Summa summae S. Thomae, Tomus III

[Praenotandum. The word Ecclesia is Greek, ἐκκλησία, in Latin evocatio. So much for the etymology of the name. As to its meaning, however, the word Church taken most generally signifies any assembly or congregation, whether civil, as Psal. cvi, 32 : Praise him in the church of the people; or evil, as Psal. xxv, 5 : I have hated the church of the malignant; or good, as Rom., XVI, 16 : All the churches of Christ salute you. But by the common usage of Scripture and the holy Fathers, the word Church is taken in a good sense for the Church of Christ, that is, for the society which adheres to Christ as its head.

Among the Jews the word Synagogue signified what Ecclesia signifies among us, with this difference, that the Church is the congregation of the sons of God through grace, while the Synagogue is the congregation of servants through fear.

It must be observed further that, by metonymy, taking the container for the content, the word Church also signifies the place where the faithful assemble for the sake of religion, and in the same sense the place where the Jews assembled was called the Synagogue.

I answer. The Church has existed at every time. Thus Augustine affirms, book I Retract., cap. 13, num. 3 : « That thing which is now called the Christian religion existed among the ancients, nor was it absent from the beginning of the human race until Christ himself came in the flesh; whence the true religion, which already existed, began to be called Christian. » The same is taught by Epiphanius, saying in book I adv. Haeres., cap. 5 : « The beginning of all things is the holy and catholic Church. »

It is proved. As the Apostle teaches, Ephes., I, 9 and 10, God has made known to us the sacrament of his will... to re-establish all things in Christ, which are in heaven and on earth, in him. Christ therefore, the eternal Son of God, who was made to him of the seed of David according to the flesh, who was predestinated the Son of God in power according to the Spirit of sanctification, Rom., I, 3 and 4, is the true and only Savior of men who had perished by the sin of our first parent. Hence the same Apostle affirms that he has been present at all times and will be present forever, saying, Hebr., XIII, 8 : Jesus Christ, yesterday and today, himself also for ever. He was yesterday by promise; he is today in the Catholic Church which he founded and in which he will remain all days, even to the consummation of the world, Matth., XXVIII, 20 ; he will be in eternity, namely in heaven, where he will reign for ever and ever, Apoc., XI, 15, together with the redeemed, who will reign with him for ever and ever, ibid., XXII, 5.

Christ first appears in the promise by which God, when Adam had fallen and been stripped with his whole posterity of the highest divine benefits, promised him a restorer, when the Lord God said to the serpent...: I will put enmities between thee and the woman, and thy seed and her seed. He shall crush thy head, Gen., III, 14 and 15.¹ The prediction in this passage of a restorer who would avenge us upon the seducer is evident, if with the Fathers we understand by these words the devil who had deceived Eve, and had cast her with Adam and his posterity into the penalty of a double death. For the seed of the woman, that is, Christ the son of Mary, must crush the power of the demons, repair the harms inflicted on men, and lead back the human race to God.

But lest the memory of this promise should slip from the minds of men, it was breathed forth by the divine Spirit and renewed again and again by the prophets down to the coming of the Savior, whose oracles we shall weigh in the treatise on the Incarnation.

Moreover, after the fall of man there is one way of salvation for all. Therefore, just as under the New Testament the faith by which we begin to adhere to Christ the Savior is « the beginning of human salvation, the foundation and root of all justification, » as the Tridentine synod teaches, sess. VI, on Justification, cap. 8; so too always, even in the beginnings of the world, only those could be saved who believed in the promised restorer and that he would come. This appears from what is said of Abraham in the book of Genesis, xv, 6, and alleged by Paul, Rom., IV, 3 : Abram believed God, and it was reputed to him unto justice. That the promise of the redeemer was the object of this faith of Abraham and of his sons, whether according to the flesh or according to the spirit, the same Apostle testifies, saying, ibid., 13, 16 : For not by the law was the promise to Abraham, or to his seed...; but through the justice of faith. Therefore by faith, that the promise might be firm according to grace to every seed, not to that only which is of the law, but to that also which is of the faith of Abraham, who is the father of us all.

Although the promise was made to all the posterity of Adam, since the spirit of God would not remain in man forever, because he is flesh, Gen., VI, 3, even after the human race had been renewed by the flood, God therefore decreed to choose for himself a people who would be constituted by special title heir and custodian of this promise, and from whom the Messiah would arise at the appointed time. Therefore he said to Abraham, ibid., XVII, 7: I will establish my covenant between me and thee, and between thy seed after thee in their generations, by an everlasting covenant, that I may be thy God and the God of thy seed after thee. From Abraham, through Isaac and Jacob, arose this people set apart from the other nations, to whom God afterward gave his law through Moses the mediator on mount Sinai, and in whose midst he instituted true worship, whose rites he willed himself to prescribe even in the smallest details, that all things might fittingly prefigure and announce the restorer. In the Mosaic worship appear all things that pertain essentially to religion, namely priesthood, sacrifice, sacraments, and generally whatever exhibits due honor to God and confers grace upon man and procures eternal salvation. All these things, however, happened to them in figure, as the Apostle testifies, I Cor., x, 11. But the end of the law is Christ, unto justice to every one that believeth, as the same teacher says, Rom., x, 4. Christ therefore was the type prefiguring and foretelling, and was awaited as the salvation of God, Gen., XLIX, 18, in whom all nations should be blessed, according to the promise sworn three times by God to Abraham. Thus Christ pre-existed within the people of God, which already from that time was the truly Christian Church, to which the posterity of Abraham were enrolled through circumcision, just as men are now incorporated into the typical Christian Church through baptism. The body of the Church then coalesced from the seed of Abraham, that is, from the Israelitic people. Because Christ, however, is the universal redeemer, as many as believed in him could be saved through him. Thus Job the Idumean, who did not belong to the people of God by his race, breathed forth by the Holy Spirit, professed his faith and his hope born of faith in these words, Iob, XIX, 25-27 : I know that my Redeemer liveth..., and in my flesh I shall see my God: whom I myself shall see, and my eyes shall behold, and not another. This my hope is laid up in my bosom. There were many others also, among foreigners, who, living spiritually by the same faith, belonged to the soul of the primitive Church, just as there can now belong to the new Church those who, not yet enlightened by the preaching of the Gospel, not rebellious against the graces of the Redeemer, hope that they will attain eternal salvation from God through the means established by himself, and show the work of the law written in their hearts, their conscience bearing witness to them, Rom., II, 15.

Therefore before the coming of Christ there already existed through him a truly Christian Church, which from Adam to Moses consisted of essential elements alone, then amplified divinely through the ministry of Moses, remained up to Christ, who came not to dissolve it, but to fulfill it, Matth., v, 17.]