Summa de Ecclesia

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Being about to speak of the Church with the help of almighty God, we shall begin from the meaning of the name church. As the venerable Bede says, expounding that text of Prov. 5, I was well nigh in all evil in the midst of the church and the synagogue: church and synagogue are Greek names, and signify one and the same thing, namely in Latin a gathering of many together. But if they are distinguished more subtly, church is rendered convocation, synagogue congregation. But voice and convocation properly belong to the rational creature, whereas congregation can also belong to the irrational creature. Hence Gen. 1 says: Let the waters be gathered together which are under heaven. And the hen is also said to gather her chicks, Matt. 23. And since among men only the faithful are to be reckoned rational, hearing the reasonable word of faith and perceiving it in mind, that true people of the Hebrews, so long as it remained in the faith and worship of the one true God, is read to have been called by both names, namely church and synagogue, as is clear in many places of Sacred Scripture. Hence in Num. 16 it is called a synagogue, where it is said: There rose up against Moses two hundred and fifty men, leaders of the synagogue. Likewise in the same book, ch. 22, the same people is read to have been named church, where it was said to Moses: Why hast thou brought forth the church of God into the wilderness. But after the advent of our Saviour, the Jewish people — with the exception of the few who believed in Christ — having been blinded by the darkness of unbelief, the names were so divided, by way of distinction, that that part of the Hebrews which did not receive the light of God was called synagogue only, as a congregation of irrational animals and brutes; while the part of the Hebrews and of the others who believed in Christ was called church and never synagogue. Hence blessed Aug., treating on Ps. 8 that text, God stood in the synagogue of the gods, that is, of the peoples of Israel, says in confirmation of what we have said: Theirs are wont properly to be called a synagogue, although it was also called a church. But the apostles never called ours a synagogue, but always a church — whether for the sake of distinction, or because there is some difference between congregation, whence synagogue takes its name, and convocation, whence church takes its name: namely that to be congregated is also wont to belong to cattle — indeed we properly speak of flocks of them — while to be convoked belongs rather to those who use reason, as men are — thus Augustine. And these are also the words of Isidore, bk. 8 of the Etymologies, ch. 8. As the unbelief of the Jews, then, has been made known, theirs was called a synagogue, that is, a congregation as of cattle and the undiscerning; and that our faithfulness might be intimated by the very word, ours was called a church, that is, a convocation as of rational and discerning beings. Hence of the Church it is said in Ps. 34: I will confess to thee in the great church, and in a grave people I will praise thee. For the people of the Church, says Albert the Great, is said to be grave by the maturity of virtue, and those alone are such who cultivate reason and understand and hear the reasonable voices of God and the call of Christ. We have now from what has been said the meaning of the name church, from which is straightway gathered the knowledge of what the Church is in reality. For it is the collection of Catholics or of the faithful, as is found in On Consecration, dist. 1, in ch. Ecclesia; or the Church is the whole body of the faithful who come together in the worship of the one true God and the profession of one faith. Hence the Gloss on 1 Tim. 3, on that text, Which is the church of the living God, says: The Church is the convocation of many to the worship of the one God. Of this Church the Apostle speaks to the Ephesians, in ch. 5, thus: Christ loved the Church and delivered himself up for her, that he might sanctify her, cleansing her in the laver of water in the word of life, that he might present her to himself a glorious Church, etc. And below: For this cause shall a man leave his father and mother and shall cleave to his wife, and they shall be two in one flesh. This is a great sacrament, but I speak in Christ and in the Church. In these words the most blessed Paul seems to touch four causes of the Church itself, namely the efficient, the material, the formal and the final, from which a perfect knowledge of the nature of the Church itself can be gathered. For Aristotle says in bk. 1 of the Posterior Analytics: For then we judge that we know each thing perfectly, when we know all its causes. The efficient cause of the Church is distinguished as twofold: one principal, the other instrumental. The principal is Christ himself, who is the planter and founder of the Church. Hence Jer. 2 says: I planted thee a chosen vineyard, all true seed. And Matt. 16 says to Peter: Upon this rock I will build my Church. And this efficient cause of the Church the Apostle touches on in Eph. 5, saying: Christ is the head of the Church and the saviour of his body, where the Gloss says: Christ is the ruler and maker of the Church. The instrumental cause of the Church, however, is said to be the sacraments themselves, which, having power from the passion of Christ, as instruments of divine piety dispose and work toward the building up and formation of the body of the Church. For Aug. says on the Psalms: When Christ slept on the cross, he bore a sign — indeed he fulfilled what had been signified in Adam: for when Adam slept, a rib was taken from him and Eve was made; so too, when the Lord slept on the cross, his side was struck with a lance, and the sacraments flowed forth, whence the Church was made. Likewise the Gloss of Aug. on Eph. 4: Adam slept that Eve might be made; Christ dies that the Church might be made; while Adam sleeps, Eve is made from his side; when Christ is dead, his side is pierced with a lance, that the sacraments may flow forth by which the Church is formed. Baptism², however, above the other sacraments is said to cooperate toward this formation of the body of the Church — Baptism which is the basis of the others and the door by which one who is to be incorporated into Christ enters the Church. Hence the Gloss on that text of Gen. 6, And the door of the ark thou shalt set in the side below, says: No one enters the Church except through the sacrament of the remission of sins, which flowed from the opened side of Christ. This instrumental efficient cause of the formation of the body of the Church the Apostle touches on in the words cited above, where he says: Cleansing her in the laver of water — namely, to sanctify her, as the Gloss says — in the word of life, that is, in which life is given; with the accession of which to the element the sacrament comes to be, by which man, sanctified, receives eternal life, says the Gloss. The material cause, however, is the faithful themselves, which the Apostle touches on in the name church, saying: He loved the Church — but the Church, as has been said, is the collection of the faithful. The final cause of the Church, however, is twofold: one in the present life, namely her sanctification, and this the Apostle touches on when he says: That he might sanctify her — the Gloss: just, of good life. The second is the ultimate end awaited in the other life, to which the Church is to be led, when she shall be brought into the chamber of the Bridegroom, which is the attainment of supernal beatitude. And this cause the Apostle touches on in the words above, where he says: That he might present her to himself glorious — the Gloss: radiant in soul and in body, adorned with a doubled stole. The formal cause, however, is the unity of the mystical body with Christ. And this the Apostle touches on when he says: They shall be two in one flesh; this is a great sacrament in Christ and in the Church, for, as the Gloss says: The conjugal union is a sign of the spiritual unity of Christ and the Church. And thus it is clear how fully the most blessed Apostle describes in the aforesaid authority the fourfold cause of the Church. And let this much have been said by us, as to the meaning of the name and the reality of the Church itself — from which the folly of the heretics is openly confuted, who call their own conventicles churches, when they should rather be called a synagogue of Satan, according to that text of Ecclus. 21: Tow gathered together is the synagogue of sinners.

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Since we read the name Church taken in various and diverse ways both in sacred Scripture and among the sacred canons, that it may become clearer in what signification we shall speak of the Church, it seemed to us opportune at this beginning to set forth the variety of its acceptation. On this point it is to be known that the name Church is sometimes taken for the material house dedicated to divine praises and prayer, by that manner of speaking in which the container is wont to take the name of the contained, just as a vessel of silver or gold or another metal, in which the blood of Christ is contained, is named the chalice of the blood of Christ; and houses in which scholars gather to hear teaching and doctors to teach are named schools. So in like manner the place where the congregation and convocation of the faithful is made for completing certain divine works is commonly and reasonably called a church, which is shown to befit for three reasons. First, because in such a house the convocation of the faithful is made to hear the teaching of faith. Hence for this cause a place was established for most blessed Peter, the chair in Antioch. Hence of him is sung Ps. 16: Let them exalt him in the church of the people, and praise him in the chair of the elders. And of Christ it is said in Luke 18: And he was daily teaching in the temple. Second, that place is reasonably called a church because in it is made the congregation and assembly of the faithful to pray and bless God and to obtain the help of divinity. Hence in Judith 6: All the people being called together, throughout the whole night they prayed within the church, seeking help from God. And in 1 Cor. 11 the Apostle says: Do you despise the church of God, the Gloss: namely the house of prayer. Third, that material place is deservedly called a church because in it the faithful gather to offer sacrifices to God and to receive the divine sacraments by which the Church herself is formed and adorned. Hence in Deut. 12 the Lord speaks thus: To the place which the Lord your God shall choose from all your tribes, to put his name there and dwell in it, you shall come, and you shall offer in that place your holocausts and your victims, tithes and firstfruits of your hands, and vows and gifts. And the same in ch. 16. Second, the name Church is found taken for the totality of all the faithful, both wayfarers and comprehensors, namely men and angels. Of this the Apostle in Eph. 1, speaking of Christ, says: He gave him head over all the Church, the Gloss: which is in heaven and which is on earth. Third, it is taken for the totality of faithful men only, as in Eph. 5, where the Apostle speaks thus: Christ is the head of the Church, he the savior of his body. And below: Christ loved the Church and gave himself up for her. And it is plain that Christ did not die for angels but for men, for whom he was born unto salvation.

This the angel clearly implies who, speaking to the shepherds, says: Behold, I bring you good tidings of great joy which shall be to all the people, for there is born to you today a Savior, who is Christ the Lord, in the city of David.²

