult to speak of their readiness to believe, as the case demands, when they claim, moved by such arguments, that absolutely all the apostles lost faith. This conflicts not only with reason but also with Sacred Scripture. For, to say nothing of Peter, whose faith we will later show did not fail, that opinion about the other apostles is not merely uncertain but not even probable. “The disciples,” it says, “went into Galilee, to the mountain where Jesus had appointed them; and when they saw him, they worshiped him; but some doubted.” It says “some,” not “all.” I see that some refer this doubt not to the apostles but to certain other disciples; yet I have always preferred Theophylact’s and Remigius’s view, who teach that it refers to the time before Christ had appeared to the disciples. This, I think, is what Mark understood when he says: “He reproached their unbelief and hardness of heart, because they had not believed those who had seen him risen.” Whether this appearance that Mark describes took place on the day of the Ascension, as many think, or earlier, as some also suppose, there is no doubt that Mark here briefly recapitulates those reproaches that the other Evangelists recorded in different places: “because they had not believed those who had seen him risen.” It is clear from the other Evangelists that this unbelief and hardness of heart—that is, their not believing those who had seen Christ rise—did not apply to all the apostles. For Peter and John, on hearing the report, ran to the tomb; and, iuxta Hebraeorum evangelium, James swore, from the hour when he had drunk the Lord’s cup, that he would eat no bread until he saw Christ risen, as Jerome records in cathalogo scriptorum ecclesiasticorum. We must not therefore believe that all the apostles suffered a loss of faith, unless we believe the absurdity that they all became unbelievers. For faith once received by a Christian is taken away only by unbelief. More absurd still is to brand all the apostles with heresy. Those who do this without sound and compelling reasons wrong not only them but Christ and the Church as well. Who does not see how weak are those arguments that the authors of this opinion have added? Some we refuted earlier; the rest we will refute now in a word. For if they prove anything, they prove only that the apostles failed in the confession of faith, or even in living faith, which works through love. The Church’s custom of extinguishing all the candles except one may be referred to this. Rupert, however, lib. de divin. offic. 5 says that the candles extinguished earlier signify the prophets killed by the Jews, while the candle hidden for a short time signifies Christ. Even if the apostles had then lacked faith, this would still prove nothing against the conclusion. For, as Augustine warned, the apostles failed then, when they were not yet leaders of the Church and the saying “I have strengthened its pillars” had not yet been fulfilled. At that time there was one shepherd, Jesus Christ. But after Christ appointed Peter and the other apostles as shepherds, they always held the Catholic faith without dispute.

As for what heretics allege—that the pastors of the Church are human beings and therefore can deceive and be deceived—the argument is surely meager and paltry. For it is one thing to discuss the weakness of human nature, another to discuss divine grace and providence, by which human beings are kept in the truth of faith. The whole assembly of the faithful together consists of human beings; the prophets, apostles, and Evangelists were human beings too. But because they received the Spirit of truth, they could not fall into a false doctrine of faith. So all the teachers of the Church are indeed human beings, but because they are governed and guided by the divine Spirit toward true dogmas, they cannot turn aside to false ones. And how inept, frivolous, and ridiculous is this claim some interpret in this way: that we do not believe in the Church because its members are human beings, whereas “every man is a liar”! This certainly was not the reason that led the most serious men to deny that we ought to believe in the Church. There is another, older and more beautiful reason, given by the very authors of the Creed. Augustine says: “We believe Peter; we believe Paul; we do not believe in Paul or Peter. For to believe in him is to love him by believing, and to go to him by believing.” So far Augustine. Rufinus says: “It is not said ‘in the holy Church,’ but that the holy Church is to be believed—not as God, but as the Church gathered by God. By this syllable of the preposition, the Creator is distinguished from creatures.” This is what he says. These authors, then, do not allow us to believe in the Church because the Church is not the end of our faith. At this point, however, a rather difficult question arises. Since Jerome speaks of the Church in two ways—both as that which has no spot or wrinkle and is truly the body of Christ, and as that which gathers in Christ’s name without complete virtues, indeed with certain vices mixed in—how can we know which sense of the word “Church” is meant when it is called the pillar and foundation of truth? Heretics quibble that whatever is set down in Scripture concerning either the authority or the truth of the Church must be understood in the former sense, not the latter. Thus they grant the Spirit of truth to the Church of the saints, but not to a Church in which the wicked are mixed. They defend themselves not only on the ground that, with an ambiguous word, one may freely choose either meaning, but also bring forward other arguments to persuade us that in this passage, and in the question concerning the Church, the word must be used in only one way. Their first point is that Jerome thinks “Church” is used improperly in its second meaning. “For,” he says, “strong, prudent, chaste, just, and temperate are sometimes used fully for those who have perfect virtue, and sometimes improperly for those who are beginners.” If, then, the first meaning is proper and the second improper, we will certainly more fittingly use the word “Church” in the first meaning, that is, for the assembly of the just. Again, when the Apostle says, “The Church is subject to Christ,” and “Christ loved the Church,” and “Christ is the head of the Church, he himself the Savior of its body,” the word is understood to mean the assembly of the saints, as Jerome and Augustine interpreted it. Why, then, should we understand it differently when the Apostle writes that the Church is the pillar and foundation of truth? Further, Paul honored not just any Church, but the one that is the house of God. Only the just are believed to be God’s house, as Augustine also says; therefore the Church of the saints alone is the pillar of truth. Moreover, Augustine expressly teaches that God’s house and Church, which is made up only of good and faithful people and God’s holy servants, is the Church built upon a rock, which also

received the keys and the power to bind and loose. God’s house, then, is the same as the house that is the pillar and foundation of truth. Therefore, if the pastors who claim the name of the Church are wicked, these and similar things do not apply to them. Augustine confirms this in many other passages as well. If these things are true, not only is the last conclusion now under examination overturned, but all the others are entirely overturned, along with everything we have established in this locus. Yet although heretics argue these and many other things in support of that view, we must nevertheless follow the Church and flee from everything that conflicts with its approval. First, I think we must understand that the defense and line of argument they now attempt not only overturns our arguments but also leads to a position discordant with and hostile to the Catholic faith and the nature of every commonwealth. For if Christ promised the Spirit of truth in the Gospel only to the good, the other promises too will belong to the Church made up only of the just. Hence, as must be said often, neither the authority to enact laws, nor the power of the keys, nor the remission of sins, nor the force of doctrine, nor the sacred character of the priesthood, nor any public power of the Gospel whatsoever will be found in a Church good in every respect. But since the Catholic Church, which has existed from the apostles onward, has always contained both wicked and good people, it would have had no firm faith, no certain truth, no expressed power, and no solid authority. Thus all things decreed and defined by the agreement of either the pontiffs, the councils, or even the whole Church would have no force at all. For whether you say that they are not just, or that, even if they are just, they are unknown to us, in either way and by either means you evade their dogmas, decisions, and laws. And, as we said above, Christ’s commonwealth would be constituted most foolishly and absurdly, in a way that could not be imagined worse. Therefore what I said at the beginning proves true: the Spirit of truth, the support of the Catholic faith, and the other gifts of the Holy Spirit have been promised and given to the Church founded by the apostles through their teaching and miracles, to which they wrote their letters, which Christ has always had on earth, and which Sacred Scripture fittingly and wisely describes as made up of good and bad fish, wheat and weeds, grain and chaff, wise and foolish virgins, good and wicked servants. Let heretics keep the name “Church” for themselves, obscure and odious as it is, and interpret it as that Church which no mortal has yet seen. We, however, should understand the Church according to the usage of both divine speech and our own life. We should not measure it, as the proud and arrogant do, by the grandeur of words; we should regard as the Church the one that exists, and leave aside the one found nowhere at all. For we are human beings, and so must hope for a commonwealth that exists in the ordinary life and practice of human beings, not one that is imagined. I would have all this understood as said not to mean that there is no multitude or assembly of good people on earth before God, called in Sacred Scripture the Church, the bride, and the friend of God, but so that we do not separate those people from the wicked in the house and Church of God, where there are vessels of gold and silver as well as wooden and earthen ones—not all for honor, but some for dishonor. I think these matters have already been explained carefully enough. Let us now answer the arguments we have just set out; we will answer in the next and final chapter those given at the beginning of this book. In the word,

