Summa de Ecclesia

To what is objected in the first argument it is answered¹ in two ways. First, that even at the time when the apostles composed the creed, the Church was Catholic and was thus rightly named, because her faith was Catholic or universal with the universality of truth, since whatever sacred Scripture teaches to be believed is altogether and universally true without any counter-instance. For as Augustine says in his letter to Jerome: If even well-meant falsehoods were admitted into the holy Scriptures, what authority would remain in them? What sentence would ever be brought forth from those Scriptures by whose weight the shamelessness of contentious falsehood would be crushed? Second, it is answered that, even if the Catholic faith, and consequently the Church, at the time when the apostles professed the Church Catholic, was not actually spread through the whole world, it was nevertheless soon to be spread, according to Ps. 71: He shall rule from sea to sea, and from the river to the ends of the earth, where the Gloss, taken from Augustine, reads: It shows the amplitude of the kingdom; it is so broad that he shall rule from sea, that is, from any end of the earth, to sea, that is, to any end of the earth; the Church shall be spread abroad so widely, and from the river Jordan he shall rule, where the voice of the Father thundered over Christ: This is my beloved Son. Hence his teaching began; hence the authority of his magisterium is extended to the ends of the earth, with the Gospel of the kingdom of Christ preached; hence the rule of baptism emanated through the whole world. So the Gloss. To the second it is answered as to the preceding: the minor premise is denied as universal, since the Church was always Catholic with the universality of purity and truth of the faith itself. But speaking of the universality of extension through the world, the minor is granted and the consequence denied. For although one and the same Church is and always was among the ancient fathers as among us, nevertheless through the succession of times certain things were instituted in the Church, and ampler gifts of graces were given to the Church, as we said above, in which there is great difference in the Church with respect to the state of the Old Testament and with respect to the state of the fullness of grace, as is clear in the knowledge of the one God, which for that time was almost only among the Jewish people, according to what was cited from Ps. 75: God is known in Judea. But now he is renowned through the whole world. Hence Jerome in the Gloss on the aforesaid Psalm says: Before the cross illumined the world, before the Lord was seen on earth, God was known in Judea and his name great in Israel; but when the Savior came, his sound went out into all the earth, and his words to the ends of the world. So Jerome. Hence according to this notion of universality, the Church began to be Catholic from the time of grace, as will be held more clearly below around ch. 24. Hence Ambrose, treating Ps. 39, I have declared your righteousness in the great Church, says: Why does he add great, unless because before she was not great? What is great but what is gathered from the parts of the whole world? To the third² it is answered, following Innocent in a certain letter, that the Church is called universal in two ways. In one way, as she consists of all the churches; thus it is taken in ch. alienus, 24, q. 1, where Cyprian says: He is an outsider, he is profane, he is an enemy; he cannot have God as father who does not hold the unity of the universal Church. And in ch. scisma: those who have departed from the universal Church, etc. And according to this acceptation of the term universality, the Roman Church is not the universal Church but a part of the universal Church, namely the first and chief, as the head in the body, as found in ch. quamvis, dist. 21, where it is found: although all the Catholic churches throughout the world are one bridal chamber of Christ, yet the holy Roman, Catholic and apostolic Church is set above the other churches. In another way, that is called the universal Church which contains all churches under itself, and in this way the Roman Church is called the universal Church, since she alone is set above the rest, as in the aforesaid ch. quamvis, and in ch. omnes, and in ch. sacrosancta, dist. 22. The Roman Church is also called most Catholic because in her the Christian religion has always been preserved without stain, as in ch. in sede apostolica, 24, q. 1, and because by the grace of almighty God she is proved never to have strayed from the path of apostolic tradition, nor to have succumbed to be corrupted by heretical novelties, as in ch. a recta of the same cause, etc. To the fourth³ it is to be said that particular churches are called Catholic not by reason of diffusion or extension through the world, but by reason of the Catholic faith, which is common to all the churches of Christ scattered through the world, so that a church is called Catholic just as a man is called Catholic, namely one who holds the faith which the whole Church throughout the world observes. To the fifth⁴ it is answered that the Pope is truly the universal Pope and ruler of the universal Church, and we shall show this elsewhere, with Christ as guide, when we speak of the Roman pontiff; many holy fathers named and wrote of the Roman pontiffs as universal, whence the whole synod of Chalcedon is reported to have acclaimed Pope Leo: Most holy apostolic and ecumenical, that is, universal Patriarch, may he live for many years. Yet he is forbidden to be called universal, partly on account of humility, and partly because he is not set over any particular church as the proper and special ruler of that church, for thus the powers of all other pontiffs would cease; and this reason is assigned in ch. a legato nullus. This is also the judgment of blessed Thomas in his treatise Against Those Impugning Religion. From what has been said of the universality of the Church, the error of heretics is refuted who confine themselves to one corner of the earth or to some region or nation, as was the error of Donatus, who said the Church of Christ existed in Africa alone, against whom and his followers Augustine on Ps. 8 speaks thus: Such men curse Christ who say: the Church has perished from the whole world and remained in Africa alone. But see, brethren, how great an injury they do; Scripture says: In a numerous people is the dignity of the king, and in the fewness of the people the dishonor of the prince.