Fourth, the Church is read to be taken for the totality of all faithful wayfarers, as in the Psalm:³ With you is my praise in the great Church, the Gloss: in the whole world, not only in Africa, as the Donatists say. And Aug. on the same: What is the great Church, brethren? Is a tiny part of the world the great Church? Or is the whole world the great Church? Fifth, Church is taken for the totality of one province or one household, as in Rom., last chapter: Gaius my host salutes you, and the whole Church, the Gloss: of the province where Gaius was. Likewise in 2 Cor. 1: Paul to the church of God which is at Corinth, that is, to all the brethren of the Corinthian church. In this way we distinguish the Roman Church, the Toledan Church, the Gallican and German Churches. Sixth, Church is taken for the totality of the faithful having faith formed by charity, as in Wis. 3: The sons of wisdom are the church of the just, and their nation is obedience and love. Seventh, some understand by Church only the totality of the predestined or elect, adducing for themselves 1 Tim. 2: The Lord knows who are his, where the Gloss says: Those whom he foreknew would be made conformable to the image of his Son, namely he predestined, called, justified and glorified. It follows: the number of such is a garden enclosed, a fountain sealed, a well of living water, a paradise with the fruits of apples. Eighth, Church is taken for only those presiding in the Church, as in Matt. 18, where it is said: If your brother sins against you, etc., tell the Church, the Gloss of Chrysostom: that is, those who preside. In this way it is taken in ch. si peccaverit, 1, q. 1, where the Gloss on tell the Church expounds: namely the priest. Ninth, Church is taken for only the subjects of some prelate, as in Acts 12, where it is found: But prayer was made by the Church without ceasing to God for him, namely Peter, who was the prelate of the Church. Likewise in Acts 20 Paul says to the elders of the Church of Ephesus: Take heed to yourselves and to the whole flock, wherein the Holy Spirit has set you to rule his Church. Tenth, Church is taken for the greater and more powerful in the Church, whether ecclesiastics or laymen, as taken in 3 Kings 10, where it is said: The king turned his face and blessed all the church of Israel, where Church is not taken for all Israel, since the whole people was not present there, but, as is gathered from the beginning of the chapter, for the elders by birth and the princes of the tribes who were then gathered there. In like manner it is taken in 1 Paral. 29, where it is said: King David spoke to all the Church; yet there only the chiefs of the tribes had assembled. Likewise in this way Church is taken in Eph. 3, where it is said: That the manifold wisdom may be made known to the principalities and powers in heavenly places through the Church, the Gloss: namely through the apostles preaching in the Church. Eleventh, Church is taken for persons of lesser or lower rank in the Church, as in Acts 15: They were brought on their way by the Church and the apostles and the elders. And again in the same: It pleased the apostles and elders with the whole Church to choose men from among them, where the interlinear Gloss says: besides the apostles and elders. Twelfth, Church is taken for ecclesiastical men alone, or for clerics alone, as in 63, dist., ch. 1, where it is said: If anyone of secular princes or potentates or a layman of any other dignity presumes to act against the common, harmonious and canonical election of ecclesiastical rule, let him be anathema until he obeys and consents to whatever the Church shows she wishes concerning the ordination and election of her own prelate. Thirteenth, Church is taken more strictly, not for all clerics but for the greater part of the clerics, as proved in ch. apostolica, 56, dist., where it is said that he who was elected by the Church, if found worthier than the other and canonically elected, is to be consecrated, where the Gloss says: Here Church is taken for the greater part of the electors. Fourteenth, Church is taken more strictly for only the canons of the mother church, and thus it is taken in Extra, on the signification of words, ch. cum clericis, where it is said that when someone renders the oath of fidelity to any church, not the whole clergy of that diocese is understood, but only the bishop and the canons of the mother church, who, when the see is vacant, are the Church so called, as is gathered from the same chapter. Fifteenth, Church is taken for the form of some sacrament of the Church, as in Aug. in the book of the Sentences of Prosper, found in 1, q. 1, in ch. extra, where it is said: Outside the Catholic Church there is no place for true sacrifice, the Gloss: namely outside the form of the Church. And in this way holy Thomas also uses the word Church in book 4 of the Sentences, dist. 13. Sixteenth, the name Church is sometimes taken for authority, as in ch. quodcumque, 24, q. 1, where it is said: If this word, namely whatever you bind, was said to Peter alone, the Church did not do this, the Gloss of the Archdeacon: namely the authority of the Church. But of this varied acceptation of the name Church, we shall treat the Church in what follows under that notion alone by which the Church is called the gathering or totality of the faithful, as we shall touch on in the next chapter.

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But since we have proposed to speak of the universal Church and according to the condition of the present state — because to speak of her and her members according to the condition of the future state surpasses the power of our understanding, since the number of the elect to be placed in supernal happiness is known to God alone — for the present we take the Church in that signification according to which she is described as the collection of Catholics or the whole company of the faithful. Of the faithful, I say, whether predestined or not, whether existing in charity or not, provided only they hold the Catholic faith whole, and have not been cut off from the Church by the censure of their pastor. But this mode of taking the universal Church is more fitting than that mode under which certain erring men taught that the holy and universal Church is to be called only the whole company of the predestined or of those having charity. A manifold reason for this fittingness can be assigned. First, because this mode of taking the universal Church — namely as denoting the collection or whole company of the faithful, whether good or evil — is more conformed to Sacred Scripture and to the sayings of the holy fathers. As the clearest proof of this, Christ is read in the Gospel to have compared the holy universal Church to many things which suffer the mixture of the evil together with the good, of which let us bring forward a few examples. For he says in Matt. 13: the kingdom of heaven is like a net cast into the sea and gathering of every kind of fishes. On this blessed Gregory says in his homily: the holy Church is compared to a net cast into the sea and gathering of every kind of fishes, because now she holds in common, as fishes mingled together, the good and the evil by the net of faith. But the shore of the holy Church, that is, the end, shows what the net draws. Likewise the same Gregory in another homily: the good alone are nowhere but in heaven, and the evil alone are nowhere but in hell; but this life, which is situated between heaven and hell, just as it subsists in the middle, so it receives of both parts in common — whom nevertheless the holy Church both now receives without distinction and afterwards separates at their going forth — thus Gregory; and it is found in 23, q. 4, ch. Haec autem vita. Likewise in the same chapter of the Gospel Christ compares the Church to a field in which, together with the good seed, tares were found to have sprung up; and in Matt. 3 the Church is read to be compared to a threshing-floor for this reason, that just as on the threshing-floor grains are mingled together with chaff, so in the universal Church the evil are contained together with the good. Hence blessed Aug., On Faith to Peter, ch. 4, says thus: hold most firmly and doubt in no way that the threshing-floor of God is the Catholic Church, and that within her even unto the end of the world the chaff of the wheat is contained — that is, that the evil are mingled with the good in the communion of the sacraments — and that in every profession, whether of clerics or of monks or of laymen, there are good together with evil — thus Aug. Moreover for this reason the holy and universal Church is read to be compared by Christ to the ten virgins, of whom five were foolish and five wise, Matt. 25. On this blessed Gregory says: the present Church is called the kingdom of heaven, and because the holy Church is gathered manifoldly from both sexes, she is declared like to ten virgins — in which, because the evil are mingled with the good and the reprobate with the elect, she is rightly said to be like the wise and the foolish virgins — thus Gregory. Moreover for this reason the Church is said to be figured by Noah's ark, in which tame animals are read to have been placed together with wild, and clean with unclean — where the Gloss on Gen. ch. 8 says thus: that all kinds of animals are enclosed in the ark signifies that the Church is gathered from all races and nations; as in Peter's dish the animals were clean and unclean, so in the sacraments of the Church the good and the evil mingle. And on that word, he sent forth the dove after the raven, it adds thus: the ark contains the raven and the dove, so the Church the good and the evil. The second reason of fittingness is that to this mode of taking the name Church the name and notion of universal and Catholic distinction more fittingly belongs, since by the embrace of its universality it contains more than the other modes — indeed all other modes of taking the name Church are as it were parts of it. For just as in secular polity, within the embrace of the whole commonwealth one multitude is part of another — as the domestic multitude is part of the civil multitude, as is shown in 1. Politics, and the civil multitude is part of the multitude of the kingdom, by whose embrace all are included — so in the commonwealth of the Christian religion, under this amplitude of the name Church according to which it denotes the whole company of all who agree in the Catholic faith and the fellowship of the sacraments, all other modes are comprehended according to which the name Church is taken more particularly. And thus to this mode of taking the Church the name and notion of universal and Catholic distinction more fully belongs. The third reason of fittingness is that from this the essence of the people of God is manifested ampler and more extensive, since it redounds to the glory of God himself, according to Prov. 14: in the multitude of the people is the dignity of the king, and in the fewness of the folk the dishonor of the prince. But in Baruch 3 it is said: O Israel, how great is the house of the Lord, and vast the place of his possession. But of this most ample multitude of the people of God the Lord thus speaks to Abraham in Gen. 13: I will make thy seed as the dust of the earth; and below in ch. 15 he says: look up at heaven and number the stars of heaven if thou canst; and he said to him: so shall thy seed be — the Gloss: that is, the Christian people, whose father thou shalt be in faith — where the seed of Abraham is compared now to the sand of the sea on account of the carnal and dry, unfruitful in good works, and now to the stars of heaven on account of those who shine like stars with virtues, as the Gloss says. But this amplitude of the Christian people could not be known if the holy and universal Church were deemed to be only the whole company of the predestined or only the collection of those existing in charity. For the worship of the Christian religion and the sacrament of the Catholic faith itself, in which the Catholic society agrees, has more of notice and experience with us than the writing of predestination, and even than the state of charity. For it is not so given to us to know someone to be predestined or joined to Christ by charity, as it is granted to us to know whether someone is of the Christian religion. Hence Aug. in his book On Baptism — and it is found, On consecration, dist. 4, ch. Est unitas ecclesiae — which spreads widely, namely in the fellowship and communion of the sacraments, which embraces the chaff together with the grains — where the Gloss says: there is a unity which spreads widely; but the unity of the Church which is in the charity of faith does not spread so widely, but embraces only the good; but according to the unity of the sacraments, also the evil — thus the Gloss. The fourth reason, because through this each one knows whether he belongs to the Church or not — in which no small consolation accrues to the faithful, that each one can have knowledge with himself whether he belongs to the Church of Christ. For each one knows and truly recognizes whether he has faith or not — which concerning predestination or the state of charity is by no means granted to know. For Aug. says: nothing is more certain to man than his faith by which it is believed, which is farthest from sense. Likewise Aug. in his book On the Trinity — and it is set down by the Master in iii of the Sentences, dist. 23: each one, he says, would see his faith in his own heart, whether he believes, or its absence if he does not believe — not as bodies which we see with bodily eyes or through their images, nor as the soul which we conjecture from movements of the body; faith is not so seen in the heart in which it is by him whose it is, but we hold it by most certain knowledge — thus he. And holy Thomas in his 3rd book on the same passage of the Master says: it is one thing concerning charity and another concerning faith, since he who has faith can know that he has it — which does not happen concerning charity. From which thing it is known and clear to each one whether he himself belongs to the universal Church — which is to be held by the faithful as a very great dignity and singular grace. The fifth reason of fittingness is that through the aforesaid mode of taking the name Church greater peace and concord is kept in the people of God. For if only the predestined and those existing in the charity of Christ were said to belong to the Church, since it would be unknown who such were, no doubt many schisms and very many divisions would arise among the faithful — as we have known by experience at the time when this pestiferous teaching was taught by certain heretics. Hence the Lord said to his disciples that the tares were not to be rooted up, but to be allowed with the wheat until the time of harvest, Matt. 13. And Aug. on psal. 119, treating that verse, with those who hated peace, says thus: who are they who hated peace? They who tore unity asunder. For if they had not hated peace, they would have remained in unity. And below the Catholic voice says: unity is not to be abandoned, the Church of God is not to be cut asunder; God will judge concerning the good and the evil afterwards. The evil cannot at once be separated from the good; they are to be borne for a time. The evil can be with us on the threshing-floor; they cannot be in the barn. And perhaps he who today appears evil will tomorrow be good, and he who today prides himself on goodness will tomorrow be found evil — thus he. And Aug. in his book On Baptism — found in ch. Quantus, 23, q. 3 — says thus: how great a swelling of arrogance it is, how great a forgetfulness of humility and levity, and how great a boasting of arrogance, that anyone should believe he can do what the Lord did not grant even to the apostles — namely, that he thinks he can discern the tares from the wheat.