“they say, we may take whichever one of many meanings we please.” “Not at all,” I say. First, we must consider what comes before and after; then we must consider the nature of the things, what is consistent with them, what conflicts with them, and many other matters, which we will examine more carefully and precisely in libro tertiodecimo. But if, when Christ promises his Church gifts necessary to keep the faithful in their duty and in the truth, we refer them only to hidden and unseen members, those gifts would plainly be empty and ill-suited to the common good. Indeed, as shown above, they would be very harmful and destructive, since they would provide every most depraved citizen with perpetual grounds for discord and with everlasting impunity and license in every sort of wickedness. Now, if guided and governed by reason we judge unjust to a good and wise ruler someone who interprets his privileges so that they seem granted not only in vain but for destruction, how much more unjust, perverse, and malicious an interpreter of Christ would be someone who takes the graces and favors Christ promised to his commonwealth in a sense that not only displays vanity but brings ruin? That passage of Paul and the others like it, then, must be understood of the Church that embraces both good and wicked people. But such an assembly and congregation is called “Church” improperly. This I deny. For the case is not the same as that of “strong,” “prudent,” “just,” and “temperate.” I agree with Jerome that words for such virtues are transferred to beginners and the imperfect only improperly. For the true definition of virtue expresses not dispositions that are just beginning and, so to speak, unformed, but habits that are wholly complete and perfect, as Aristotle, St. Thomas, and the other true philosophers taught. But the word “Church” signifies nothing of the kind that these people imagine, so that we should exclude wicked people from the assembly that properly claims the name Church. Therefore there is no impropriety or misuse if even an assembly that has the wicked mingled with the good in one baptism, one faith, and one religion is called the Church. We can also answer differently: Jerome speaks of the Church of Christ almost in the same way that we use “people of God,” “house of God,” and “servants of Christ.” Somehow it happens that adding the genitive case leads us to understand these words chiefly of good people. Thus if they refer to the Church corrupted by vice, there may perhaps be some impropriety that can be grasped by the mind more than expressed in words. For the “people of God” in Sacred Scripture very often means the people specially consecrated to God, among whom the faith and worship of God flourish, though some sinners are present among them. Enough, then, concerning Jerome’s testimonies. We will answer the next argument in the following chapter, where we will explain in what sense the Apostle named the Church ad Ephesios 5. There is no need to prove that God’s house is also that great house in which are vessels of gold and silver, and of wood and clay. Yet, although this is clear, we reserve it for the time when we refute the arguments of the first chapter. Finally, what is objected from Augustine’s words must be read and heard with care, as ecclesiastical writers before us have warned. For those words can suggest two meanings. One is that only the just are understood to be ministers of Christ and the Church, alone to remit sins, and alone to possess ecclesiastical authority and power. It is clear that this sense conflicts not only with reason but also with the faith of the Church and Sacred Scripture. But it is not for this place or purpose to discuss the matter. The other, then, ¹

Augustine’s meaning is undoubtedly that only the just are said to have received the keys of the kingdom of heaven, the power of binding and loosing, the Spirit of truth, and the remaining spiritual graces, because all these gifts were promised and bestowed not for the sake of the wicked but for the good of the Church. For when a head of household grants things to stewards and administrators to distribute for the benefit of the household, these are understood to be granted not to the stewards but to the household itself. Likewise, what a people gives to bishops and clerics to be spent for the needs of the poor is said to have been given not to the bishops and clerics but to the poor. So too, if rulers grant something to an unknown person at the request and on account of the merits of their friend, that person can rightly and truly say that the gift was given not to an unknown person but to a friend. The statements brought from Augustine against the authority of Peter and his successors must be explained according to precisely this rule. The keys were received not by Peter alone but by the unity of the Church. Likewise, Peter received the power of binding and loosing with all the others, as representing the very unity of the Church. Again, the keys of the Church were given when they were given to Peter, and when Christ says to Peter, “Feed my sheep,” he speaks to all. In my view, all this means nothing other than that Peter and the other ministers of the Church received the keys and the other public offices of the Gospel not for themselves or on account of their own merits, but for the Church and on its account. I know, however, that others interpret the first statements differently. Some refer them to the exercise of power, which the wicked are said not to possess because they cannot exercise it lawfully. Others refer them entirely to grace—not sacramental grace, which is also commonly given through wicked ministers, but the grace that answers a minister’s prayers, as Augustine seems to indicate in de consc. Dist. 4, “Quomodo.” Others, finally, think Augustine is speaking of public plunderers, usurers, adulterers, and sacrilegious men, from whom it was once not permitted to receive the sacraments, as if they had been cut off from the Church. For that reason, ministers of this kind did not bestow the grace of the sacraments. But, as we have often said, this is not the time or place to debate the matter. The madness of the Waldensians was long ago exploded, and we need not labor over that issue now. Enough, then, on these matters. Let us refute as briefly as we can the arguments raised at the beginning against the authority of the Church.

IN WHICH THE ARGUMENTS OF THE FIRST CHAPTER ARE REFUTED

The first argument is extremely easy to refute, and in not just one but many ways. First, neither Moses nor Joshua, under whose governance that period fell, fell into the people’s fury and madness. Second, it is not even certain that all those who remained in the camp agreed to the crime; rather, it is most likely that some opposed it. For as soon as Moses uttered the words, “Whoever is for the Lord, join me,” all the sons of Levi gathered to him and consecrated their hands to the Lord, each against his son and his brother. From this it is understood that those who at Moses’s one call turned to him

and stood with the Lord, whom the Lord made ministers of his justice in exacting vengeance, were not partners and accomplices in the crime of the others. What is more, Aaron had not yet been initiated into the priesthood, nor had the ephod yet been placed upon him and fastened and fitted with the breastpiece, in which were doctrine and truth. It is no wonder, then, if Aaron and his sons, not yet appointed shepherds of the people or consecrated priests, erred in faith and religion. Although Aaron sinned through fear, as happened later to Peter and Marcellinus, not through unbelief. Nothing, then, is brought against us, who assert that priests and shepherds of the Church, once appointed by Christ, cannot all err in faith and religion. That is enough about the first argument. The second seems more serious; not Calvin alone but the Donatists too used it against Catholics, as Augustine reports in libr. De unit. Eccles. cap. 12. But there is no need to devise new answers now, since Augustine answered this argument admirably: “Often divine speech rebukes impious crowds in the Church as though all were like that and no good person at all remained. We are thereby warned that they are called ‘all’ within a certain number, that is, all the sons of Gehenna. They therefore act either ignorantly or deceitfully when they gather from Scripture statements that are found either about the wicked, who remain mixed with the good to the end, or about the devastation of the former people of the Jews, and wish to twist them against the Church of God, so that it may seem to have failed and perished throughout the whole world.” So far Augustine. The oracles of the prophets of this kind have, then, chiefly this sense: since the good are so few in comparison with the wicked that they seem to be none, Scripture rebukes the whole people in one general statement, although some good people are among them. Moreover, those statements were almost predictions, not rebukes: the people are described not as they then were but as they would be after the Messiah’s coming. Both senses must be confirmed with clear examples from Scripture, lest heretics claim they are ours. Ezechiel prophesied at the same time as Hieremias. Let us hear what the Lord says to him: “The house of Israel is unwilling to hear you, because they are unwilling to hear me; for the whole house of Israel is hardened in forehead and hard of heart.” Do you think that in this wholly corrupt house some part remained to which this general statement did not apply? Hear what the Lord also says: “Mark a Thau on the foreheads of the men who groan and grieve over all the abominations done in its midst.” Not everyone, then, had agreed to the people’s crime; not everyone was hardened in forehead and heart. Here is another example. “Save me, O Lord, for the holy man has failed … Each has spoken vanity to his neighbor.” One man loudly and mournfully laments the sins of the whole human race, as if he alone were left. But what does the divine answer say to him? “Because of the misery of the needy and the groaning of the poor, now I will arise.” Understanding, then, that he has many companions in his lament, he says: “You, O Lord, will preserve us and guard us from this generation forever.” Augustine says the same in libro contra Donatistas post collationem, cap. 20: “Lest they think it was only the custom of the prophets, and that this belongs not to the New Testament but to the completion of the Old, to rebuke the blameworthy as though all in that people were being rebuked and to address the praiseworthy as though all there were being praised, behold how the Apostle speaks to the Corinthians: ‘Paul … to the Church which is ¹

