Summa de Ecclesia

¹

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.