The sixth reason is that from this the principate of the Church is more established in the minds of the faithful, and plainly strengthened: if the predestined alone were believed to belong to the Church of God, men believing that the principate of the Church befits only those who are of the Church, the faithful would have no certainty of prelateship, unless a singular revelation were made concerning it — which uncertainty or doubt is in no way to be held concerning the principate and the president of the Church, which shines to all as a most bright city set upon a mountain, Matt. 5. To this that saying of Jerome seems to apply excellently, found in 24, q. 1, ch. Omnibus, where it is thus said: all things considered, I think I say not rashly that some are so in the house of God that they themselves are the house of God — which house both received the keys and the power of loosing and binding — thus there. Indeed, if the Church consisted only of the predestined, the pontificate of the keys of the Church would waver with the same uncertainty with which the certainty of the predestined is weak with us. Rightly, therefore, the whole company of the faithful, without other limitation or determination, obtained the name and notion of the universal Church — although, as was said, the Church is taken in other modes, yet less universally. From this also it is made most manifest how reasonably the error of those who say that the holy and universal Church is only the whole company of the predestined or of the elect was condemned.

IT WILL PERHAPS SEEM¹ to some that the holy and universal Church is not to be called the Church which contains the good together with the evil, but the one which contains only the good, which is argued in many ways. First, from the word concerning the holy and universal Church found in Cant. 4: A garden enclosed, a fountain sealed, a well of living waters, which word Aug. in book 5 against the Donatists says is not to be understood except of the saints and the just, not of the covetous, not of fraudulent robbers and drunkards; therefore it seems that the holy and universal Church contains only the just and the holy. The same is argued, second,² from the word in the same chapter of the Canticle which the spouse speaks to his bride, that is, Christ to the Church: You are all beautiful, my friend, and there is no spot in you. It is plain that if the holy and universal Church is all beautiful and without spot, she will not have the foul and deformed in morals, stained with the filth of sins, mingled with the good who shine resplendent in beauty of adornment alone. The same is argued, third,³ from the word of the Apostle in Eph. 5: Christ loved the Church and delivered himself for her that he might sanctify her; there follows, that he might present her having neither spot nor wrinkle nor anything of the kind. But she would have spot and wrinkle if she had the evil mingled with the good.

⁴ Fourth, it is shown from the fact that, as Aug. says, the ark of the Lord, which signified the Church, was made of sethim wood, which is incorruptible and like white thorn, whence it seems that the Church also consists only of saints and not of all the faithful in general.

⁵ Fifth, it is argued from the fact that in the creed the holy fathers said that the Church is holy; but if the Church is holy, and holiness, as Dionysius witnesses in ch. 12 on the divine names, is a purity free from all uncleanness and perfect and altogether spotless, it does not seem that the Church can truly be called holy if she contains evil men defiled with the stains of sins.

⁶ Sixth, it is argued from the word of Hiero. in his commentary on the epistle of Paul to the Ephesians, who, treating the text, The Church is subject to Christ, says: The Church of Christ is glorious, having neither spot nor wrinkle nor anything of the kind; therefore one who is a sinner and stained with any filth cannot be called of the Church of Christ nor said to be subject to Christ, in the decree on Penance, dist. 1, c. 6, Ecclesia.

⁷ Seventh, it is argued by the authority of blessed Aug. in book 4 against the Donatists, who, speaking of evil men who renounce the world in words and not in deeds, says: Nor are those devoted to the Church who seem to be within and live against Christ, that is, act against the nature of Christ, nor are they to be judged as belonging at all to that Church which he cleanses for himself by the laver of the water of life in the word, that he may present her to himself glorious, having neither spot nor wrinkle nor anything of the kind.

⁸ Last, it is argued from the word of the Apostle in 2 Cor. 6: What agreement has light with darkness? Since the evil are said to be darkness and the good light, according to the word in Eph. 5: For you were once darkness, but now light in the Lord, therefore it seems that the good and the evil are not to be reckoned together nor comprehended in the unity of the holy and universal Church.

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Since, with God's help, we shall speak more fully of this matter in what follows, when we treat of the Church under the name and character of the body and of her members, briefly now in answer to these points we say that the most fitting way of taking the name of the Church is, as has been said, that the holy and universal Church is called the collection or universality of all the faithful in general, which has been demonstrated above both from evangelical doctrine and from manifold reason. Rabanus also says in On the Instruction of Clerics, ch. i: The catholic Church of God, that is, the universal, which spread abroad through the whole world is glorified by the nobility of the name of Christ. For every man who is a partaker of right faith and is regenerated by holy baptism is called a Christian from Christ and is known to be a son of God the Father and of mother Church. Church is Greek, which rendered into Latin is calling or assembly, because it calls all to itself, thus far he. And yet for fuller understanding of what has been said, and for the solution of the arguments raised, it must be noted that although in the holy and universal Church good and evil faithful are said to be contained together intermingled, these and those nevertheless differ, since although the Church is the collection or universality of the faithful convening in the worship of the one true God and the profession of one faith, yet one is judged to belong to the holy Church as her son or member more truly and perfectly the more and the more perfectly he shares in the unity and communion of the holy Church of God. This unity is perfected above all by integrity of faith, hope, and charity, as Aug. says, and is gathered from ch. nuptiarum, xxvii, q. i. Hence it is that the good and just faithful, who are united to the Church not only in unity of faith but moreover in unity of love and charity, which is the bond of perfection, Col. 3, are judged to belong to the Church much more distinctly and nobly than sinful faithful, who communicate with the other holy faithful only in unity of faith and in a certain exterior communion of the sacraments; how differently these and those belong to the Church, although it is gathered openly enough from that evangelical parable in Matt. where Christ declares that the good belong to the threshing floor of the Lord as grain, the evil as chaff, we shall take care to demonstrate by other ways as well.

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First, since faith without works is dead, James 2. But the faith which is living before God and which has worth is the faith which works through love, Gal. 5. Surely those who are contained in the Church through unity of faith formed by charity belong to the Church itself as living stones and members vivified by the Spirit of God, from which the stature of the spiritual edifice of the body of the Church rises. Hence Jerome, and it is had in ch. omnibus consideratur, xxiiii, q. i, says thus: All things considered, I think I say not rashly that some are in the house of the Lord in such a way that they themselves are also the same house of the Lord, which is said to be built upon the rock, which is called the one dove, etc. The unjust and sinful faithful, however, since they are deprived of the life of grace and are estranged from the Spirit of God, are judged by the holy doctors to be contained in the holy Church of God, in comparison with the just, as dry and dead members or as evil humors. Hence Aug. in the book on Baptism, and it is had in ch. est unitas, on consecration, dist. iiii: The unity of the Church is one which extends widely, namely in the fellowship of the sacraments and in the communion which embraces with the grain also the chaff, etc. Thus therefore evil men are in the Church as evil humors are in the human body, which sometimes pass out of the body, thus far Aug.

²

Second, this difference is gathered from this, that since faith formed by charity suffers with itself no stain of damnable error or crime, because charity covers all offenses, Prov. 10, whereas unformed faith suffers with itself the stains or filth of many sins. Hence it is that in those who belong to the Church through faith formed by charity the holy Church is called beautiful, comely, fair, and immaculate. In those, however, who are attested to be in the Church only through unity of faith, the Church herself in comparison with the former is pronounced rather dark and stained, whence blessed Augustine, treating Cant. 1: I am black as the tents of Cedar and comely as the skins of Solomon, says thus: She said she was both on account of the temporal unity within one net of good and evil fishes. For the tents of Cedar pertain to Ishmael, who was not heir with the son of the free woman, thus far he. And in iii on Christian Doctrine he says thus: For she does not say dark of herself as the tents of Cedar, and comely as the skins of Solomon; and Bernard on the Canticle says to the same purpose thus: Although I called the bride perfect, it is in part, not in the part of the tents of Cedar, yet comely either in that portion of herself which already reigns blessed, or even in the illustrious men by whose wisdom and virtues in this her night she is adorned as heaven by its stars; and Aug., expounding Ps. xxiiii: Lord, I have loved the beauty of your house, says: The house of God is the Church; it still has evil men, but the beauty of the house of God is in the saints, and conversely. For by reason of the evil the Church is named a den of robbers. Hence Origen, and it is had in ch. et hoc diximus, xvi, q. vii. ³ Now I think the temple of God built of living stones is the Church of Christ. But there are many in her not living spiritually as befits but warring according to the flesh, who by their acts make the house of prayer built of living stones to be a den of robbers.

⁴

Third, the aforesaid difference is gathered from this, that since unity of faith is imperfect unity, whereas the unity which is through faith formed by charity is complete, and charity herself is the principle and root of merit, the Apostle saying, 1 Cor. 13: If I have all faith so as to remove mountains, etc., but have not charity, it profits me nothing. Those who are contained in the Church through unformed faith alone are said to be of the Church, in comparison with the just, by number only; those, however, who are in the Church through unity of faith which works through love are judged to belong to the Church by number and merit, whence Aug. on John, treating the words, One of you, etc., says: one of you by number not merit, one in appearance not virtue, by bodily intermingling not by spiritual bond, by joining of flesh not of heart, a companion in unity; and the Gloss of the Master on Ps. 25, speaking of the evil, says thus: And if they are of us in body not mind, in number not merit, in name not divine power. With these points noted, it must be said in answer to the arguments made on the contrary.

⁵

To the first, in which it is said that the holy Church is an enclosed garden, etc. The answer is that Holy Scripture speaks there of the Church which belongs to those who are of the Church by number and merit; of such sort are the just and holy; in them plainly the holy Church is a garden, because fragrant with virtues of every kind of tree. Enclosed, that is, closed by the custody of discipline against the hostile assaults of demons. She is a fountain because in them she is filled with the waters of divine grace. She is called a sealed fountain because she is a perennial well of living waters on account of the abundance of holy doctrines, according to Ps. ⁶ The rush of the river gladdens the city of God.

Although therefore mother Church is in the saints in this way, as in ch. quaeritur, on consecration, dist. iiii, nevertheless others who have the integrity of the catholic faith, which of itself is holy and immaculate, are not denied to belong in some way to the universal Church, though not so principally, according to what has been determined above.

⁷

To the second reason, which is taken from, You are all beautiful, my love. The answer is as to the preceding reason, that it speaks of those who are of the Church by number and merit without stain of mortal crime, as the Gloss says.