in Corinth, sanctified in Christ Jesus, called to be saints, with all who call on the name of the Lord … Grace to you and peace from God our Father and the Lord Jesus Christ. I always give thanks to my God for you, for the grace of God given to you in Christ Jesus, because in every respect you have been enriched in him, in all speech and all knowledge …’ Who, hearing this, would believe that there were any reprobates in the Church of the Corinthians, since these words sound as if this praise were directed to everyone? And yet a little later he says: ‘I appeal to you, brothers … that there be no divisions among you …’ And, rebuking them as though all were involved in this dreadful vice, he says: ‘Is Christ divided? Was Paul crucified for you, or were you baptized in the name of Paul?’” So far Augustine. He could also have mentioned the words that follow in the same epistle: “As to infants in Christ, I gave you milk to drink, not food, for you were not yet able; and even now you are not able, for you are still carnal. Since there is jealousy and strife among you …” Also: “You are puffed up, and have not rather mourned, so that the one who did this deed might be removed from your midst.” Also, from the epistle to the Galatians: “O foolish Galatians, who has bewitched you, that you should not obey the truth …” Yet afterward he says: “Brothers, if a man is overtaken in any trespass, you who are spiritual should instruct such a one in a spirit of gentleness …” Also, to the Philippians: “For all seek their own things, not the things of Jesus Christ …” I think the great theologian passed over these and many other similar matters in that discussion because they were easy; they are certainly useful for our present purpose, and he touched on almost all of them in his epistle to Vincentius. That most of these prophetic testimonies refer to the state and customs of the Jewish people after the Messiah will be clear from many examples in the next book; for now one example will suffice. Aggaeus admonished Zorobabel, Jesus the high priest, and the whole people to build the house of God in these words: “Now be strong, Zorobabel, says the Lord; and be strong, Jesus, high priest; and be strong, all you people of the land, and act, for I am with you, and my spirit will be in your midst; do not fear.” But later in the same chapter Aggaeus added: “If one polluted in soul touches any of these things, will it become unclean?” The priests answered, “It will become unclean.” And Aggaeus replied: “So is this people before me, says the Lord, and so is every work of their hands; and whatever they offer there will be unclean.” We understand this passage most fittingly as concerning the state of the people after the completion of the Old Testament. Augustine also interpreted this example as confirming the preceding points. Yet, as I said, it more suitably and fittingly refers to the condition of the people after the Messiah’s coming, and in the next book we will show that many other passages, especially in Isaias, serve this purpose. Enough, then, about the testimonies of Isaias and Hieremias. As for what is added third, that the Church can be hidden, the Donatists also once asserted it. Augustine answered them in these words: “The Church is not hidden from us, because it is not under a bushel but on a lampstand, to shine for all who are in the house. And it was said of it: ‘A city set on a mountain cannot be hidden.’ It is hidden from the Donatists.” So much Augustine. First, however, it is false that the old people at some time had no appearance of a Church. For when Elias complained that he alone was left, Scripture records seven thousand men who had not bent their knees before Baal; and it was clear and

known to them that it was not faith and unity but the kingdom that was divided, and that therefore God’s temple, the high priest, and the true doctrine of the Law and religion remained in Jerusalem. Such a man was Tobias: while everyone went to the golden calves that Jeroboam had made, he went to the temple of the Lord and worshiped there the Lord God of Israel, faithfully offering tithes and observing, even as a young boy, the other things of this kind required by God’s law. Next, even if that people wavered so that it seemed almost to have fallen, and was so scattered that it nearly lost its form and appearance, it does not follow that Christ’s Church too can be obscured so completely that no appearance of it shines forth. For that old people, since it was destined to fall, often threatened ruin. And since perpetual night was going to be cast over that commonwealth, it is no wonder if it was gradually obscured and vanished. What if at some point it scarcely appeared, when so small a light and faint gleam in the night shone upon it? … Surely, “a lamp in a dark place.” But these matters will be explained more carefully in the next book. Calvin thinks we should be pressed with Hilary’s authority, which Vincent once set against Augustine. But Augustine crushed and almost wholly refuted as mere slanders all the passages Hilary had collected, roughly in these words: “The Church is sometimes obscured by the multitude of scandals, but even then it stands out in its strongest members. Sometimes it is covered and tossed by the waves of temptation; such was the time about which Hilary wrote. From this you thought to plot against so many divine testimonies … You might as well say that the Churches of Galatia did not exist at the time when the Apostle said, ‘O foolish Galatians, who has bewitched you?’ For this is how you slander a learned man who was severely rebuking the fainthearted and timid. Who does not know that at that time many people of limited understanding were deceived by obscure words, thinking that the Arians believed what they themselves believed, while others yielded through fear and gave their agreement under pretense? Yet even those who were then most steadfast and able to understand the heretics’ deceptive words were few in comparison with the others. Still, some of them were exiled throughout the world for the faith, and some hid in every part of the world. Hilary, therefore, was either accusing the tares, not the wheat, of the ten provinces of Asia, or he thought the very wheat, which was endangered by some weakness, should be rebuked; the more forcefully, the more usefully. For the canonical Scriptures too have this way of rebuking: they speak as though to everyone, while the word reaches only some.” So far Augustine. Jerome says: “The whole world groaned and wondered that it had become Arian. The little boat of the apostles was in peril; the winds pressed upon it, the waves beat its sides, and no hope remained. The Lord was roused, commanded the storm, the beast died, and calm returned. I will speak more clearly: all the bishops who had been driven from their sees returned to their Churches. Then Egypt welcomed its victor, Athanasius; then the Church of Gaul embraced Hilary returning from battle; then Italy changed its mourning clothes at Eusebius’s return.” Thus Jerome, along with many other things that I pass over for the sake of brevity. But this is enough for everyone to understand that the ship of the Church was tossed about in the deep by storms of heresy, sedition, and discord, and was almost covered by the waves, yet even in so great a storm it was not sunk. Rather, it stood out in its few but strongest members; and the harder they labored at the oars, the more visible and conspicuous they became.

At this point there is no need to bring forward the faith and light of the Roman Church, which has never been hidden at all but has always been manifest to the whole world, as will be shown more carefully in libro sexto. Nor is the faith of the Church dissolved or hidden under different pontiffs. On the contrary, even at that time the Catholic Church gives clear proof of its faith. The judgments of the pastors are then endangered; without a certain head of the Church they will be weak and uncertain. We will discuss this in another book. In the sixth argument Calvin now expends much effort and many words and wears himself out in vain labor. He could have said more briefly and easily that, since the synagogue was wholly extinguished and destroyed, Christ’s Church too must be destroyed entirely. But the apostasy foretold by the Apostle cannot come while the true appearance of the Church exists. Calvin says this; he does not prove it. Therefore it is false. Indeed, after Germany had defected for the most part not only from the Roman Pontiff but also from its own Roman Emperor, perhaps that prediction of Paul was fulfilled, and therefore the most unhappy times of Antichrist are at hand. “But when the Son of man comes, will he find faith on earth?” Jerome answers this argument by saying that “faith” here is the faith of which the Lord said, “Your faith has saved you”; and elsewhere, of the centurion, “I have not found such great faith in Israel”; and again to the apostles, “Why are you afraid, you of little faith?” And also at another place, “If you have faith like a mustard seed …” For neither the centurion nor that woman had believed in the mysteries of the Trinity; rather, simplicity of mind and a soul devoted to its God were commended. This is the faith God declared would rarely be found. It is the faith that even among those who believe well is rarely found perfect. Augustine answers in the same way: the Lord speaks of perfect faith, which is so difficult among human beings that even the admirable saints have something in which they have faltered. He adds that the Lord spoke this way because of the abundance of the wicked and the scarcity of the good, especially in that age. For he did not say, “When the Son of man comes, he will find no faith on earth,” but said as if in doubt, “Do you think he will find faith?” It was not that he, who knows all things, doubted anything; rather, by his own doubt he represented ours, since human weakness would speak this way on account of the many scandals that would arise near the end of the age. The error of those who, led by very empty arguments, think faith can remain in one person alone must be removed. Since “Church” is a collective noun, if only one person believed, the Church would not believe. Add that the Lord says through Matthew: “Behold, I am with you all days, until the consummation of the age.” He says, “with you.” And through John, when he promises the Spirit of truth to the faithful forever, he promises him to many, not just one. Add also that “the body is not one member but many,” as the Apostle teaches ad Corinthios. But the Body of Christ, which is the Church, will remain to the end, as the same Apostle shows ad Ephesios. Therefore many faithful will never be lacking in the Church. Moreover, wheat with weeds in the field and good fish with bad in the net will endure until the consummation of the age. Faith, then, will not remain in just one person. “But the sacrifice and offering will cease.” I think this prophecy of Daniel refers not to the end of the age but to the completion of the synagogue. If anyone wishes to refer it to the time of Antichrist, I would not contend much, provided he interprets it thus:

