Summa de Ecclesia

¹

Now we must consider how the holy Church of God is called Catholic. And first it is to be noted that we are accustomed to attribute this name Catholic to three things: to the Church, to the Christian faith, and to men who hold the faith of Christ. For we confess the Catholic Church with the fathers and the Nicene Creed. We also call the faith of Christ Catholic with blessed Athanasius, who says in his creed: This is the Catholic faith. Likewise we call a Christian Catholic, as Jerome says in ch. haec est fides, father most blessed, 24, q. 1, where he says: Whoever wishes to blame me will prove himself unskilled or malevolent, or even not Catholic but a heretic. Catholic is a Greek name, and in Latin it means universal. Now the faith of Christ is first called Catholic for several reasons. One, because it was announced, planted and sown throughout the whole world and among every nation, according to Ps.: Their sound, namely of the apostles, has gone out into all the earth, and their words unto the ends of the world, which we read was thus prophesied of them in Isaiah, as the Gloss says where it is written: ² They shall fill the face of the world with seed, namely of preaching. This was also imposed on them by our Savior, who, wishing all men to be saved, commands the apostles in Matt., last chapter: Going into the whole world, preach the Gospel to every creature. And in Mark, last chapter, it is said: They preached everywhere. And the Apostle Paul, commending this universality of faith in the Romans, says in Rom. 1: Your faith is proclaimed in the whole world. Second, the faith of Christ is called Catholic because the Church has held and holds it through all time. Hence Augustine in the treatise called On Catholic Truth says: Catholic is a Greek name, rendered in the Latin tongue as universal, because the Church, spread through the whole world, holds this faith through all time, and it was never changed with time or varied with places. For the faith of heretics cannot be called Catholic, because it is not public but private, nor is it held everywhere. Third, the faith of Christ is called Catholic, as Boethius says at the beginning of his book On the Trinity, because its precepts are not set forth to be observed by one nation only, but are set before all nations, in which it differs above all from the law of Moses, who set precepts before one people only; likewise, each of the heresies hands down convenient precepts only to its own followers. But the Catholic faith, caring for all, grants convenient precepts to all, not only to the continent, as the Manicheans do, but also to the married; not only to the innocent, as the Novatians do, but also to penitents, to whom they denied salvation. Fourth, it is called Catholic because it is so universally true that no falsehood, error or iniquity is mixed with it, in whatever part, in whatever article, in whatever case. But the sects of the Gentiles and the doctrines of heretics and of philosophers are not universal in this way, because though they speak truth in some part of themselves, yet in many points they fall short of the truth. Not so with the faith, which can never fall away from truth. Hence the Prophet says in the Psalm: The wicked have told me fables, but not as your law; all your commandments are truth. And below: Forever, O Lord, your word endures; your truth from generation to generation. Moreover, any Christian is called Catholic who believes and holds to be true what the Catholic faith teaches and preaches. Hence Aug. in book 3 of his Questions on the Gospels, q. 2, speaking of the two kinds of Catholics, namely the good and the bad, says: Those alone are reckoned bad Catholics who, though they believe true things pertaining to the doctrine of faith, yet live wickedly; good Catholics are those who both follow right faith and good morals. But whoever does not believe any of these things is called an unbeliever and a heretic: an unbeliever because he has not the faith; a heretic because, as asserter and defender of his own sect, he pertinaciously prefers the fantasies of his errors to divine authority. From these points the main proposition will easily be able to hold³, namely why the holy Church is to be called Catholic. On this it is to be noted that the Church is called Catholic or universal first with respect to place, because she is spread through the whole world, and this is the reasoning of blessed Aug. in his treatise On the Creed, saying: The churches of the various heretics are not called Catholic because they are contained in their own places and provinces. But this Church, from the rising of the sun to its setting, is spread abroad in the splendor of one faith. Of this universality it is written in Ps. 60: From the ends of the earth I cried to you. On this verse Augustine in his exposition of Ps. 29: Which of us cries from the ends of the earth? Not I, not you, not he, but from the ends of the earth the whole Church herself alone, the whole inheritance⁴ of Christ. Likewise in Ps. 112 it is said: From the rising of the sun to its setting, the name of the Lord is praiseworthy. But wherever God is feared and praised, there is the Church of Christ, says Aug. Second, the Church is called Catholic, that is, universal, with respect to all time. For she will never fail, as some wrongly thought, but beginning from Abel the just she will endure to the end of the