Summa de Ecclesia

¹

Now that faith concerning the unity and holiness of the Catholic and apostolic Church has been established, before we touch on further matters, it seemed to us most useful first to refute the pernicious error of those who, thinking impiously against the dignity of the holy Catholic and apostolic Church and the sacrament of her inseparable unity, presumed to assert that outside the unity of this holy Church anyone can be saved in his own sect: Jew, Saracen, pagan, and even heretic or schismatic. Their most pernicious assertion we could show from many points to be not only false or erroneous but heretical. Yet we have decided for now to take the foundations of the present disputation from those things which in sacred Scripture are attributed to faith by reason of its power, since it is from the very unity of faith that the unity of the holy Catholic and apostolic Church primordially arises, as we showed above.

Now it is argued first thus. The faith of Christ is the principle and first foundation of supernal beatitude, as the Apostle says in 1 Cor. 3: No one can lay another foundation besides that which has been laid, which is Christ Jesus; the Gloss: the faith of Christ which works through love, through which Jesus dwells in hearts; there is no other foundation, says the Gloss. Hence the most blessed Paul thus defines faith in Heb. 11: Faith is the substance of things hoped for, the evidence of things unseen; the Gloss: the foundation of all good things, which no one can change, without which there is no good building; for it, as blessed Chrysostom testifies, is the foundation of the Christian religion. And as Aug. says in the book On the Predestination of the Saints, it is the virtue by which the things pertaining to the foundation of religion are rightly and firmly believed. Therefore it is impossible that those who are separated and estranged from the unity of faith, which is the first foundation of the spiritual building and from which, as from a root, whatever of beatitude the faithful hope for proceeds, should attain ecclesiastical beatitude. Hence in ch. Quicumque, C. XXIV, q. 1, the venerable Beda says thus: Whoever in any way segregate themselves from the unity of faith or from the society of Peter the Apostle, such can neither be absolved from the bonds of sins nor enter the gate of the heavenly kingdom. Second, it is argued from that saying of the Apostle in Heb. II: It is impossible to please God without faith, where the Gloss: faith is so necessary that without it no one pleases God. Since therefore no one can be saved unless he pleases God by faith, it is manifest that those who are outside the unity of the faith which the universal Church believes and preaches cannot be saved. Hence in Extra, De summa Trinitate et fide catholica, ch. 1, it is said: There is one faithful Church, outside which no one at all is saved. Third, confirming the reason given, it is argued thus. Eternal salvation is ascribed as its proper effect to the faith which the holy universal Church holds concerning Christ. Hence in Matt. 9, Mark 5, and Luke 8, Christ said to the woman who suffered a flow of blood and had touched the hem of his garment: Daughter, your faith has saved you; and similar things in other places; and in Mark 10 he said to the blind man: Your faith has saved you, etc. And to this the Apostle gives distinguished testimony in Gal. II, saying: By none of the works of the law is a man justified except through faith; and in Eph. 2: By grace you have been saved through faith. Therefore whoever is segregated from the unity of the faith of the universal Church is shut out from all hope of salvation, and consequently every such person comes to be damned eternally, which also appears from other most clear testimonies of sacred Scripture and of the saints. For our Saviour says in the last chapter of Mark: He who believes and is baptized shall be saved; but he who does not believe shall be condemned; and in John 3: The Father loves the Son and has given all things into his hand; he who believes in the Son has eternal life, but he who is unbelieving toward the Son shall not see eternal life, but the wrath of God abides upon him. Hence St Athanasius cries out in the Creed: This is the Catholic faith, which unless each one believes faithfully and firmly, he cannot be saved. Moreover Aug., in a certain epistle, as found in ch. Si quis, C. XXIII, q. 4, says thus: If anyone shall have been separated from the Catholic Church, however laudably he thinks he lives, by this crime alone, that he is disjoined from Christendom, he shall not have life, but the wrath of God abides upon him. Fourth, it is argued thus. The spiritual life of the soul is specially attributed to formed faith, from which the perfect ecclesiastical unity itself arises, according to that in Rom. I: The just lives by faith; and in Gal. II: I live by faith of the Son of God. Therefore whoever is outside the unity of this faith, by which the universal Church herself lives, is to be counted not among those living spiritually, to