that, because of the cruelty of a most savage tyrant, priests will cease from public and solemn sacrifice. As for the objection from Apocalypsi Ioannis, since it is very obscure, it has no force against us in establishing the claim. Yet I admit that this oracle was fulfilled in Luther, who was given the key to the pit of the abyss so that, by digging up errors deeply submerged and buried, he might cover the world in such darkness that he seemed to have wrapped light itself in shadow. But the light of the Church still shines for those who have eyes to see. For the Lutherans are blind, and leaders of the blind. If, however, “all the glory of the king’s daughter is within,” and there is no outward splendor in her, how can those statements agree: “The queen stood at your right hand, clothed in a garment of gold, surrounded by variety”; and “Let your light shine before men, so that they may see your good works”; and “A city set on a mountain cannot be hidden”; and “They do not light a lamp and put it under a bushel, but on a lampstand, so that those who enter may see the light”; and other similar passages that I pass over, lest I be too long? It is clear, then, that in the bride of Christ, in whom nothing is feigned, painted over, or pretended, but all is true, sincere, and solid, all outward glory too proceeds from inward virtue and splendor. We have said too much about the sixth argument. In dissolving the remaining arguments, it is useful to point out that many things which apply to a part are commonly transferred to the whole by figurative speech. We do this very often in other contexts, but especially when speaking of a city, people, kingdom, or any assembly at all, about which we make general statements that do not apply to every part of the commonwealth, but sometimes to only a few. We call a people strong and a nation warlike, not because all in that commonwealth are strong or warlike, but because men chosen from it for military service tend to be so. We speak no differently about a human commonwealth than about a human body. A man is said to act or suffer what his hand or foot acts or suffers. A person is said to be clean or unclean if his face is clean or unclean; and the same is true in other cases. Thus words that we see apply to certain parts of the Church are attributed to the Church itself. By this rule the Church is called a friend, beautiful, spotless, and holy with respect to the good; “a garden enclosed” and “a sealed fountain” with respect to the elect. Since these are the first and best part of the Christian Church—indeed, since they are the princes of the kingdom of heaven, even though they are most despised and contemptible in the earthly commonwealth—what applies to them is truly and rightly transferred to the whole Church. For, as we have already taught from Aristotle, a city is said to be or to do what its leading and noblest members are said to be or do. Nor should we neglect here, where the Lutherans attack us most forcefully, Luther’s testimony, so that they may understand this matter is so obvious and clear that even Luther himself could not deny it. When he explained in a sermon to the people how the Church is called holy, he teaches by synecdoche that Matthaeus wrote that the robbers blasphemed, whereas Lucas writes that one of them did so. Thus, he says, one and the same people is rebuked in the Prophets when many good people are among them, and praised when many wicked people are among them. “This is the most beautiful figure of charity, which makes all good things common, and likewise all bad things common, so that each may bear the burdens of the other and thus fulfill the law of Christ. In this way a city, region, or house is said to have done or suffered what some people in it did or suffered.” So far Luther. ²

Here I appeal to all the heretics, so that they themselves may judge whether they prudently oppose us by saying that the Church is a garden enclosed, a sealed fountain, a well of living water, a paradise with the fruits of trees, holy, beautiful, perfect, glorious, without spot or wrinkle, and then conclude that there is no one in it who is foreknown, weak, or wicked. But let us answer each point. In the seventh argument an encomium from Canticorum is applied to the Church, and I think we have answered it amply. Next they add that only those who were saved were in the ark, and that the ark was an image of the Church. But lest anyone fall into the error of thinking that all who enter the Church through baptism are saved, Peter carefully and wisely added: “Baptism, of a like form, now saves you too—not the removal of the filth of the flesh, but the appeal of a good conscience.” Otherwise, as Jerome says against the Luciferians, just as there are all kinds of animals in the ark, so in the Church there are people of every nation and character: as there were leopards and goats, wolves and lambs there, so here the just and sinners, that is, vessels of gold and silver dwell alongside wooden and earthen ones. The ark, therefore, is chiefly a type of the Church in that no one was saved outside it, not in that all who were inside it were saved. But let us ask Jerome about the sacraments of the ark in that dialogue. We will proceed to the rest. They say that Christ is not head of any Church except the one of which he is Savior. First, this is not altogether clear. Christ is head of the angels, but it is not established that he is properly their Savior. I certainly do not think so, although some have argued to the contrary. This is not the place to discuss the matter. Further, the connection is weak: Christ is the Savior of the Church; therefore he saves everyone who is in the Church. For he is the Savior of all people, especially the faithful, yet he does not in fact save everyone. And even if Christ saves his own body, which is the Church—I mean, saves it in effect and outcome—it still does not follow that he saves everyone who is in the Church. This is so, first, because it has already been sufficiently shown and made clear that certain things are truly said of the Church which apply to it not on account of all its parts, but on account of some. Second, because words for the whole and its parts extend more broadly than words for the body and its members, as we will explain shortly. Thus it does not follow that, if the body of Christ and all its members are saved, all the parts of the Church are saved. Nor does Paul, they say, claim that Christ presents to himself a glorious Church; he asserts only that he gave himself up in order to present it glorious. Just as he died so that we might all live, though not all live, so he gives himself up for the Church to cleanse and glorify it, though not all who are in the Church are cleansed and glorified. Although he truly presents his Church to himself glorious, he does so neither in all its parts nor perhaps at this time. The next point is very easy. Although “sons of God” sometimes names people according to predestination, it is properly and more frequently applied on account of present justice, as explained in capite tertio. We see, however, that sons are sometimes disinherited, and rightly so. It does not follow, then, that because someone is a son he will receive the inheritance, unless you also establish that he has not lost the right he received. Since “son of God” does not always mean a good person but can sometimes refer to one who has squandered his father’s goods, I think we must also distinguish whether the Church consists only of the sons of God. For if you call sons those who have been born to Christ and the Church through baptism, we