⁸

To the third it must be said that the saying of the Apostle is not understood universally of the Church according to the present state. For as Aug. says in the book on the Perfection of Justice: Then the Church will be without spot or wrinkle or anything of this sort, when she will be glorious; for now, in so many dangers, in so many scandals, in so great an intermingling of the worst men, and in so many reproaches of the impious, she must not be said to be glorious; and in liii of the Retractations the same Aug. speaks to our purpose thus: Wherever in the books I commemorated the Church as not having spot or wrinkle, it must not be so taken as though she were so, but as being prepared to be so when she shall appear glorious. Now, however, on account of certain ignorances and infirmities of her members, she has reason daily to say as a whole, forgive us our debts, thus far Aug. She is said, however, according to what has been said in the solution of the preceding reasons, to be without stain of crime and wrinkle of duplicity in those who are in the Church by number and merit.

⁹

To the fourth it must be said that the Church was figured by the ark of the Lord as to those who are of the Church by number and merit, as has been said.

¹⁰

To the fifth it must likewise be said that the universal holy Church is holy in all who are of the Church by number and merit; of such sort are all the saints, in whom the splendor of the holiness of the Church shines forth, of which in Ps. 169 the prophet says: His praise is in the Church of the saints. Upon this Aug. speaks thus: This is the Church of the saints, the Church of the grains sown through the field of the Lord spread over the whole earth.

¹¹

To the sixth it must be said that the saying of Jerome, that one stained with filth cannot be called of the Church of Christ, must be understood by number and merit; it is not forbidden, however, that he can be so called by number, as has already often been expounded.

¹²

To the seventh, in turn, answer must likewise be made by expounding the saying of Aug. as we expounded the saying of Jerome.

¹³

To the last reason, which is taken from the Apostle, it must be said that on the side by which sinful faithful are darkness and the just light, they cannot belong to one and the same society, but on the side by which in one integrity of faith, which is the light of the souls of the faithful, they convene, they can very well belong to one and the same holy community of the unity of the Church, and thus it is in the case proposed.

¹

AFTER the consideration of what is conveyed by the Church in name and in reality, and with the aspect under which we shall speak of the Church explained, it remains to treat of its conditions and properties, and most especially of those which the holy fathers attribute to it in the symbol of faith, saying: I believe one holy catholic and apostolic Church, where the holy fathers hand down, teach and preach four things concerning the Church. First, that it is one, and this against three kinds of men: namely, against the conventicles of heretics, against schismatics, and against the excommunicated who despise the bonds of the Church. Second, that it is holy, against Christians of false name. Third, that it is catholic, that is universal, against those who stand apart and persist obstinately in their own opinion, receding from the common doctrine of the faith and of the holy fathers, of which sort are all heretics. Fourth, that it is apostolic, against the presumptuous devisers of novelties and the introducers of new sects and strange doctrines; let us speak of each in turn. That the Church is one, the Truth as teacher through the Holy Spirit attests in Cant. 4, saying: My dove is one, my perfect one is one. Concerning this it is to be noted that the unity of the Church is gathered from many sources. First, from the unity of the prince or head by whom it is ruled and governed, who is one, namely Christ the Lord our God, whom the Father gave as head over the whole Church which is his body, in Eph. 1. Second, the Church is called one from the unity of the faith by which it is enlightened and in which it is founded. For faith is a certain divine and admirable light in which we have been called, and the foundation of the Christian religion, as Chrysostom says. For all Christians believe the same thing in heart and confess it with the mouth, that is, in 1 Cor. 1: Say all the same thing, and let there be no schisms in your words; on account of this community of faith, says Aug. on John ², we are all one, according to that of the Apostle: You are all one in Christ Jesus — the Gloss: in faith in Christ. The blessed Jerome uses this reasoning writing to Evander the bishop, as is found in ch. Legimus, dist. 93: The Church of the city of Rome is not to be judged one thing in these matters, and that of the whole world another, nor those of Gaul and Britain. For Africa and Persia and the East and India and all the barbarian nations adore one Christ and observe one rule of truth. Third, the Church is called one from the unity of the sacrament of baptism by which it is sanctified, which is the same among all both as to the matter, concerning which John 3: Unless a man be born again of water, etc., and as to the form, concerning which Matt., last chapter: Baptizing them in the name of the Father and of the Son and of the Holy Spirit. And as to the ultimate effect, Mark, last chapter: He who believes and is baptized shall be saved. Or as to the efficacy of the conferred gift, which is equal by whomsoever it is given, as Aug. says in ch. Sicut in bonos, De consec., dist. 4. By this unity of baptism, moreover, since it is the gate of the sacraments, is understood the unity of the other sacraments, concerning which see ch. Est unitas ecclesiae, De consec., dist. 4.

Of such unities in the Church the Apostle likewise speaks in Eph. 4, saying: One Lord, one faith, one baptism; where the Gloss says: You ought to keep unity, for you have one Lord, not three, that for their diverse wills you ought to be at discord, and thus we bid you believe and act in the same way. Likewise the Gloss on that of Cant. 5, My dove is one, says: as she is one although there are many and diverse persons, yet the faith in them is one, one baptism, one God, one work. Fourth, the Church is called one from the unity of hope, by which it is raised to heavenly goods and lifted into one expectation of blessedness, concerning which the Apostle in Eph. 4: You are called in one hope of your calling — the Gloss: to one separate thing, which is the effect of the calling. Fifth, the Church is one by the unity of charity by which it is bound together and given life, concerning which the Apostle says in Phil. 2: Having the same charity, being of one mind, feeling the same thing; concerning this unity which charity makes it is said in Acts 4, where it is recorded of the primitive Church that the multitude of believers had one soul and one heart in the Lord, because, as the Gloss says, they were joined to one another by the bond of charity. Likewise the Gloss on that, that is, on 1 Cor. 10, One bread and one body, says the Church is called one, because just as one bread is composed of many grains and one body of many members, so the Church of Christ is bound together of many of the faithful with charity joining them. Hence Augustine says in the book on baptism, as found in ch. Multae, I, q. 1, that charity is the proper gift of catholic unity and peace. Sixth, the Church is called one by the unity of the life-giving Spirit, for one and the same Spirit, namely the Holy Spirit, as the ultimate and principal perfection of the mystical body, as the soul in a body, is in all the members of the Church, dividing to each as he wills, for there are divisions of graces. But the same Spirit, says the Apostle in 1 Cor. 12. To this unity the same Apostle exhorts in Eph. 4, saying thus: Be careful to keep the unity of the Spirit — the Gloss: the unity of the Church which the Holy Spirit makes, that you may be one body by the work of the Holy Spirit. Likewise in the same place the Apostle speaks to our point thus: One body and one spirit — the Gloss: you ought to be one body, because one Spirit dwells in you by whom we are made one body. For just as one body of a man consists of many members and one soul quickens all the members, making in the eye that it see, in the ear that it hear, and so in the rest, so the Holy Spirit contains and quickens the members of the body of Christ which is the Church. Seventh, the Church is called one by the unity of the ultimate end, which is blessedness itself to which it is ordered. Hence also the same penny, by which the holy doctors understand blessedness, is read as assigned to all the faithful as the reward of their labors in Matt. 20, where it is said that when those who came about the eleventh hour came, they too received every man a penny — the Gloss says: because they come to the same eternity with those who were called from the beginning of the world; and Aug. on that of Ps. 85, All nations, says: Many nations and one nation; why one nation? Because one expectation in the end; why not one nation, if there is one homeland, Jerusalem. Eighth, the Church is one by the unity of one president, ruler and governor visibly abiding with it, of whom it is said in Joel 1: The children of Judah and the children of Israel shall be gathered together, and they shall appoint for themselves one head. And the Lord says in John 10: Let there be one fold and one shepherd. This one president, pastor, ruler and governor in the whole universal Church, holding the place of Christ, is the supreme pontiff, as will be shown in what follows. Hence the blessed Cyprian, treating that of Matt. 16, Thou art Peter and upon this rock I will build my Church, speaks thus of this unity: He builds the Church upon one, and although after his resurrection he grant to all the apostles an equal, that is a like, power when he said: As the Father sent me, so I send you; receive the Holy Spirit, yet to manifest unity he disposed by his authority that the origin of the same unity begin from one; and below: The beginning proceeds from unity, that the Church of Christ may be shown to be one; this is found in ch. Loquitur, XXIV, q. 1.

¹

That the truth of what has already been said concerning the unity of the Church may be made more illustrious, some objections will be moved against it. Against what has already been said it is therefore argued in many ways. And first from that of Ps. 65, In the churches bless the Lord. Likewise from that of Apoc. 1, where John is said to write to seven churches — in which places not one but several churches are designated.

²

Second, thus: the present Church is commonly distinguished from the primitive Church. For the Church taken from the circumcision and from the foreskin — those who are of the Jews and of the Gentiles — are distinct peoples. Hence the Gloss on Cant. 4, on that passage, It is a fountain of gardens, says thus: a fountain of gardens, because from the primitive Church there proceeded into the world the heavenly doctrine which brought forth many churches, that is, gardens.

³

Third, the Church is one constituted of angels and men. Hence Aug. on Ps. 36: With all the faithful numbered from the beginning to the end, with the legions and hosts of angels also joined, so that there comes to be one city under one king, one province under one commander — but men and angels do not have faith and hope in common; therefore unity of faith or hope does not pertain to the unity of the Church.

⁴

Fourth, thus: faith, hope, and charity, since they are accidents diverse in number, are in diverse subjects; therefore all faithful men cannot pertain to one Church, since they do not seem to have the same faith, hope, and charity. But if it be said that faith on the part of the subject is not one, because it is diversified according as it is in diverse subjects, but on the part of what is believed it is one — on the contrary, because there are many things proposed to us to be believed, since there are twelve articles of faith among which there is great difference, as is manifestly clear.

⁵

Fifth, thus: the Church is the same from the first just man Abel to the last to be born; but the faith of the ancient fathers and of the moderns does not seem to be the same, since the confession, which is the act of faith, is not one and the same among all. For they believed things future, such as the incarnation of the Son of God, the passion, the resurrection, the ascension, and the like, which we believe as past; therefore it seems that the truth of faith is not included in the unity of the Church.

⁶ Sixth, every excommunicated person is outside the unity of the Church, since he is evidently separated from the Church and the company of the faithful, 11, q. 3, ch. Canonica. And Matt. 18: If he will not hear the Church, let him be to you as a heathen and a publican — but it stands that an excommunicated person may have faith, hope, and charity, and the indwelling Holy Spirit; therefore these do not seem to make for the unity of the Church. The consequence is clear; the minor is also known concerning one who is unjustly excommunicated.