world, since God founded her forever, Ps. 47, and in Matt., last chapter, Christ thus promised his disciples, saying: But I am with you even to the consummation of the world. Third, the Church is called Catholic, that is, universal, with respect to every nation. For the Church is gathered from every tribe, tongue, people and nation, according to Rev. 5: You have redeemed us, O God, in your blood from every tribe, tongue, people and nation, and have made us a kingdom to our God. On this account blessed Peter says in Acts 10: In truth I have found that God is no respecter of persons, but in every nation he who fears him and works righteousness is acceptable to him. Fourth, the Church is called Catholic, that is, universal, with respect to the conditions of men, because no one is cast out of the Church, not master, not servant, not male, not female, not Greek, not Jew, and in short no condition of men is excepted. Hence the Apostle says in Col. 3: Where there is neither male nor female, Gentile nor Jew, circumcision nor uncircumcision, Barbarian nor Scythian, servant nor free, but Christ is all in all, the Gloss: no one is excepted as unworthy. And below: In the new man no outward diversity prejudices anyone, namely neither of sexes, nor of nations, nor of observances, nor of tongues, nor of conditions. Fifth, the Church is called Catholic because, as Boethius says at the beginning of his book On the Trinity, the articles of faith are universal, admitting no counter-instance or exception, because falsehood can never underlie faith, of which we read in 2 Cor. 1: God is faithful, for our preaching which was among you, there is not in it yea and nay, the Gloss: namely falsehood, as in the preaching of false preachers, but there is in it yea, that is, simple truth. Sixth, the Church is called Catholic because in her is given general teaching concerning visible and invisible things, concerning heavenly and eternal things which are necessary and useful for the instruction of men and the salvation of the human race. For Anselm says: We preach nothing useful to spiritual salvation which sacred Scripture, made fruitful by the miracle of the Holy Spirit, has not brought forth or does not contain in itself. Here plainly, as Aug. says to Volusianus, are physics, ethics and logic, to which three all philosophy is reduced, as Plato teaches, and Aug. recounts in On the City of God. Here is physics, since the causes of all natures are in God the creator. Here is ethics, since life and honesty are formed from nowhere else than when the things to be loved are loved as they ought to be loved, namely God and neighbor. Here is logic, since the truth and light of the rational soul is none but God. Here too is the praiseworthy safety of the commonwealth, for a city is not best kept safe unless solidified on the foundation and bond of faith and firm concord. Seventh, the Church is called Catholic on account of the universality of her precepts. For the precepts given to the synagogue were particular: particular in time, because they were given for a time and at length to be changed at the season of the coming of our Redeemer, for they were a shadow of things to come, Col. 2; particular in nation, because they were given to one nation only, namely the people of Israel, from whom Christ was to be born according to the flesh, of whom it is said in Ps. 167: He has not done so to every nation, and his judgments he has not made manifest to them; particular in the condition of men, for the precept of circumcision was given to males alone. But the precepts of the Christian religion are universal in time, because they will endure to the end of the world, Matt. 24: Amen I say to you, this generation shall not pass until all these things come to pass, which Chrysostom expounds of the generation of the faithful of Christ. Second, they are universal with respect to nation, as already held, and in Gal. 3 the Apostle says: For you are all children of God through the faith which is in Christ Jesus. For as many of you as were baptized in Christ have put on Christ; there is neither Jew nor Greek, there is neither servant nor free, there is neither male nor female, for you are all one in Christ Jesus. Third, they are universal with respect to the conditions of men, whence the precept of baptism was given, which is common to men and women. Eighth, the Church is called Catholic, that is, universal, because she has universal remedies or medicines which have salutary efficacy for the cure of any spiritual member whatever, namely the seven sacraments, in which under the covering of sensible things the divine power works more secretly, as the Master of the Sentences says in book 4, dist. 1. Several of these modes of the universality by which the Church is called Catholic or universal are touched on by blessed Isidore in his first book On Offices, saying: The Church is properly called a church because she calls all to herself and gathers them into one. She is called Catholic because she is established throughout the whole world; or because the teaching in her is Catholic, that is, general, for the instruction of men concerning visible and invisible things, heavenly and earthly; or on account of the whole race of men for the relief of piety, both rulers and those whom they rule, the learned and the unlearned; or because she generally cures all sins committed through body and soul. So Isidore.