assert that it does. But among them are some wicked and foolish sons, whom the care of their father and mother desires to bring forth again until Christ is formed in them. If, however, in keeping with the more frequent usage of Scripture, you call only the good and wise sons of God, then certainly the Church is made up not only of them but also of those who have washed away the image of their father’s goodness and wisdom. For the name “son” is sometimes extended to these too. “Is he not your father?” Yet “the generation was perverse and unfaithful sons.” Again: “I have raised and brought up sons, but they have spurned me.” Again: “…Turn back, you sons who have turned away, and I will heal your apostasies.” Again: “As a lily among thorns, so is my beloved among the daughters.” All the faithful of Christ recognize that this was said of the holy men of the Church. Why does he call them thorns, unless, as Augustine says, because of their wickedness of conduct? … And why does he call them daughters, unless because they share the sacraments? Therefore a good daughter is among wicked ones, in the same paternal house. But Christ’s sheepfold is made up only of Christ’s sheep. So what? As if the shepherd had no other animals. He has goats and kids too. The shepherd, then, has not only a sheepfold but also a goat pen and a pen for kids. The kids and lambs are distinguished in God’s knowledge and understanding but confused in human knowledge and judgment. As long as we live here, although they are different flocks, they are in one gathering, and so mingled that they cannot be separated until the one who will separate them from one another comes: “As a shepherd separates sheep from goats, he will place the sheep at his right hand and the goats at his left.” But to answer this argument more precisely and distinctly, as the schools do, I think we must consider that just as the word “sheep” is used not only in that passage but almost everywhere in Sacred Scripture for the good and just, so “sheepfold” designates the Church among the good and just. The same is true, as we said above, of certain other words, such as “beloved,” “dove,” “spotless,” “garden enclosed,” “sealed fountain,” and “paradise with the fruits of trees”; these words are attributed to the Church on account of the just or even the elect. Therefore, if there are only sheep in the sheepfold, it does not follow that there are no goats in the Church, goats whom the bride was ordered to feed until the highest Shepherd separates them from the lambs. The word “sheep” sometimes even signifies the wicked in the Church, much less only the good. Hence these passages: “I have strayed like a lost sheep”; “All we like sheep have gone astray”; “They are placed like sheep in hell”; and “Your anger has been kindled against the sheep of your pasture.” In the Gospels we read of a lost sheep and of the sheep of the house of Israel who were lost. And when the Lord entrusted the sheep to Peter, if we think this word is used only for the good, we must fear that the wicked will think themselves exempt from Peter’s care. Indeed, all who have the sacrament of faith are understood to have been entrusted to Peter; what will be required of him is not only whether he fed the flock of good people, but also whether he strengthened what was weak, healed what was sick, bound up what was broken, brought back what was cast away, and sought what was lost. In this sense Christ’s sheepfold is no narrower than the Church; like the Church, it contains sick sheep as well as healthy ones. But in cap. 10 Ioannis the Lord used the word “sheep” in that other sense. Finally, what is objected in this seventh main argument is easy to refute. For if the false prophets went out from among the disciples, they were first inside, in the household; otherwise they could not have gone out. “But,” he says, “they were not of us.” This is explained in two ways. First, John means that those people were false and counterfeit disciples of Christ, who, like friends and table companions for a time, departed on the day of need. Among us

they shared the same table with us, he says, and had all the other sacraments in common, but their virtue was pretense, boasting, and show. Therefore, since they were not truly and sincerely ours, they were not of us. For if they had been like us, Christians in heart, they would certainly have remained with us. Second, perhaps he is speaking of men who claimed to be apostles when he says, “They went out from us, but they were not of us.” For some, from the very beginning of the Church’s birth, claimed the name of apostles, though they were not true apostles of Christ but false apostles. What he says, then, is this: “They went out from us,” that is, from our school and fellowship; “but they were not of us,” that is, they were not truly apostles; for if they had been, they would certainly have remained with us. For the true apostles whom Christ chose for the ministry of the Gospel did not say one thing at one time and another at another, but always said the same things; their principle of truth and life was constant and lasting. For this belonged to the authority of the Gospel: that its first ministers, to whom it was entrusted, should preserve the fragrance and flavor of Christ always and in every place. By contrast, crafty laborers, although at times they transformed themselves into apostles of Christ, were eventually exposed to all by their folly, and their end followed their works. Even if John were speaking of the predestined, as Jerome and Augustine thought, heretics would still prove nothing. For what follows from “they were not of us,” that is, “they were not among the elect,” except that they were not in the house of God, which is the Church? As though in God’s house, together with vessels chosen for honor, there were not also vessels not chosen, for dishonor! But we have said much about the seventh argument. Now let us dissolve the eighth. There is no need to answer the testimonies from Canticis after what has been said. As for the objection from the Apostle, St. Augustine interprets it in libro 2. retractation. to mean that the Apostle describes not the Church as it already exists but as it is being prepared to exist, when it will also appear glorious. And in libro De perfectione iustitiae he says: “Since the Apostle said not only that he might present the Church to himself without spot or wrinkle but added ‘glorious,’ he made it clear enough that it will be without spot or anything of that kind when it is glorious. It must not be said to be glorious now, amid so many evils, so many scandals, such a great mingling of the worst people, and so many insults from the impious. For if the Lord himself was not glorified except by the glory of the resurrection, how can his Church be called glorious before his resurrection? He therefore cleanses it by the bath of water, washing away its past sins; then, perfecting its healing, he makes it come to that glorious state, without spot or wrinkle.” So far Augustine. St. Thomas shared this view, as did Jerome and Bernard. Augustine interpreted Isaiah’s testimony in precisely this sense in libro Contra Donatist. post collat. cap. 8. Yet another, more fitting understanding of that passage is that the uncircumcised and barbarous people will not oppress the Church of God as one tramples with the foot. In cap. 9 he teaches that the periods of the Church must be distinguished, and that scriptural passages announcing in different ways both the Church’s purity and the mingling of the wicked must be reconciled according to those differences. I remember, however, that I once explained Paul’s words this way: they all refer to the present efficacy of baptism. For what he says, “that he might present it to himself without spot,” is clear and straightforward, since it is beyond dispute that baptism

removes every spot. What he adds, “without wrinkle,” certainly refers to the newness of baptism, which has taken away and consumed the old man. For our youth is renewed like the eagle’s through the bath of regeneration and the renewal of the Holy Spirit, whom he poured out abundantly upon us. But how is the Church glorious through baptism? It is presented as a glorious bride to her bridegroom when a virgin, illustrious in birth and virtue, beautiful and clean, is presented to him in a precious robe adorned with gold and jewels. Yet neither is that queen described as glorious, who stood at the king’s right hand clothed in a golden garment and surrounded by variety; nor Esther, shining in royal dress and surrounded by her glory; nor Solomon in all his glory—yet the Church, newly initiated by baptism’s sacrament, is more glorious to Christ. For those words apply no less to the Church than to the synagogue: “I washed you with water and cleansed the blood from you, and anointed you with oil”; “I clothed you in embroidered garments, put sandals of hyacinth on you, girded you with fine linen, and clothed you in delicate fabrics”; “I adorned you with ornaments, put bracelets on your hands and a necklace around your neck”; “I put an earring above your mouth, rings in your ears, and a crown of beauty on your head”; “You were adorned with gold and silver.” It would indeed be easy to explain each of these in terms of baptism’s efficacy, but this is not the time. We are therefore not forced to refer to the future effects that baptism bestows on the Church in the present. For the Apostle gathered all these things into two: that the Church be holy and spotless. “That he might present,” he says, “to himself a glorious Church, without spot or wrinkle or anything of that kind, but that it be holy and spotless.” We believe it is so even now—not in every part, for that is not necessary, as we said before, but in many members, whose holiness and purity make the Church itself truly be called holy and spotless. There is certainly no question that the Church is holy and spotless in little children and adults newly cleansed by baptism. But, as Augustine taught, one may also rightly call spotless someone who is free of damnable crimes and does not neglect to cleanse even his venial sins by almsgiving. Scripture calls such people spotless: “I shall be spotless with him.” How? “I will keep myself from my iniquity.” Again: “Blessed are the spotless in the way, who walk in the law of the Lord”; for those who commit iniquity have not walked in his ways. Therefore, the Church is spotless in those who are cleansed of iniquity and crime, and there are many such people, even though all contract some impurity—that is, venial fault—from their frail and changeable nature. According to this interpretation, which seems to me more consistent with both Paul’s words and his meaning, it is clear that the Church exists even now: in some of its members wholly spotless, that is, without any spot at all; in others so pure that they may have some spot, though a slight one. In some she is a dove; in some she is perfect. We call those perfect, in the common phrase, who are content with mortal life and attain the best way and manner of living on earth that human beings can, though they sometimes fail in the smallest matters. Yet “everyone who sins has not known God,” and “everyone who is born of God does not commit sin.” St. Bernard, in the sermon on Septuagesima beginning “Magna mihi consolatio,” takes this passage to refer to the sons of God according to predestination, whom he interprets as not sinning, that is, not remaining in sin. St. Augustine, however, in homilia quarta on this epistle of John, in libro secundo De baptism. parvulorum, cap. 8, and in libro secundo contra Parmenianum, cap. 7, and at much greater length in libr. De perfect. iustit., explains that the sons of God do not sin by virtue of being sons of God, while those who sin do not know God in the way by which they sin. Sin