⁷

Seventh, many pertain to the unity of the Church in whom there is neither charity nor the indwelling Holy Spirit; of this kind are faithful sinners. Hence it was shown above at length that the universal Church comprehends all the faithful in general. Hence in Matt. 13 it is found that tares are joined to the wheat, and as Aug. says, The Church is a field in which wheat, that is, the good, and tares, that is, the evil, are rooted together — yet at the end of the world they shall be separated; therefore it follows that the aforesaid things are not required for the unity of the Church.

⁸

Eighth, it is argued thus: It stands that someone may have all these things — namely faith, hope, charity, and the indwelling Holy Spirit — and yet not pertain to the unity of the Church; therefore the aforesaid things do not stand in truth. The antecedent is clear concerning many catechumens who have formed faith, and yet do not seem to be members of the Church, since Aug. says on the baptism of infants, and it is found in the chapter To this end, On consecration, dist. 4: Baptism avails to this end, that the baptized may be incorporated into Christ. And the same Aug. writes to Boniface and says that in baptism one is made a member of Christ.

⁹

Ninth, it is argued thus: As has been said, from the first just man Abel to the last to be born there is one and the same Church; but before the advent of Christ baptism, since it did not exist, could not be said to pertain to the unity of the Church; therefore neither now is the unity of the Church to be argued from the unity of baptism.

¹⁰

Tenth, there is not one baptism but three: namely the baptism of water, of penance, and the baptism of blood, as is found in the Gloss on Heb. 6, and the Master of the Sentences sets down in book 4, dist. 4; therefore the unity of the Church is not well taken from the unity of baptism.

¹¹

Eleventh, Aug. in his book on baptism touches on another unity of the Church, in the chapter There is a unity, On consecration, dist. 4, where he says thus: There is a unity of the Church which extends widely, namely in the society and communion of the sacraments, which embraces the chaff with the grain; therefore it seems that what was said concerning the unity of the Church was not sufficient.

¹²

Twelfth, the Church is the gathering of the faithful, as was held above in the chapter The Church, On consecration, dist. 1. But the faithful are not always the same; therefore the Church is not always the same.

¹³

Thirteenth, thus: if unity of faith makes the Church one, therefore whoever have the same faith seem to us to pertain to one and the same Church; but demons and the damned have one and the same faith with us; therefore it seems that they pertain with us to the same Church — which nevertheless is false. The consequence seems manifest; the minor is proved by that of James 2, The demons believe and tremble. And the Gloss on that of Rom. 1, From faith to faith, says: the unformed faith of demons.

¹⁴

Fourteenth, the Church was always one, and yet in it there was not always one pastor or ruler visibly conversing with it; therefore the unity of the Church is not to be taken from the side of one supreme president and ruler.

¹⁵

Fifteenth, with the Pope dead the Church is not less one than with him living; therefore the unity of such a supreme president or supreme pontiff does not argue the unity of the Church — the consequence seems clear.

¹

TO the first it is answered, and first as to that of the Psalm, Bless the Lord in the churches, that there the prophet speaks of the church as it denotes some multitude of the faithful of a certain province or place, and thus there is no doubt that there are many churches: nevertheless all such particular churches are one universal Church and one bridle of Christ, as the text says in ch. Quamvis, dist. 21, and in ch. Legimus, dist. 93, and the blessed Aug., treating that of Ps. 106, He made families like flocks of sheep, says thus: Many families, many churches, one Church, one people, one family, one fold. To the authority brought from the Apocalypse it is answered that, as is evident both from the text and from the Gloss, the blessed John spoke principally of the particular churches in Asia over which he was set, which were several. It is true, however, as is said in the same Gloss, that by those seven churches of Asia the universal Church was designated, which is therefore described by the number seven: both because seven signifies universality, and because it is enlightened by the sevenfold Spirit.

²

To the second it must be said that one and the same Church is said to have existed from the beginning, as will be said below, since there was one and the same faith of the fathers of the Old Testament and of the fathers of the New Testament; only the times, as Aug. says, have been changed; the distinction and difference which seems to be conveyed in the sayings of the saints between the primitive and the present Church is to be taken on the part of the people, not on the part of the faith. Hence Aug., treating that of Ps. 47, It is founded in the exultation of the whole earth, Mount Sion, the sides of the north, the city of the great king, says thus: Two mountains, one from circumcision, the other from the foreskin, one from the Jews, the other from the Gentiles, no longer adverse and diverse, because from diverse now united in a corner not diverse; he is, he says, our peace who made both one; he is the cornerstone which the builders rejected, made the head of the corner; he joined two in himself; a mountain and mountains, one house and two houses, two because coming from diverse, one because of the cornerstone in which both are joined to each other.

³

To the third it is answered in two ways. First, that here we do not speak of the Church as it comprises the militant and the triumphant, but as it denotes the universality of the faithful according to the state of the way, who in this our pilgrimage are militant, to all of whom faith is common. Second, it is answered that although the angels do not have faith in common with faithful men, they yet have what succeeds faith, fruition, for it is the same that they see in the homeland and that the faithful believe in the way, and therefore the Church as it comprises the militant and those who have attained can be called one in knowledge, although on this side and that the mode of knowledge is diverse, because here through a mirror and in enigma, as the Apostle says in 1 Cor. 13, but there face to face.

⁴

To the fourth it is answered, and it is said as to the antecedent, that although the aforesaid virtues are distinguished in diverse subjects according to number, they yet agree in species and in one object according to number, according as all the faithful believe, hope and love the same. For which it is to be noted that, as St. Thomas says in the third book, just as in a natural body the different powers through all the members differ in number according to essence, but agree in one root according to number, and besides this have one ultimate form in number, so also all the members of the mystical body have for their ultimate complement the Holy Spirit, who is one in number in all. And the virtues themselves, faith, hope and charity, although they differ in diverse subjects according to essence, yet agree in one root according to number. The proper root of an operation is its object itself, from which it draws its species, and therefore inasmuch as what is believed, hoped and loved by all is the same in number, according to this the faith, hope and charity of all are united in one root in number, not only the first, which is the Holy Spirit, but also the proximate, which is the proper object. And to the confirmation⁵, when it is said that there are many things proposed to us to be believed, it is answered that since the formal object of faith is the first truth, by adhering to which we believe whatever is contained under faith, and it is one and immutable, and a habit takes its unity or multitude from its object, we say that faith is one on the part of that which is believed, because it is the same that is believed by all; and if there are diverse things to be believed which all commonly believe, yet all are reduced to one, because to the first truth, under whose aspect they fall under faith. Temporal things also do not pertain to the object of faith except in order to something eternal, which is the first truth, which is the object of faith.

To the fifth⁶, by denying, it is said that that assumption is denied, namely that the faith of the ancients and ours is not the same, and to the proof it is answered that this difference of past and future does not arise from any diversity of the thing believed, but from the diverse relation of the believers to the one thing believed.

To the sixth⁷ it is answered that if anyone has been unjustly excommunicated, he is in no way harmed by such a sentence of excommunication. Hence Aug., as found in ch. Illud, XI, q. 3: I would not rashly say this outright, that if any of the faithful shall have been anathematized unjustly, it will harm rather him who does it than him who suffers this injury. For the Holy Spirit dwelling in the saints, through whom each is bound or loosed, inflicts undeserved punishment on no one. For St. Thomas says in the fourth book that if a man who has been unjustly excommunicated humbly bears this injury, the merit of humility compensates the harm of this excommunication. And the blessed Aug. puts this in the book on true religion, saying thus: Often by divine providence even good men are allowed to be expelled from the Christian congregation by seditious tumults of carnal men; which contumely or injury of theirs, when they have borne it most patiently for the peace of the Church, and have contrived no novelties of schism or heresy, and guard even unto death and defend by testimony the faith which they know to be preached in the catholic Church, these the merciful Father, seeing in secret, crowns — thus Augustine. Where it is to be noted, for the fuller understanding of this argument, that an excommunicated man is not said to be so placed outside the unity of the Church that he is deprived of the faith by which he was united to the body of the Church, but because he is cut off from the fellowship of the faithful and from participation in the sacraments. For excommunication, as the doctors say, is called separation from the fellowship of the faithful, especially as to the fruit which is had from participation in the sacraments, and as to the common suffrages of the Church. How an excommunicated man is deprived of such suffrages, and how not, St. Thomas declares in the fourth book, dist. 18, saying thus: The suffrages of one avail another according as they are continued to him; but the action of one can be continued to another in two ways. In one way by the force of charity, which connects all the faithful, that they may be one in God, as is said in the Psalm, I am a partaker of all them that fear thee, and excommunication does not cut off this continuity, because one cannot be justly excommunicated except for mortal fault, through which he is already divided from charity even if he be not excommunicated. But an unjust excommunication cannot take charity away from anyone, since it is among the greatest goods, which cannot be taken from anyone against his will. In another way the action of one can be continued to another through the intention of him making the suffrages, which is borne toward him for whom they are made. And excommunication cuts off this continuity, because through the sentence of excommunication the Church separates the excommunicated from the universality of the faithful for whom it makes suffrages, whence the suffrages of the Church which are made for the whole Church profit him not, nor can prayer be made for them in the person of the Church among the members of the Church, although some private person can direct a suffrage to his conversion by intention — thus St. Thomas.

To the seventh⁸ it must be said that although faithful sinners do not have all those things by which the Church is said to be one, they nevertheless pertain in some way to the unity of the Church, inasmuch as they agree with the other faithful in one faith. It is true, however, that because they do not have charity, by which the body of the Church is said to be given life, such are judged as dead members, nor are they properly members of the body of Christ, as has been partly said above and will be shown more fully below.

To the eighth⁹ it is answered, and it is said to the antecedent, denying it, for we have said that such pertain mentally, and though not corporally through the visible sacrament, to the unity of the Church, or that they pertain to the Church by merit though not in number. And to the proof it is answered, as St. Thomas says in the fourth book, dist. 4, that to be incorporated into Christ happens in two ways, namely by merit and in number. By merit one can indeed be made of the Church, which is to be incorporated into Christ, even before baptism actually received, but not before baptism purposed, or in desire, after the time of revealed grace. Hence Ambrose says of Valentinian, who died a catechumen: Him whom I was about to regenerate has been taken away, yet he did not lose the grace which he sought, whence such a one is regenerated in heart though not in body, as St. Thomas says in the third part. By faith one is incorporated into Christ, according to that in Eph. 3: That Christ may dwell by faith in your hearts. In number, however, one cannot be made of the Church except through baptism. Hence before baptism no one is admitted to the reception of the sacrament of the Eucharist and of the other sacraments of the Church, and thus it is evident that such catechumens, having faith, hope and charity, pertain to the Church in spirit though not by the visible sacrament, by merit though not in number.

