Summa de Ecclesia

¹

It is to be believed and held without any hesitation that the Christian faith is to be called Catholic or universal for the reasons assigned above, which we confirm again: first, by the authority of the most blessed Apostle Paul, who, writing to Titus 1, says: But in his own times he manifested his word through the preaching which was entrusted to me according to the commandment of God our Savior, to Titus, his beloved son, according to the common faith, the Gloss: namely Catholic. Moreover, blessed Aug. says in his book On True Religion: We must hold the Christian religion and the communion of that Church which is Catholic and is called Catholic not only by her own members but even by all her enemies. For a fuller understanding of this matter, it is to be noted that faith, like any other knowledge, as holy Thomas says on Boethius On the Trinity, has a twofold matter: namely the matter in which, that is, the believers themselves, and the matter about which, namely the things believed themselves. And on the side of either matter the Christian faith can be called Catholic. On the side of believers, because the Apostle asserts in Rom. 3 that faith to be true which was attested by the law and the prophets. But since in the times of the prophets diverse nations devoted themselves to the cults of diverse gods, while the people of Israel alone rendered due worship to the true God, and thus there was not one universal religion, the Holy Spirit foretold through those same prophets that the worship of the true God would be taken up by all. Hence it is said in Isa. 45: Every knee shall bow to me, and every tongue shall confess. This is fulfilled through the Christian religion, whence she is rightly named Catholic, as received by men of any nation whatever, according to what the Lord says through Malachi, ch. 1: From the rising of the sun to its setting my name is great among the nations, and in every place there is sacrifice, and a clean oblation is offered to my name. Therefore those who have turned aside from this faith and religion, commonly promised and received, into certain private opinions are called not Catholics but heretics, as cut off from communion. But universality is also found in the Christian faith on the side of the things believed. For of old there were diverse arts and ways by which provision was made, or believed to be made, for men in diverse respects. Some placed the good of man in bodily things alone, whether in riches, honors or pleasures; some in the goods of the soul alone, as in moral or intellectual virtues; some, as Augustine says in his book On the City of God, thought the gods should be worshipped for the temporal goods of this life, while others did so for the goods that come after this life. For Porphyry held that by certain Gentile observances the imaginary part of the soul was purged, and not the whole soul; he said, as Aug. reports in book 10 of On the City of God, that no sect had yet been received containing a universal way for the liberation of the soul. But this is the Christian religion, as Aug. says in the same place. For she teaches that God is to be worshipped not only for eternal benefits but also for temporal ones; she directs man not only in spiritual things but also in the use of bodily things, and promises the beatitude of soul and body. And therefore her rules are called universal, as ordering the whole life of man in everything that pertains to him in any way. And Boethius assigns these two reasons for universality, as we said above, in his book On the Trinity. With these points noted, we must reply to the arguments.

To the first² it is answered that, although God in himself is neither universal nor particular, he is yet the universal cause and end of all things, and thus the knowledge held of him is in a certain way universal with respect to all. To the second³ it is answered that the reasoning does not hold, because faith holds those particular deeds, for instance the nativity, passion and resurrection of Christ, etc., as universal remedies for the liberation of the whole human race, according to 1 Tim. 2: For there is one God, and one mediator of God and men, the man Christ Jesus, who gave himself as redemption for all, the Interlinear Gloss: he excepts no one who would be saved. To the third⁴ it is to be said that, although other sects set forth and strive to have what they hand down universally observed by all, this does not belong to them; and if they presume to claim for themselves what is proper to the Christian faith, they nevertheless cannot attain it, whence the name of proper universality does not belong to them. To the fourth⁵ it is to be said that, although idolatry reached every part of the world, it was not one religion but diverse among diverse peoples, since diverse peoples instituted diverse gods to be worshipped, nor again was it received by all nations, since it was rejected by the worshippers of the true God and even by the wise men of the Gentiles, who said such ceremonies were to be observed as commanded by the laws, not as pleasing to the gods, as Aug. reports of Seneca in book 6 of On the City of God. To the fifth⁶ it is to be said that the Christian faith is not called Catholic or universal on account of single kinds, but on account of kinds of single persons, because from every condition of men some adhere to her, according to the prophecy of the prophet saying in Ps. 21: All the ends of the earth shall be converted to the Lord, and all the kindreds of the Gentiles shall adore in his sight.