does not proceed from faith and knowledge but from ignorance. By contrast, faith and charity, by which we are sons of God, do not act wrongly but reject every sin. St. Thomas follows this opinion with his school, 2. 2. quaest. 24. art. 11 ad 1. Other African bishops followed it with Augustine, as is clear from epistola quinque episcoporum ad Innocentium. Just as Paul could say, “If I do what I do not wish, it is no longer I who do it, but sin that dwells in me,” so a just person who sometimes fails slightly in something that conflicts with the law of nature can truly say the same: “It is no longer I who do it, but sin that dwells in me.” Since some passages of this epistle and very distinguished men agree with this interpretation, I would not dare reject it. But to say honestly what I think, I prefer Jerome’s view: he does not think John is speaking about sin in general, but only about mortal sin. This is readily seen in almost the whole context of the epistle. The Apostle’s purpose there is to show that light has no communion with darkness, Christ with Belial, and that justice and iniquity, crimes and charity, Christ and Antichrist cannot be mingled, any more than night and day. For there were certain heretics, many of whom are now Lutherans, who thought it enough if they had faith once they had received baptism, even without works. John began to drive out this error immediately, in the first chapter, with these words: “God is light, and there is no darkness in him. If we say that we have fellowship with him and walk in darkness, we lie.” Again, in capite secundo: “By this we know that we have known him, if we keep his commandments. Whoever says, ‘I know him,’ and does not keep his commandments is a liar.” Again, in the same chapter: “Whoever says that he remains in him ought to walk just as he walked … Whoever says that he is in the light and hates his brother is in darkness.” Again: “… if anyone loves the world, the charity of the Father is not in him …” Again, in capite tertio: “Everyone who commits sin commits iniquity”—that is, lest anyone think he will speak of every sin, even a slight one, for iniquity is a grave sin. Then he adds: “Everyone who remains in him does not sin, and everyone who sins has neither seen him nor known him.” For there is a kind of knowledge and science of God that is familiar and proper to those who have the spirit of understanding, knowledge, and counsel; all the wicked lack this spirit. Thus they neither see nor know God, although they boast that they have visions and revelations from God. Again: “Little children, let no one deceive you. Whoever practices justice is just, as he is just. Whoever commits sin”—that is, mortal sin—“is of the devil … Everyone who is born of God does not commit sin,” namely, as long as he is a son of God, because his seed, that is, charity, remains in him. And just as a good tree, unless it is corrupted, cannot bear bad fruit, so a son of God cannot commit a crime or wicked deed unless he ceases to be a son of God. “By this the sons of God and the sons of the devil are manifest. Whoever is just is a son of God; whoever is not just and does not love his brother is a son of the devil.” Again, at the end of the epistle: “Everyone who is born of God does not sin.” That is, he does not violate charity but keeps the commandments, because God’s begetting preserves him and the evil one does not touch him. That is, as long as he preserves that seed, God’s begetting preserves him and the evil one does not touch him. But if he willingly casts away the seed from which he was born, then, having become a son of the devil, the evil one will not only touch him but use him as his own. Augustine too embraces Jerome’s meaning in homilia quinta on this epistle.

Would that the Apostle’s teaching were not necessary for people of our age! But we see many who neglect care for their brothers and charity, abandon other precepts of the Gospel and nature, and spend day and night in little prayers and meditations—I will not call them contemplations—while lying that they know and love God. “By this we know that we have known him, if we keep his commandments.” For one who does not love does not know God. “This is the charity of God, that we keep his commandments.” Indeed, whoever reads both the second and especially the third epistle of the same Apostle will understand more clearly that his whole discourse refutes those who falsely claimed to be good, just, friends and sons of God without charity toward their neighbor. More gravely, they feigned with greater artifice that they were devoted to knowledge and contemplation of God. But enough has been said about this argument, perhaps more than the purpose of this work required. Therefore, to avoid saying too much about the testimony from the epistle ad Hebraeos, we will say nothing. Yet there is no need to say anything, since our work and effort are hardly needed to dissolve arguments of this kind. It is also easy to answer the first objection in the ninth argument. For it has already been shown that, for the Church to be holy, it is not necessary that all those called its parts be holy. We do not, as Jerome did, use “Church” in two ways, for both the Church that is wholly holy and entirely the body of Christ, and the Church that has wicked people mixed with the saints. Rather, we teach that the Christian people are truly called holy, even though not everyone counted among this people is holy. We have decided to disregard those most elegant quibbles by which this claim was attacked. They are mere sophistical nonsense, more worthless, as they say, than Sicilian trinkets. Besides, perhaps we believe the Church is holy because the people have been dedicated, consecrated, and sanctified to God through baptism; Scripture commonly calls such people saints. What is added immediately, however, must be examined carefully. It is one thing to be a part of the Church, another to be a member of the Church. The word “part” extends more broadly; the word “member” is narrower. “Part” refers to a whole, “member” to the body of a living thing. Thus a part may be found without life, as in stone, wood, and other such things. But a member cannot truly or properly be understood without life. Therefore, the wicked are parts of the Church but are not members of the Church or of Christ. They are members of the devil. Yet they are considered to be in the Church and are counted and enrolled as citizens of this commonwealth, citizens who are nevertheless wicked and criminal. How good and wicked people form the same people, while there is still no fellowship between light and darkness or agreement between Christ and Belial, St. Augustine explains admirably in contra Donat. post. collat. cap. 6. From this one point, the other confirmations of this argument are overturned to the last detail, as they say. Whether one says “body,” “bread,” “grain,” “wheat,” or any similar term, these names properly apply in themselves to the good, but through the good they also apply to the people whose chief parts are the good. It is clearer than needs judging that all Augustine’s words convey this sense. For he denies that the wicked are in the body of Christ, and that condemned members can have Christ. He denies that they are counted among the members of the dove. He denies that they belong to the Church that has no spot or wrinkle. He denies that they belong to the structure of God’s house or even dwell in it, where only those of one mind dwell. For, as has often been said, all these things are attributed in themselves only to the good, and through them they are attributed to the Church. In the same way, on account of a distinguished and preeminent part, certain things are said of the whole

that do not apply equally to every part. Augustine perhaps followed Jerome’s division, dividing the Church in two: the Church that is good in every respect and is the body of Christ, and the Church made up of good and wicked people. How can they object Augustine to us, when in libr. retract. 2 cap. 18, in Psalm. 24 act. 25, in libr. contr. Petil. 3 cap. 12, in De unitate ecclesiae cap. 13, and in contra Donat. post collat. a. 4 through cap. 11, he holds our view most clearly and consistently? There is no doubt that Cyprian and Jerome agreed with us: Cyprian in epistola ad Maximum, Jerome in comment. epist. ad Galat. and in dialogo adversum Luciferianos. So much for the ninth argument. I think the points made in the seventh argument adequately answer the tenth as well. For the eleventh argument, take this answer: it is not contrary to the usage of Sacred Scripture if we call the same people happy and blessed on account of the just, and miserable and wretched on account of the wicked. Moses calls Israel at one time an elect people, a blessed people, a holy nation, and a people especially belonging to God; at another, a stiff-necked people, foolish and senseless. Isaias sometimes calls it the people of Gomorrah, sometimes the people of God. Indeed, if Scripture’s usage is as we showed with many examples in refuting the second argument—rebuking the people as if all were wicked, and consoling them as if all were good—it also follows that the same people is called wicked in rebuke and blame, and holy in consolation and praise. Nor did Augustine hesitate to interpret the Church as black in the wicked and beautiful in the good, in 3. lib. de doctrin. christ. cap. 32. Origenes called the Church a den of robbers because some sell doves in it, trat. in Matth. 15. But if this defense were not enough, we have another: in such matters the good has a certain greater force than the evil. The few good people count more toward making the people good than the many wicked toward making it be called wicked. Moreover, we call the Church holy because it is specially consecrated to God; for this reason, even if many wicked people are in it, it neither ought nor can be called the synagogue of Satan. Hence, in concilio Constantiensi the shameless slander of the man who called the Roman Church the synagogue of Satan was condemned. Enough, then, about the eleventh argument. The twelfth is weak and frivolous, although Calvin does not hesitate to rejoice in what he ought to have blushed over. At times he reasons acutely and more often elegantly, but sometimes so ineptly, tastelessly, and coldly that you can hardly believe he had any reason or even common sense at all, much less learning or acuity. Such is the power of heretical error and blind obstinacy: it can strip away all learning, extinguish the light of understanding, and blunt the entire edge of the intellect. But to the point. It is true that the Greeks are schismatics, and therefore the Church is not among them. For we believe in one Catholic Church. Therefore anyone who separates himself from its unity is not in the one Catholic Church and so is not in the Church at all. The Greeks are not only schismatics but heretics too, for this reason especially among others: they deny that Christ established one shepherd for the whole Church in blessed Peter. But this is out of place here; it will be discussed elsewhere at the proper time. If there are some