To the ninth¹⁰ it is answered by denying the consequence, because although baptism was not always from the beginning of the Church, it does not follow that after it was instituted its unity does not in its own way prove the unity of the Church. For which it is to be known that men could never be saved, even before the coming of Christ, unless they were made members of Christ, because as is said in Acts 4: There is no other name given to men in which we must be saved; but before the coming of Christ men were incorporated into Christ through faith in his future coming, of which faith circumcision was the seal, as the Apostle says in Rom. 4. For before circumcision was instituted, faith alone, as Gregory says, with the oblations of sacrifices by which the ancient fathers professed their faith, sufficed for men to be incorporated into Christ. After the coming of Christ too men are incorporated into Christ through faith, according to that of Eph. 3: That Christ may dwell by faith in your hearts. But the faith of a thing present is manifested by a different sign than that by which it was shown when it was future, just as the present, the past and the future are signified by different words; and therefore although the sacrament of baptism itself was not always, yet the faith of which baptism is the sacrament was always and was necessary.

To the tenth¹¹ it must be said that properly speaking, as St. Thomas says in the fourth book, there is but one baptism, which is celebrated in water under the due form of words. The other baptisms are called by order to it according to proportion to the same effect, which yet they in some way effect in virtue of the baptism of water, because the baptism of blood and the baptism of penance avail not for regeneration except for him who has the baptism of water in purpose. For then, as Aug. says, the baptism of blood or of the Spirit profits when not contempt of religion but the straitness of necessity excludes the baptism of the river, De consec., dist. 4, ch. Baptismi. Or it is answered secondarily that baptism is called one because it is not repeatable, just as original sin is not, against which as a medicine it was instituted — which is against the Novatian heretics who say that as often as a man sins baptism ought to be repeated — or baptism is called one, that is, equal by whomsoever it is given, as the Gloss expounds.

To the eleventh¹² it is answered that the unity of which Aug. speaks in the proposed authority is conveyed through the unity of baptism, which is the foundation and beginning of the other sacraments, as was said in the preceding chapter.

To the twelfth¹³ it is answered by denying the consequence, for although men, who are as it were the matter of the Church, continually flow and ebb, with some dying and others newly born, nevertheless because there is one faith in all, the Church is always said to remain one, just as it is said of the body of an animal that although the material parts in it flow and ebb, yet it is said to remain the same as to the form, which always remains the same, in the first book on generation. So it seems must be said in the present case. For the same faith always remains, the same sacraments by which the Church is formed remain, the same law and the same rule of truth remain, the same relation both to the one head of the Church and to the one ultimate end abides; wherefore most fittingly the blessed Aug. on Ps. 85, treating that verse, Have mercy on me, O Lord, for I have cried to thee all the day, says: With members descending and succeeding, one man is stretched out unto the end of the age.

To the thirteenth¹⁴ it must be said that in demons there is not the faith which is posited as a gift of the Holy Spirit or a habit divinely infused which inclines a man to believe some effect of the good: but it is called faith which is born of the perspicacity of their natural intellect from the miracles which they see beyond nature. For which it is to be noted, as St. Thomas notes in 2-II, q. 5, art. 2, that the intellect of the believer assents to the thing believed, not because it sees it, either in itself or through resolution to first principles seen in themselves, but on account of the command of the will. That the will moves the intellect to assent can happen in two ways. In one way from the ordering of the will to the good, and thus to believe is a laudable act. In the other way because the intellect is convinced to judge that what is said must be believed, although it is not convinced by the evidence of the thing — just as if a prophet were to pronounce in the word of God something future, and were to adduce as a sign the raising of the dead, by this sign the intellect of the beholder would be convinced to know manifestly that this is said by God who does not lie, although that future thing which is foretold would not in itself be evident, whence the character of faith would not be removed. It must be said therefore that in the faithful of Christ faith is praised according to the first mode, and according to this it is not in demons but only in the second mode. For there appear many manifest signs by which they perceive that the doctrine of the Church is from God, although they do not themselves see the very things which the Church teaches, for example that God is three and one, or anything else of this kind. And thus it is evident that the faith which effects the unity of the Church is not in demons, and so the argument does not proceed.

To the fourteenth¹⁵ it is answered by denying the consequence, for although the Church was not always constituted in such a disposition as to one, as ruler and governor, leader and pastor abiding visibly in the place and stead of Jesus Christ our Lord, yet the Church itself had order, for the causes to be assigned below when the discourse is to be held by us concerning the one supreme pontiff in the Church: it does not follow that now such order is not in the Church. For many things have been instituted in the Church through the succession of times which were not from the beginning, which although at the time when they were not instituted they imported no necessity, yet once instituted come to be observed of necessity. For the doctors say, treating that of the last chapter of Cant., Our sister is little and has no breasts, that the Church, which is here called sister, in the beginning of its state before the coming of the fullness of grace, in which grace and truth came by Jesus Christ, in John 1, was little not only in paucity of people but also in gifts of graces. Hence Hugh of St. Victor says: It was fitting, he says, that according to the procession of times the signs of spiritual graces be given more and more; plainly after the incarnation of the Son of God she was made more abundant in splendor of doctrine, more illustrious in beauty of order, richer in the salutary efficacy of the sacraments, more excellent in nobility of rule, because under a nobler hope of political ordination and a more divine form of principate.

To the fifteenth¹⁶ it is answered that the argument does not proceed, both because if the Pope dies, the see yet does not die. Second, because such order to one head and governor always remains in the Church in habit, and the power of electing someone in the apostolic see itself. Such order is also in act in the Church with respect to those who in that time discharge a certain share in the Church in place of the supreme pontiff, of which kind is the sacred college of the lord cardinals. And here is convicted the rashness of certain schismatics and enemies of the Church who have presumed to say that the unity of the Church has no order to the unity of the one supreme pontiff, the vicar of Christ; how false this is, let us hear Cyprian saying in the letter to Magnus: The Lord, commending to us the unity coming from divine authority, posits it and says: I and the Father are one; to which unity reducing his Church, he says again: And there shall be one flock and one shepherd. Likewise in the letter to Rogatian, the same most glorious Cyprian strikes down such sowers and introducers of schisms in the Church, saying thus: These are the beginnings of heretics and the rise and attempts of schismatics thinking ill, that they may please themselves, that they may despise the one set over them with proud swelling; thus they go out from the Church, thus a profane altar is set up outside, thus rebellion is made against the peace of Christ and the ordination and unity of God. And the blessed Jerome, the most religious father of the Church, writing to Pope Damasus, as found in ch. Quoniam vetus, XXIV, q. 1, says thus among other things: I speak with the successor of the fisherman and the disciple of Christ. Following no leader but Christ, I am joined in communion with thy blessedness, that is with the chair of Peter; I know the Church founded upon that rock; whoever eats the lamb outside this house is profane; if anyone shall not have been in the ark of Noah, he shall perish when the flood reigns; and below: I know not Vitalis, I reject Meletius, I am ignorant of Paulinus; whoever gathers not with thee scatters, that is, he who is not of Christ is of antichrist — thus Jerome. But concerning the refutation of such error our discourse will be more abundant in what follows, through the things also which have been said the impiety of the schismatics is excluded, who strive to rend the seamless tunic of the Lord; against whom the blessed Cyprian says, as found in ch. Alicuius, XXIV, q. 1: Thou art an alien, thou art profane, thou art his enemy; he cannot have God for father who does not hold the unity of the universal Church.