whom eternal life is promised, but among the dead, and consequently among the damned. Hence Aug., in the epistle to Vincent, as found in ch. Quemadmodum, C. XXIII, q. 7, says thus: Just as a limb, if cut off from the body of a living man, cannot retain the spirit of life, so a man who is cut off from the body of Christ the just can in no way retain the spirit of justice. Fifth thus: to the virtue of faith is attributed the sonship of God, according to that in John 1: He gave them power to become sons of God; and that in Gal. 3: You are all sons of God through faith; and 1 John 5: Everyone who believes that Jesus is the Christ is born of God. Therefore whoever alienates and segregates himself from the unity of the faith which the holy and universal Church holds cannot be numbered among the sons of God, and consequently not among the co-heirs of Christ of the kingdom of heaven. Hence blessed Cyprian, as found in ch. Alienus, C. XXIV, q. 1: He is estranged, he is profane, he is an enemy; he cannot have God as father who does not hold the unity of the universal Church. Sixth thus: we read it as a certain attribute of faith that it is the root of all good things, so that where the faith of Christ is not, there can be no meritorious good. Hence Aug. too, as found in ch. Ubi, C. XXIV, q. 1: Where faith is not, there can be no justice, because the just lives by faith. Hence the blessed Apostle says in Rom. 14: All that is not of faith is sin; the Gloss of Aug., also placed in ch. Omnis, C. XXVIII, q. 3: The life of all unbelievers is sin, because everyone living or acting without faith sins grievously, and nothing is good without the highest good; where the knowledge of eternal and unchangeable truth is lacking, virtue is false even in the best morals. And Gregory: Just as branches wither without the strength of the root, so whatever works, however good they seem, are nothing if they are separated from the strength of faith. Therefore it is manifest that whoever is separated outside the unity of the universal Church, which is established upon the communion of one faith, all hope of salvation being taken away unless he hasten back to the bosom of the Church, is a son of perdition. Hence Aug., as found in Extra, De haereticis, ch. Firmissime, says: Hold most firmly and doubt in no way that every heretic and schismatic will share with the devil and his angels in the burning of eternal fire, unless before the end of life he shall have been incorporated into and reintegrated with the catholic Church; and after a few words: To every man who does not hold the unity of the catholic Church, neither baptism nor almsgiving, however abundant, nor death suffered for the name of Christ will be able to profit unto salvation. And Jerome, in ch. Quoniam, C. XXIV, q. 1, speaking of the house of the holy Church, which he says is founded above Peter, that is, upon the confession of Peter's faith, confirms our proposition, saying: Whoever eats the lamb outside this house is profane; if anyone shall not have been in Noah's ark, he will perish when the flood reigns. Seventh, the aforesaid reprobate error is shown most clearly from this, that to the virtue of faith this is ascribed: that it is the one door of eternal salvation. Hence in John 10: Amen I say to you, he who does not enter through the door, that is, by believing in Christ, but strives to climb up another way, that is, through any other sects whatsoever, he is a thief and a robber. That the faith of Christ is called the door is testified by the apostles Paul and Barnabas in Acts 14, saying: Because the Lord had opened to the Gentiles the door of faith. Therefore only he reaches the haven of salvation who enters through Christ's door into the catholic Church. Hence in John 3 Christ says: I am the door; if anyone enters through me, he shall be saved. Indeed, with Peter the Apostle testifying in Acts 4: There is salvation in no other; for there is no other name under heaven given to men wherein we must be saved. Hence Christ said to the Jews in John 8: If you do not believe that I am, you shall die in your sin, which long before the holy Moses, the most illustrious prophet, prophesying concerning Christ, had foretold, saying: The Lord thy God will raise up to thee a prophet of thy nation and of thy brethren like unto me: him thou shalt hear; and below, Deut. 18: I will raise up to them a prophet from the midst of their brethren; the Gloss: Christ, of the seed of David. False therefore, and manifestly heretical, is it that those segregated from the unity of the faith of the holy catholic Church have any hope of eternal salvation. In most open testimony of which, the Apostle in Rom. 1 writes the philosophers damned, who did not worship God by faith, saying thus: So that they are inexcusable, because when they knew God, they did not glorify him as God, the Gloss: by living well and worshipping, nor give thanks, but became vain in their thoughts, and their foolish heart was darkened, etc. And let so much have been said by us for the refutation of the aforesaid error.