Summa de Ecclesia

¹

Before we proceed to other matters, it seemed to us necessary to declare in this place how that is to be understood which some read in the creed of the holy fathers: And in one holy Church. For there are some who perversely interpret this. We ourselves saw at Basel, among those gathered in the general council, men so delirious concerning the authority of the Church that at this word they bent their knees and venerated that article with profound humility, just as the faithful and devout Christian people are wont to do at the words: And he was incarnate by the Holy Spirit of the Virgin Mary, and was made man. On this point it is to be considered that, as Albert the Great says, that saying of the holy fathers is not to be taken as though the holy synod commanded us to believe in something else that is not God, for this would be idolatry and not faith. For the 'in' which we believe designates the end of our faith. As Aug. says, cited in On Penance, dist. 2, ch. ex praemissis: To believe in Christ is to tend toward him in love; so if the end of our faith were in something that is not God, that would be absurd. Hence Aug., treating John 14, You believe in God, believe also in me, says: Never would any of the apostles dare to say, he who believes in me. He would never say, he who believes in me. For we believe the apostle, but we do not believe in the apostle. Likewise the same Aug. in the Gloss on Rom. 4, To everyone who believes in him, etc., says: Note what he says, who believes in him; for it is one thing to believe in him, another to believe him, another to believe that he is. We believe Peter, but not in Peter. Therefore the same Aug. in his letter to the Neophytes, found in On Consecration, dist. 4, ch. 1, says: We do not ask in the same way, as how belief in God is held, so belief in the holy and Catholic Church. She is holy and Catholic precisely because she rightly believes in God. We did not say, therefore, that you should believe in the Church as in God, but understand us to say, and to have said, that you should believe in God in the holy Catholic Church. So Aug. On account of this difficulty, as Alexander of Hales attests in his third book on this point, and holy Thomas in his Commentary on the Sentences, book 3, dist. 25, Pope Leo says we ought not to say, in one holy, but simply one holy. But as Anselm says, it can be said in one holy insofar as in this effect uncreated truth is understood, namely the Holy Spirit, so that the sense is: I believe in the holy Church, that is, in the Holy Spirit coming with his gifts and sanctifying the Church; in which sense holy Thomas affirms the same, whence in 2-2, q. 2, art. 9, he says: If it is said, in the holy Catholic Church, this is to be understood according as our faith is referred to the Holy Spirit who sanctifies the Church, so that the sense is: I believe in the Holy Spirit sanctifying the Church. But it is better, and according to the more common use, that in not be added, but that it simply be said, the holy Catholic Church, as Pope Leo also says. So holy Thomas. To the same effect is the judgment of Albert the Great in his exposition of the creed, saying: Because every article is founded on divine and eternal truth, and not on created truth, for a creature is vain and has no solid truth, therefore that article must be resolved into the proper work of the Holy Spirit, that is: I believe in the Holy Spirit, not only in himself, as the preceding article said, but I believe in him according to his proper work, which is that he sanctifies the Church. Likewise Rufinus in his explanation of the creed says: The holy Church, the forgiveness of sins, the resurrection of this flesh: he did not say, In the holy Church, nor In the forgiveness of sins, nor In the resurrection of the flesh. For if he had added the preposition in, it would have had one and the same force with the preceding words; but as it is, in those words where faith concerning divinity is set forth, it is said in God the Father, and in Jesus Christ his Son, and in the Holy Spirit. But in the rest, where the discourse is not of divinity but of creatures and mysteries, the preposition in is not added, so that it is not said in the holy Church, but that the holy Church is to be believed, not as God, but as the Church gathered by God; and that the forgiveness of sins is to be believed, not in the forgiveness of sins; not in the resurrection of the flesh. By this syllable of the preposition, therefore, the Creator is distinguished from creatures, and divine things separated from human. And below: Those, therefore, who above were taught to believe in one God under the mystery of the Trinity, ought also to believe this: that there is one holy Church in which there is one faith and one baptism, in which one God the Father is believed, and one God Jesus Christ his Son, and one God the Holy Spirit. This, therefore, is the holy Church, not having spot or wrinkle; for many others too gathered churches, as Marcion, as Valentinus, as Ebion, as Mani, as Arius, and all other heretics, but those churches are not without the spot and wrinkle of unbelief. And therefore the prophet said of them: I have hated the church of the malignant, and with the wicked I will not sit. But of this Church which keeps the faith of Christ intact, hear what the Holy Spirit says in the Song of Songs: One is my dove, one is the perfect one of her mother. Whoever, therefore, receives this faith in the Church, let him not turn aside into the council of vanity, nor enter with those who do iniquitous things.