¹

Having shown that the Church is one, it now remains for us to show that the Church is holy. She is described as holy by the holy fathers in the Nicene council, to distinguish her from the congregation of the wicked, which is not holy but impious, of which it is said in Ps. 25: I have hated the church of the wicked. Of the Church of Christ, on the other hand, it is said in the second-to-last psalm: Let his praise be in the church of the saints, where the Gloss of Aug.: The church of the saints is the Catholic Church; the church of heretics is not to be called the church of the saints. The Church is called holy, moreover, because sanctified by the Holy Spirit, which holiness the Holy Spirit poured forth upon her, as Albert the Great says, in the sacraments, virtues, and gifts which he gives unto the perfection of holiness. But since "holy" has several meanings, it must be considered in what ways the Church of Christ is and is called holy. For this it is to be noted that "holy" is the same as "clean," and to this meaning corresponds the name hagios in Greek, which is interpreted as though "without earth," in which way blessed Dionysius, defining holiness in ch. 12 of the Divine Names, speaks thus: Holiness is free from all uncleanness, and perfect, and altogether spotless. In this meaning the Church is holy, because clean from the filth and corruption of sin. Plainly, since Christ her spouse is beautiful above the sons of men, and the holy of holies, so does he have a holy spouse, who says, Lev. 2: Be holy, because I am holy, whence in Cant. 4 he speaks thus to the Church: Thou art all fair, my love, and there is no spot in thee. And the Apostle in 1 Cor. 3 says: The temple of God is holy, which you are. Second, "holy" is the same as "firm," whence among the ancients those things were called holy which were fortified by laws; whence "holy" is also said of what has been established by law. In this sense the Church of Christ is holy. First, indeed, because ordained by God through eternal predestination and divine law, as Paul the Apostle attests, who speaks thus to the Eph. 2: He chose us, the Gloss: by predestining, before the foundation of the world, that we should be holy and immaculate in his sight in charity, the Gloss: not by our merits, but by his charity. Second, in this meaning the Church is called holy and established, so that she cannot be violated, since she will never fail from the faith and charity which is in Christ. Whence in Ps. 76 the prophet says: He built his sanctuary as of unicorns in the earth which he founded forever, where the Gloss of Jerome: that is, he established the Church herself with singular strength, so that she should stand immovable forever and ever. And in Ps. 103 the same prophet speaks thus to the Lord: Thou hast founded the earth upon thy stability; it shall not be moved forever and ever. Upon which word blessed Aug. speaks: By earth I understand the Church; what is her firmness upon which she is founded, but the foundation of which the Apostle says: Other foundation no man can lay but that which is laid, which is Christ Jesus. There therefore we are established by merit, because there those established shall not be moved forever and ever, for nothing is firmer than this foundation. Of this immovable firmness of the Church, Christ gave promise to Peter, whom he had disposed to set over his whole Church, saying in Matt. 16: Thou art Peter, and upon this rock, that is, upon this confession of faith, I will build my Church, and there follows: and the gates of hell, that is, sins, threats, flatteries, and heresies, as the Gloss says, shall not prevail against her, the Gloss: that is, they shall not separate her from my faith and charity. Of this unchangeable firmness the most blessed Paul is witness, saying to the Rom. 8: I am sure that neither death shall separate us from the charity of Christ. In a third way "holy" is the same as "tinged or sprinkled or cleansed with blood," for among the ancients nothing was called holy unless it had been sprinkled with the blood of a sacrificial victim. In ancient times also men who wished to be purified were tinged with the blood of a victim, as Isidore says. Whence the Apostle writes to the Heb. 9: Almost all things are cleansed with blood according to the law, and without the shedding of blood there is no remission of sins. By reason of this meaning above all the Church of God comes to be called holy, she who, sprinkled with the blood of Christ, received the cleansing of sins and put on the beauty of holiness. Whence in 1 Pet. 2 it is said: A holy nation, a purchased people, the Gloss: that is, sprinkled with the blood of Christ. And the Apostle says to the Eph. 5: Christ loved the Church and delivered himself for her, that he might sanctify her, and in Apoc. 1 John the Apostle says: He loved us and washed us from our sins in his blood. Fourth, "holy" is the same as "applied to divine services," just as men, places, days, vessels, and vestments dedicated to divine worship are called holy. Of men it is thus found in Exod. 30: Aaron and his sons thou shalt anoint, and shalt sanctify them, that they may exercise the priesthood unto me, and in 2 Esdras, ch. 11, it says: Esdras to the ministers of the house of the Lord: You are holy unto the Lord, and the vessels are. Of place it is said in Ps. 95: Adore the Lord in his holy court. Of vessels it is said in Exod. 30: The ark of the testimony with its vessels, the candlestick and its furnishings, and all the household stuff pertaining to their worship thou shalt sanctify, and they shall be holy of holies. Of holy days it is written in 2 Esdras 10: For the day of the Lord is holy. Of vestments it is said in Exod. 28: Thou shalt make holy vestments for Aaron thy brother, and for his sons. In this meaning the Church of God is deservedly called the holy Church, she who is wholly dedicated to the service and worship of the one true God; indeed, in her alone is the true worship of God, which is perfected by faith, hope, and charity, as Aug. says in ch. Extra, 1, q. 1: Outside the Catholic Church there is no place of true sacrifice. Fifth, holiness is called a certain religion or observance of justice in those things which pertain to God. Whence Andronicus, as holy Thomas says, defines holiness thus: Holiness is the virtue making the faithful keep those things which are just toward God, of which in Luke 1: Let us serve the Lord in holiness and justice before him all our days. In this sense the Church is called holy, because the highest, pure, and immaculate religion is observed in her; she is holy in vows, holy in sacrifices, holy in ministries, holy in ceremonies, holy in each of the observances which pertain to the worship and reverence of the holy divinity. Sixth, the Church of God is called holy because she is spiritually favored and endowed with all virtues, graces, and gifts. Whence in Ps. 64 it is said: We shall be filled with the good things of thy house; the Gloss of Cassiodorus: that is, of the present Church, which abounds with the good things of diverse spiritual gifts. What are those good things? Those good things are holiness in herself, and equity toward one's neighbor, whence there will follow: Holy is thy temple, wonderful in equity, the Gloss: that is, of the Church. For she herself is the house and temple of God, holy in herself and wonderful in equity toward her neighbor. Seventh, the Church of God is called holy because she lives, is ruled, and is governed by the best, most just, and most sacred laws; of the divine law the Apostle says to the Rom. 8: The law is holy, and the commandment holy. And in the psalm it is written: The law of the Lord is immaculate, converting souls; the testimony of the Lord is faithful, giving wisdom to little ones. The public laws, moreover, established for the government of the Church by the holy fathers, are holy, and are confirmed with such truth, on account of their holiness, that blessed Pope Agapetus, writing to all bishops in ch. Sic, dist. 21, says: All sanctions of the apostolic see are to be received as though established by the very divine voice of Peter. Whence violators of the sacred canons, as holy Pope Damasus says in ch. Violatores, 25, q. 1, are gravely judged by the holy fathers, and are condemned by the Holy Spirit, by whose prompting and gift they were dictated, since they do not incongruously seem to blaspheme the Holy Spirit. Eighth, the Church of God is called holy according as "holy" means endowed with the knowledge of the just. For Aristotle says, as Albert the Great reports in the book of praiseworthy goods: Holiness is the virtue of knowledge doing those things which are just toward God; Wisd. 1: He gave them the knowledge of the saints. In this meaning above all the Church is holy, she who alone has the knowledge of the saints and the notice of the divinity. Whence the Lord says of the Church in Zach. 8: Thus saith the Lord of hosts: I am returned to Sion, and will dwell in the midst of Jerusalem, and Jerusalem shall be called the city of truth, and the sanctified mountain, wherefore, as blessed Greg. says in the Morals, and as is found in ch. Quia, 24, q. 1: Because from the Catholic Church alone is the truth seen, the Lord bears witness that his place is with her, concerning which it is to be seen: Moses is set upon the rock, that he may contemplate the face of God, because unless one has held the solidity of faith, he does not acknowledge the divine presence, of which solidity the Lord said: Upon this rock I will build my Church. Ninth, the Church of God is called holy because she has sacraments by which men are sanctified. For a sacrament is so called from consecrating or sanctifying, because, with the divine power working in them, they are instruments of the cleansing and sanctification of souls. Whence to the Eph. 5 it is said: Christ loved the Church, and there follows: that he might sanctify her, cleansing her by the laver of water in the word of life, and Aug. on John, speaking of the power of the sacrament of baptism, says: What force is in water, that it touches the body and washes the heart? Tenth, the Church is called holy because she has been patterned after the holy and glorious triumphant Church, our mother, which is above in the heavens, whence in Apoc. 21 the most blessed Apostle John says: I John saw the holy city, the new Jerusalem, coming down from heaven, from God, prepared as a bride adorned for her husband, and I heard a voice from heaven saying: Behold the tabernacle of God with men, and he shall dwell with them, etc. Which word Bernard, treating it in book 3 of the Consideration, ch. 13: Do not deem vile this form which is on earth; it has its form in heaven, says the man who said: I saw the holy city Jerusalem, etc. By these things the error and blasphemy of certain pseudo-prophets is most openly refuted, who with polluted mouth, speaking with diabolical boldness against the holiness of the Church, have presumed to say that the Church is not holy but a harlot, against whom stand the things we have adduced a little before, and above all that in Cant. 4: Thou art all fair, my love, and there is no spot in thee, and that continuous profession of faith which the universal Church makes, saying: I believe one holy Church, etc.

For a fuller understanding and a firmer establishment of the truth of those things which we have adduced concerning the holiness of the Church, we shall raise some objections to the contrary, proving that the Church is not to be called holy. And first it is argued thus: there is sung in church in the angelic hymn, namely, Glory to God in the highest: Thou alone art holy. If therefore Christ alone is holy, since the Church is not Christ, the Church does not seem to be called holy.¹

Second²: holiness, as Dionysius says in ch. 12 of On the Divine Names, as was said above, is free from all uncleanness, and perfect, and altogether unspotted by uncleanness; but the Church in her present state is not free from all that uncleanness of sin, for blessed John the Apostle says in 1 John 1: If we say that we have no sin, we deceive ourselves, and the truth is not in us; therefore the Church, for her present state, is not to be called holy.

Third³ thus: in Matt. 6 Christ teaches all the faithful to pray for the remission of their sins, thus: Forgive us our debts, etc. — which prayer the Church makes continually; yet this would seem vain if the Church had no sin, especially since Aug. says in On the Good of Perseverance that in this place the Pelagian heretics are pierced through, who dare to say that a just man in this life has no sin at all, and that in such men there is already in the present time a Church not having spot or wrinkle — and this is set in the ordinary Gloss.

Fourth⁴ it is argued thus: in Rom. 3 the Apostle says: But God is true, and every man a liar; therefore it does not seem that the Church, which is the gathering of all the faithful, is to be called holy.

Fifth⁵ thus: it does not belong to the Church in the state of the present life to have no spot or wrinkle, but only in the state of the future life, when she shall appear glorious; therefore she is not now to be called holy, but in the future life. The consequence is clear, and the antecedent is proved by the authority of blessed Aug., who at the end of the first book of the Enchiridion, treating that word of the Apostle, that he might present to himself a Church not having spot or wrinkle, etc., says thus: By this, all the spots of men whatsoever are taken away by the holiness of the Christian washing, whereby Christ cleanses his Church, to present her to himself — not in this world, but in the world to come — not having spot or wrinkle or anything of the sort. For those who now say that she is such, and yet are in her — since they themselves confess that they have sins: if they speak truly, then since they are not clean from sins, the Church has a spot in them; but if they speak falsely, because they speak with a double heart, the Church has a wrinkle in them. But if they say that they have these things, not she: then they confess that they are not her members nor pertain to her body, so that even by their own confession they are condemned.⁶ Sixth, thus: in the Church good and evil are mingled together, as was shown above, and the evil in far greater number than the good; since therefore denomination ought to be made from the greater part, it seems that the Church should be called simply more unclean than holy.⁷ And it is confirmed from ch. Et hoc diximus, Causa 16, q. 7, where Origen says — and it is set in the continuous Gloss on Matt. 21 — that those who live carnally make the house of prayer, built of living stones, a den of robbers by their deeds.

⁸ Seventh, it is argued thus: in the Church are contained not only sinners but also many foreknown, who, though they now have the faith of Christ, yet will not finally persevere in the true faith and the charity of God; therefore it does not seem that the Church should be called holy simply.

⁹ Eighth, thus: the Wise man says in Eccles. 9: No man knoweth whether he be worthy of hatred or love — and less concerning another than concerning himself; therefore no one can know who is holy or unclean; therefore it seems that it does not pertain to the article of faith to believe that the Church, which is the congregation of the faithful, is holy.

¹⁰ Ninth, it is argued thus: the faithful are not confirmed in the faith or in the grace of God in the state of the present pilgrimage; therefore it does not seem that the Church, which is the collection of the faithful, should be called holy, as being established or confirmed.

¹¹ Tenth, it is argued thus: the Church is sometimes said to have been foul and stained; therefore she does not seem always to have been called holy. The consequence seems manifest; the antecedent is clear. For blessed Jerome says — and it is found in On Penance, dist. 1, § Ecclesia —: But it is possible that, as the Church which before had wrinkle and spot and uncleanness was afterwards restored, so also the sinner running to the physician, etc. And the same blessed Jerome, on Ps. 20, expounding that text, Hearken, O daughter, and see, incline thy ear, and forget the house of thy father, says of the Church thus: Forget the house of thy father, that is, the devil who before begot thee, for the whole world was set in evil; therefore incline thy ear, for the king hath coveted thy beauty, Christ Jesus by whom thou art ruled — for thou wast black in thy father's house, but now, ascending after baptism, washed within, or white by the grace of faith, for he is the Lord by whom thou hast been redeemed; and below: Before, the Church was defiled and deformed, but afterwards beautiful and fair through the laver of baptism, for the just died for the impious, that is, Christ cleansing her through the laver of his blood, as the Apostle says, not having spot or wrinkle; and Aug. speaks to the same point on the same Psalm thus: The Church was taken from the human race, that Christ might be the head of the Church; and below: Let the bride, beloved of God, rejoice. When beloved? While still foul. For all have sinned, says the Apostle, and need the glory of God; and again: For Christ died for the impious; she was loved though foul, lest she remain foul — for she was not loved as foul in truth, for it was not foulness that was loved — thus Aug.