who so defect from Christ, the true head of the Church, as to reject faith in him, I admit that they—and all the more so—lose the privilege of the Church’s name. When the Supreme Pontiff dies, however, the one Church undoubtedly remains, and the Spirit of truth remains in it; but without Christ’s vicar and the one shepherd of the Catholic Church, it is left maimed and diminished. Therefore, although truth is then in the Church too, if controversies of faith and religion arise, the Church’s judgments without a head on earth will not be so certain. This is not the place to pursue the matter. The Apostle, however, when he deliberately wished to define the Church’s unity in that passage, completely forgot the thing on which we say the Church’s unity depends. I cannot marvel enough at the futility of these people, who, having failed to preserve the unity of the Spirit in the bond of peace and having separated themselves from the body of the Church, bring against us the passage of Paul that is most adverse to them. For if Christ has one body and not two, how can we admit two Churches? And if there is one faith, how can someone who differs in faith and religion be in one Church? Does the one who despises Christ’s vicar acknowledge one Son? Certainly, whoever invents the worship of God by his own judgment neither worships one Spirit nor acknowledges one Father and therefore is not in one Church, which cannot worship or have the one God without right and Catholic faith. But let us briefly refute these points, which come to mind though they lie outside the case and beyond our purpose. Let us pursue the rest. They say that there are some good men among the Greeks. Certainly, if there are any, they are only those who agree with the Catholic faith, are free of schism, and hold one head for one body and one shepherd for one sheepfold—not only in heaven but also on earth. For this seemed right to Christ, our head and shepherd: to leave one in the Church in his place, and as soon as a faithful person rejects him, he abandons the unity of the body and the sheepfold. So in Israel under Hieroboam there were some devout men, but only those who, when the kingdom was divided, contemplated no division of faith, religion, or priesthood. But this is for another time. Now I think it should be pointed out that in that passage the Apostle describes the perfect unity and communion of the Church, such as is found among good and holy men. For we must remember that “body” properly names the Church of the just. A body is first defined by one spirit, which not only gives it life like a soul but, like a spirit, directs, moves, and urges each of its members toward its own end. Second, one body also requires one hope of calling, where “hope” is used for the thing and glory hoped for, as in the passage, “Hope that is seen is not hope.” Like other commonwealths, this commonwealth therefore has one end to which all its citizens are called and destined, toward which all the members of this body are directed. Third, one commonwealth requires one Lord, one king, and one head; for if it had two heads, it would be monstrous. It also requires one faith. For unless the citizens of this commonwealth are faithful, they will not form the people of God. The people of God are understood to be dedicated to divine worship and religion. Unless there is one common faith shared by all, there will not even be one religion, and so there will not be one Church of God. What is more, if we believe different things, we cannot have one and the same goal and end, since faith is like the eye of this body. Therefore one faith is necessary. Finally, in addition to these things, one baptism is necessary, in which is contained the communion of the other sacraments. For the Christian people consist not only in the inward communion of faith and the bond of charity, but also in the outward profession of faith and the fellowship of the sacraments. Hence, unless they share the same baptism and the same sacraments

and are externally joined as members, they cannot come together into one Body of Christ, which is the Church. The Apostle mentioned baptism alone, partly because among all the sacraments it is especially one, and partly because this sacrament is the distinctive seal of the Christian people, by which we are not merely marked but also consecrated. Circumcision served this purpose for the Synagogue. In the words Paul adds, “one God, one Father …,” he seems to me to be guarding against our thinking that there is tyranny and domination in the one Lord of this commonwealth. Having said “one Lord,” he softens and moderates the lordship with gentler words. “Let one Lord,” he says, “not frighten you; for the one Lord is one God and also one Father.” By “God,” understand the goodness, gentleness, and providence of the divine power. “Blessed is the people whose Lord is its God.” Yet much more blessed is the one whose Lord is its Father; for the Father signifies a singular love and exceptional care, so that you understand not so much a kingdom as one family of a father and his children. But somehow, while my discourse lingered and clung to Paul’s words, it wandered farther from the purpose, and I almost forgot my task. I was saying that the Apostle defines the perfect unity of the Church’s body through all its causes. But the Church’s unity extends more broadly and is found also among those who do not preserve the unity of the Spirit in the bond of peace, who are not joined to one another by love, and who do not connect themselves to their head by clinging to one another. Indeed, certain parts of this whole are present without faith, as are hidden heretics for as long as they have not been excluded from the Church. For them it is enough to have one baptism and the same fellowship and communion of the sacraments for them to be said to be in that Church. Theologians of the highest authority affirm that it is not only uncertain but not even probable that the Supreme Pontiff, bishops, and other ministers of the Church are deprived of power and jurisdiction through hidden and inward heresy. Nor can one even imagine that the rulers, magistrates, and administrators of a commonwealth are not parts of that commonwealth. From this it is clear that unity is not equal in all the parts of the Church but in some is very imperfect. If this is not understood, it can be grasped from a natural body. In such a body the spirit and soul exist in a way that gives some parts the power of sensation, others the power of growth, and still others, it seems, no animal or vital faculty at all, as if those parts had neither soul nor spirit within them. We also see that when a member lacking sensation and life withers in the body, because it remains connected with all the other parts, it participates in a certain outward motion from the spirit, though the spirit communicates nothing inward or vital to it. The Spirit of Christ holds and maintains precisely this way in the body of the Church. He animates some parts and makes them so alive that they seem to lack none of the vital motions; he so flows into others that he does not give them life, to be sure, but imparts a certain inward breath, as it were, of life; to others he grants his outward power and capacity, so that although they are wholly dead and dry members, because they have not been cut off from the body, they are moved by the Spirit along with the body. This wondrous continuity and arrangement of affected parts, although limited and modest, has such force in the Church that, because of the place they hold in the body, some parts are called heads of the ecclesiastical body. “Woe to you,” he says, “who are wealthy in Sion … the leaders, the heads of the peoples.”