It must be firmly confessed with the holy fathers, as has been said, that the Church of Christ is holy. Hence Aug., on that verse of Ps. 85, Guard my soul, for I am holy, says: Let the body of Christ dare to say it; let that one man crying from the ends of the earth dare to say with his head, I am holy, for he has received the grace of holiness, the grace of baptism and the remission of sins; and below: For all Christians, and all the faithful baptized in Christ, have put on Christ himself, as the Apostle says: As many of you as were baptized in Christ have put on Christ. If they have been made members of his body and say they are not holy, they do injury to the very head whose members they have been made. Now we must reply to the arguments. ¹ To the first it is answered that Christ is called the only holy one as he is the only good one, because he alone, as God, is good and holy of himself and by nature, and as man is at the summit of holiness. For this reason he is named in Dan. 9 the Holy of holies. And in the Psalm the prophet confesses of him, saying: God has anointed you with the oil of gladness above your fellows, in which way he alone is holy. And this is what is said in 1 Kings 2: Who is holy as the Lord is, or as another text has it: There is none holy besides you, O Lord, because, as the Gloss says, no one is holy except God; and though there are those who speak of many gods and many lords, yet none of them is by nature what God is, for he alone is the one who says: I am who am. By this, therefore, it is not denied that by participation in his grace the faithful are good and just and holy. Hence the Lord says in Lev. 20: Be holy, for I am holy. And Aug., treating that verse of Ps. 75, Guard my soul, for I am holy, exhorts the faithful thus: let each one of the faithful say, I am holy. This is not the pride of one puffed up, but the confession of one who is not ungrateful. For if you say you are holy of yourself, you are proud; but if, being faithful in Christ and a member of Christ, you say you are not holy, you are ungrateful.

² To the second argument it is answered by first setting down two points to note. First, it is to be noted that for our present purpose a twofold holiness can be distinguished. In one way, holiness bespeaks complete liberation from all uncleanness and corruption of fault and punishment, and this is the holiness of the homeland, of which it is said in the Psalm: Glory, this is to all his saints. In another way, holiness bespeaks cleansing not from any sin or imperfection whatever, but from those uncleannesses that oppose the purity of grace and the light of charity, such as original and mortal fault, of which it is said in Rom. 1: To all who are at Rome, beloved of God, called saints, the Gloss: they were saints sanctified through baptism. Likewise in 1 Cor. 3: The temple of God is holy, which you are, where the Gloss says: It is holy from the time of baptism, because God dwells in no one whom the Holy Spirit has not first sanctified and cleansed. Second, it is to be noted that the holiness by which the Church is called holy in this present life does not bespeak immunity from all sin, corruption and imperfection, but immunity from those vices and sins with which the charity of God cannot stand, through which God abides in us and we in God, 1 John 4, such as criminal or mortal sins. Hence the Gloss on Song 4, You are all fair, my love, and there is no spot in you, says: spot, namely of criminal fault; and so the Gloss of the Decretum holds in ch. omnibus consideratis, 24, q. 1, on the word without spot. And therefore the venerable Bede, treating the aforesaid verse of Song 4, You are all fair, etc., says: These things were said, not because in this life any saint could be immune from all faults or perfect in virtues, since it is truly written that there is no just man on earth who does good and does not sin, but because the holy Church, insofar as she is the Church of Christ, is both right in faith and clean in deed. With these points noted, the answer to the argument is that first it is said that the cleanness implied in the definition of holiness laid down by blessed Dionysius bespeaks cleanness or purity from sin, whether in intellect or in affection, which stands in opposition to grace, such as original and mortal sin, but does not bespeak cleansing from venial sin. Hence Aug. in the Definitions of Right Faith rightly says: None of the saints or the just is without sin, yet they do not thereby cease to be just or holy, since they hold holiness in their affection. Second, to the minor premise, where it is said that the Church in its present state is not wholly free from the uncleanness that is contrary to divine grace, and to the authority of blessed John saying: If we say that we have no sin, etc., it is answered in two ways. In one way, concerning venial sins, which in this present life cannot be wholly avoided; for it is said in Prov. 24: The just man falls seven times a day. And Aug. says, as is found in the Gloss: It is impossible for any saint ever not to fall into the least sins, nor do the just thereby cease to be just, because with God's help they rise again swiftly. Second, it is answered to the same point that if blessed John speaks of mortal sin, then the sense is not that all the faithful have mortal sin, but that if we say from pride, as the interlinear Gloss says, being puffed up about some righteousness, since no one knows whether he is worthy of hatred or love, as is said in Eccles., whoever asserts without revelation that he is without mortal sin incurs the sin of boastful pride and of falsehood, asserting what he does not know. And therefore he says: and the truth is not in us. This is the exposition of Master Nicholas of Lyra. ³ To the third it is answered that, although by that authority of Matt. 6, as the Gloss says, each one of us is taught that he sins daily, since he is commanded to pray daily for his sins, yet it is not given to be understood that daily all we the faithful sin with a sin opposed to holiness. Hence Jerome, on Ps. 118, expounding the verse Blessed are the undefiled in the way, says: How undefiled? Because without slight sins man cannot be, as holy John says: If we say, etc. And the prophet says: He who enters without stain, etc., and in reply he says: without stain, that is, without mortal crimes. ⁴ To the fourth it is to be said that the Apostle does not mean to say in those words that every man lies, indeed he says of himself in 2 Cor. 12: God knows that I do not lie, but, as is gathered from the Gloss, it is given to be understood in the words of the Apostle and of the prophet saying, Every man is a liar, that every man is of changeable nature and will, and therefore can be a liar in his promises; God, however, is not so, since he is invariable and immutable. And thus, as the Gloss says, Every man is a liar is said because, so far as he is of himself, man is slippery in being and flows away through sins. And so the argument taken from that authority does not work against our proposition, since, although every man so far as he is of himself is slippery and liable to flow away through sin, yet through grace he can avoid flowing away. Hence the prophet says in Ps. 93: If I said, my foot is moved, your mercy helped me. And the Apostle in 1 Cor. 15: By the grace of God I am what I am, and his grace in me was not void. ⁵ To the fifth the answer is clear from what was said to the second objection, where, with the distinction made between the two modes of holiness, it was said that the holiness importing complete liberation and immunity from all corruption and the old age⁶ of fault and punishment and from the contagion of any imperfection whatever does not belong to the Church in the state of this present life, but to the future one, when she shall appear glorious; and consequently, speaking in this way, it does not belong to the Church in the state of this present life to have no spot or wrinkle, as the cited authorities of the saints plainly declare. But the holiness that bespeaks immunity from those faults and wrinkles that resist divine grace enlightening the soul does well belong to the Church, as has been shown at length; and consequently in this way immunity belongs to the Church, even in the state of this present life, to have neither spot nor wrinkle nor anything of that sort. ⁷ To the sixth it is to be said that, although the wicked are of the Church in number, they are not so in merit. But the whole Church is holy in all who are of the Church both in number and in merit, such as all the faithful who are rooted in Christ by the love of charity. For blessed Hilary says in his book On the Trinity: You are holy if you are a perfect believer in faith, if you are firm in unshaken hope, if you are perfectly rooted in charity. Hence, although many sinful faithful are said to be in the Church, nevertheless, since these are not true members of the body of Christ nor belong to the Church by the perfect unity which comes through charity, it does not follow that the Church is simply not to be called holy; she is indeed holy, as we have said, in all who belong to her in number and merit, that is, in all her members. ⁸ To the confirmation taken from the authority of Origen it is to be said that, although the Church has wicked men mingled with the good, yet because the wicked are not truly and properly members of the body of Christ which is the Church, it must not simply be granted that the Church of Christ is foul, or not holy, or a den of robbers; but it is well said by the holy doctors, as we cited above, that in some who are not perfectly and properly her members she is weakened, or suffers some foulness, and from the perversity of the deeds of wicked acts of the faithful she takes on some disparaging designations, for instance, that she is called a den of robbers, as cited from Origen, and other things of that sort.

⁹ To the seventh it is answered by denying the consequence, because foreknown believers either have the stain of mortal sin or not, but are in grace. If the first be granted, what was said a little above about other sinful believers must be said of them. But if they are without the stain of mortal sin, possessing the grace of Christ, it must be said that in them too the Church is called holy, even though in the future they will bear the stain or contagion of unbelief and the wrinkle of impiety. For judgment concerning the members of the Church is taken according to the disposition of the present time and not of the future, just as a man is now called clean in limbs which tomorrow or hereafter will be unclean. ¹⁰ To the eighth it is answered by denying the consequence, since we cannot know by human means who among adults in this present life is holy with the holiness of grace and the indwelling of the Holy Spirit. Nevertheless we are most certain that such holiness is in the members of the Church which are her true and proper members, in whom she herself is called holy, inasmuch as she is described as the body of Christ and his beloved spouse, fair and without spot, Song 4.

¹¹ To the ninth it is to be said that the Church in the state of this present life is not said to be so established in faith and charity that all her members are so confirmed in grace that they can no longer sin, but for this reason, that there will always be in the Church some faithful and holy men. ¹² To the tenth and last it is to be said first that, taking the Church as she comprehends angels and men, the Church was always holy, because the good angels remained immovably in the holiness in which they were created. If we speak of the Church as we have spoken above, namely as taken and gathered from faithful men, we say too that the Church was always holy in some person or persons, as blessed Aug. says on Ps. 124: of old there is a Church, and from the time when there are called saints there is a Church on earth. To the authorities cited to the contrary it is said that Aug. and Jerome do not speak of the universal Church which is said to have begun from Abel the just down to the last just man, but of the Church according as it bespeaks the gathering of the faithful coming from the Gentile people, which people was before foul with the filth of idolatry. Hence Aug. on Ps. 103 adds: Is this not she who lay in the mire of iniquities? Is this not she who lay in the fornication of idols? Or it is to be said, and perhaps better, that the Church taken from the human race is not to be understood as having first been foul in the sense that after the Church began to exist she was foul in all her members, since, as will be seen below, in the Church which is said to have begun from Abel the just there were always some holy person or persons, but it must be taken in the sense that all the members of the Church taken from the human race, except our Savior, who was conceived not of human seed but of the Holy Spirit, were before, even if not at the same time, foul with the foulness of some sin, at least original. And this seems to be Aug.'s meaning, as appears from the authorities he cites to prove that the Church was first foul, as is clear from Rom. 3: All have sinned, the Gloss: from one sinner all are born sinners and need the glory of God, and from Rom. 5: he died for the impious.