That is, members are sometimes transferred metaphorically not on account of the life they claim by their own nature, but on account of the position they have acquired in the body. Thus the one who holds the first place in the Church’s governance is called the head of the Church, even though he is not properly and truly a member of the Church’s body. But we seem to have said enough here about the matters concerning the Church’s unity. Let us now speak of the Church’s universality, which is the question in the thirteenth argument. Καθόλον in Greek, if you render word for word, means “according to the whole,” for olon means “whole.” Hence, as Augustine says, it received the name “Catholic” because it has spread throughout the whole world, in accordance with the prophecies. Since all nations are also understood to be in the whole world, the Church is therefore called Catholic, that is, universal, because it extends widely and far among every people, nation, sex, and condition. The notable oracle about both these things is: “Ask of me, and I will give you the nations as your inheritance and the ends of the earth as your possession.” By this distinction it is set apart not only from the Synagogue but also from the conventicles and gatherings of heretics. Some also say that the Church is called Catholic on account of the common faith and universal doctrine. The Church’s faith and doctrine are common and universal in many ways: first, with respect to people, according to the saying, “Preach the Gospel to every creature”; then with respect to place, as it is written, “They preached everywhere,” and “their sound has gone out into all the earth”; and also with respect to time, since the apostles did not say one thing at one time and another later, but always said the same thing. “God is faithful,” he says, “for our word to you was not ‘yes’ and ‘no,’ but in it was ‘yes.’” Again: “The wicked have told me fables, but not like your law; all your commandments are truth.” And later: “Forever, O Lord, your word remains; your truth is from generation to generation.” Therefore what is certainly and constantly believed and taught by everyone in every place and at every time is truly called a Catholic dogma. And a Church that has dogmas and a discipline of this kind is truly a Catholic Church. For the assemblies of heretics have private, foreign, inconsistent, and secret doctrines. Vincent of Lérins rightly and wisely says in De prophan. nova.: “In the Catholic Church itself, to which not one nation or one corner but a multitude of peoples is converted, let us hold what has been believed everywhere, always, and by all. For this is truly and properly Catholic, as the force and reason of the name itself declares, since it truly and universally embraces all these things. Since this is so, he is a true and genuine Catholic who decides that he alone ought to hold and believe whatever he has learned the Catholic Church has held universally from ancient times. Whatever one person introduces later, as new and unheard-of, apart from everyone or against everyone, he should understand as pertaining not to religion but rather to temptation.” So far Lérins. I know that other reasons are usually given for why the Church is Catholic, but these seemed to me the strongest for defending this name. Once these points are established, that argument is easily dissolved. First, the Church has not been so contracted and narrowed that it is no longer spread throughout the world. Indeed, in our own time a new world has appeared, very large and extensive, to which the sound of Christ’s disciples has gone out, lest anyone say that the Spaniards, Gauls, Italians, Germans, and the other nations where the name of Christ lives or has not been entirely erased occupy only a small part of the world. Second, it is enough for the Church to have spread throughout the whole world once for it still truly to be called Catholic. It is the same Church and holds the same faith that the Apostles made known throughout the whole earth. Indeed, the universality of the present faith must be referred to the universality

that existed earlier in the Church and, finally, to that universality which the apostles brought forth throughout the whole world, as was shown in libro secundo. It follows that even if the Christian faith were reduced to the narrow bounds of a single province, it would still be Catholic, and the province that held that faith would also be a Catholic Church. For individual Churches included under the universal Church are also called Catholic because they have the faith that the universal Church holds and has always held. These and the remaining points are clear, so they must be considered briefly. In the fourteenth argument, then, it is objected that it is useless to expect the judgment of all the faithful. I will answer this argument as briefly as possible. As said elsewhere, there are two kinds of things believed by the Church. One kind concerns everyone equally, such as that God became man and that our soul is immortal. In this kind it is not very difficult to learn the faith and judgment of everyone. I do not mean that each person should be asked separately, which would be very troublesome and exceedingly ridiculous; rather, each person’s faith in such matters at once makes itself known and, with only moderate diligence, can be learned and understood by us, especially if the matter becomes contentious and the people grow heated in their usual way. The other kind consists of matters whose knowledge concerns not the unlearned and inexperienced in the Church but the elders and wise. For example, that the Epistle ad Hebraeos is canonical, and many other similar matters. If you ask the common people’s opinion in this kind, it would be like asking a blind person about colors. Therefore, cautiously and wisely, when matters of this kind perhaps come up in popular discussion, those who are somewhat more modest among the common people make no affirmative or confident pronouncement at all, but profess that in these matters they believe and think what the Church believes and thinks. By this name they certainly mean the wise and elders of the Church. Further, whether the question concerns this kind or the other, the people neither ought nor can pronounce judgment as if from a tribunal. For, as we take for certain and established here, the power to bind, loose, and judge does not belong to each of the faithful but to the rulers and pastors of the Church. We will discuss this elsewhere. Now we say that in a general controversy the common judgment of the faithful provides a certain argument, although there is no need to examine the opinion of everyone individually. But in faith concerning matters proper to teachers and the wise, only their judgment must be expected; the common people’s judgment need not even be expected. For the former make the Catholic dogma certain; the latter make nothing certain. Yet in decrees and laws concerning either kind, neither the people nor all the wise have a place, but only those who are pastors of the Church, as we will explain in the following books. Let the arguments by which the truth and authority of the pastors were attacked be deferred to the next book, where we will refute these and many others of the same kind far more appropriately. Finally, Calvin proposes two marks by which to recognize the Church: the order in the word and sacraments entrusted by Christ, to which every assembly claiming the name Church must be held up as if against a Lydian stone. This would be sound, were it not that he himself wants to hold that Lydian stone in his hand and denies it to everyone else. We assert that the Lutherans retain neither the sincere doctrine of the Gospel nor the lawful administration of the sacraments. They, in turn, lay both charges against us. Who will be the judge? They deny that the Church exists among us; they claim its existence among themselves, as we say;

But they lie. Who, then, are those for whom this Lydian stone is certain, sound, and genuine for discerning the true Church? Arius, Nestorius, Macarius, Donatus, Pelagius, and all the other heretics, even when waging war on the Church, will put forward the same two marks of the Church with precisely the same arrogance. Therefore, in every controversy of faith with heretics, the Church’s identity will be at risk. For they will immediately object either that we are in error about the faith or that we do not administer Christ’s sacraments as Christ instituted and prescribed them. Believe me, the Church is more evident than that, so that whenever questions are raised, not only its authority but its very existence and name are called into doubt. But in this passage Calvin was so foolish that his very foolishness is all there is to laugh at. He now says that the Church exists among us, and now denies it. Now he says the Church has never died out; now, on the contrary, he asserts that the pure preaching of the word vanished some centuries ago. At one moment he affirms that the name Church was not abolished under the Roman Pontiff, whom he calls Antichrist, but that Churches remain even under his tyranny; then he asserts that all present assemblies of Catholics are polluted by idolatry and impious doctrine, and therefore lack the power of the keys. If this is so, who are the Churches of Christ? If they are Churches of Christ, they will be members of the Catholic Church. But if they are members of the true and Catholic Church, they cannot approve the crime of idolatry or teach errors contrary to the Gospel. Likewise, although it would seem foolish even to me to demand this of him, I would make him answer whether he thinks that there are some good men among the Catholics. If none, because, as he says, all are idolaters to a man and no one can be devout while living in impiety, then before Luther no good man at all existed among the Catholics, since all were guilty of the same crime and lived in the same error. Therefore, the Catholic Church of Christ did not exist anywhere in the world before Luther. And where are those promises about Christ’s eternal kingdom, which he could not evade by any interpretation because they are open, clear, and plain? But if some of us are truly devout, then the Church among us is not impious but devout. Since the Lutherans have separated themselves from it out of a contentious spirit, it is most certain that they have defected from the true Church of Christ. What? Is it ambiguous whether Ambrose, Jerome, Augustine, Basil, Chrysostom, and the other excellent and outstanding men whom we Catholics both venerate and acknowledge were true members of Christ’s Church? They all stand with us, and all oppose the Lutherans. This is very easy to show. But why should I be so foolish as to try to persuade anyone that, like heretics, the Lutherans wage war against Christ’s Church? As if it were difficult, by clear and necessary reasons, to demonstrate that they are in neither the Apostolic, Catholic, holy, nor one Church. Nothing would be easier, clearer, or more straightforward, if this were the place or time. The very arguments Augustine used with the Donatists to bring their minds back to the true understanding of the one, holy, Catholic, and Apostolic Church are arguments with which we can defeat the Lutherans without difficulty or effort. And if the facts themselves, which are nevertheless in our hands, abandoned us in this conflict, the very names “Catholic” and “Lutheran” most openly and plainly demonstrate that we have the true and genuine mark and character of the Church, while they do not, even though they feign, pretend, and conceal the name of the Church. Jerome says: “If anywhere you hear those who

are called Christians named after anyone else, such as Marcionites, Valentinians, Pelagians … know that it is not the Church of Christ but the synagogue of Antichrist.” Augustine and Epiphanius taught that heretics are to be distinguished from Catholics by this same mark. Since the Lutherans have taken their name from Luther, it is clear and plain that they have departed from the common faith and Catholic Church into a private and peculiar heresy. But on earth we have no teacher of the faith; Christ alone, who is in heaven, is our teacher, and from him we have inherited the name “Christians.” Therefore we are in the Church of Christ. I have said these things as briefly as they could be said. Now I will proceed in order to the remaining loci I have undertaken and return to my assigned task.

ON THE AUTHORITY OF COUNCILS