Summa de Ecclesia

¹ When the Apostle, speaking of the marriage of our first parents in Eph. 5, added: This is a great sacrament in Christ and the Church, he openly designated carnal marriage to be a figure of the spiritual marriage of Christ and the Church, and therefore, since in carnal marriage it is customary for the bridegroom to give the bride dowry gifts and presents for the adornment of the bride and the solace of the marriage, according to Gen. 34 where Sichem says to Jacob and his sons: Increase the dowry and ask for presents, there is no doubt that that sublime and most noble bridegroom, namely Christ, in his magnificence bestowed upon his spouse in this betrothal the amplest gifts with which he pledged her and conferred most precious ornaments for her beauty, as is found in Ezech. 16, where the spouse himself says to the Church: I swore to you, and I entered into a pact with you. Behold the pact of the contracted marriage. And you became mine, namely my spouse. And there follows: And I washed you, namely with the water of baptism, in Eph. 5: Cleansing her by the laver of the water of life. I cleansed your blood from you, when I expiated you from the filth of your vices, Apoc. 1: He loved us and washed us in his blood, and I anointed you with oil, namely of special grace. God has anointed you with the oil of gladness, Ps. 43, and in 2 Cor. 1 he says: He who confirms us with you in Christ, and who has anointed us, is God. I clothed you with parti-colored garments, namely that variety of virtues of which the Apostle writes to Col. 2, saying: Put on yourselves, as the elect of God, holy and beloved, the bowels of mercy, benignity, humility, modesty, patience, and the rest that follow. And I shod you with hyacinth, that is, I adorned your holy ones with a holy and heavenly intention, which hyacinth designates. I girded you with fine linen, that is, with the girdle of continence. And I clothed you with fine cloths, that is, with many and manifold spiritual ornaments. Many other things follow in the text by which the greatest gifts of graces and ornaments of virtues are designated, with which Christ most magnificently dowered his spouse the Church. But since in the last chapter of Proverbs it is said that fine linen and purple are her garment, namely of the spouse, not only by the beauty of virtues understood by the fine linen but also by the prerogative of a privileged and glorious authority understood by the purple, by which royal raiment is meant, the spouse herself the Church has been most magnificently exalted by Christ.

² Christ in his own person possessed certain privileges, illustrious in dignity and authority, which he made common after a fashion to his spouse the Church taken from among men, and which he did not grant even to the angels themselves. For he is the true priest, the good shepherd, the sweet mediator, the just judge, the singular physician, the impregnable doorkeeper, the only-begotten son; just as he alone possesses all these things, so he left them to the Church alone in her priests and prelates, so that they have not been granted even to the angelic spirits themselves.

³ Christ in the first place was a true priest, according to the word: You are a priest forever according to the order of Melchisedech, Ps. 109, who on the day before he suffered, taking bread into his hands, by the power of his own divinity changed it into his own body and gave it to His disciples, saying: Take and eat of this, all of you; this is My body, Matt. 26 — where in truth one and the same was both feeder and food, both giver and gift, offerer and offered, as Jerome says, and as is held in ch. Nec Moyses, On consecration, dist. 2. And there is the verse of the ancients: The King sits at supper girt by the twelvefold throng. He holds Himself in His hands; He, the food, feeds Himself — where the same was priest and sacrifice, Extra On the supreme Trinity and the catholic faith. This admirable power of consecrating He did not grant to angels, but gave it to the priests of His spouse the Church, to whom in the apostles He says: Do this in commemoration of Me, Luke 22. For to priests alone is it given to confect so admirable a sacrament and to minister it to the rest of the faithful, in ch. Perlectis, dist. 25. Whence in ch. Cleros, dist. 21, he is called priest because he consecrates and sanctifies; yet the priest fulfils this admirable mystery by no other power, and performs it by no other word than that of Jesus Christ Himself, as Ambrose says in the book On the sacraments, and as is held in ch. Panis, On consecration, dist. 2.

⁴ Furthermore, second, Christ is the good shepherd, who not only fed his sheep with the pasture of doctrine and the example of holiness but laid down his soul for them, John 10. This pastoral care, this royal authority, he entrusted to the prelates of his spouse the Church, whom he granted her as shepherds set over her as vicars of his work. Whence Christ, committing the care of the whole flock of the Lord to blessed Peter and in him to his successors, says: Feed my lambs, last chapter of John. This pastoral dignity he assuredly did not give to the angels, who are removed from human company. For they are ministers in a good sense, as the Apostle says to Heb. 1: They are all ministering spirits, but not shepherds.

⁵ Moreover Christ himself is the sweet and best mediator, 2 Thi. 1: One mediator of God and men, the man Christ Jesus, who made peace between us and God, the best reconciler of the lowest with the highest, whence there follows: Who gave himself as a redemption for many, and in Rom. 5 the Apostle says: When we were enemies of God we were reconciled through the death of his Son. The dignity of this office Christ granted to the priests of his spouse, who through the sacrament of penance, through the precious sacrifice of the altar, and through prayers pleasing to God perform the ministry of a mediator as middle arbiters between God and men, reconciling sinners to almighty God who had been offended. Whence Leo the Pope, as found in the decree on Penance, dist. 1, ch. Multiplex, proves this same point, saying: The mediator of God and men, the man Christ Jesus, handed this power to those set over the Church, that they should give penitential satisfaction to those who confess, and should admit those purged by that satisfaction to the communion of the sacraments through the door of reconciliation. Whence also Moses in Deut. 5 says: I am the mediator and the middle between God and you. To the angels the authority of this office has not been conceded, because such sacramental reconciliation is accomplished not through angels but through the mouths of priests. Whence it was not said to them but to men: Whose sins you remit, they are remitted to them, and Amb., as found in the decree on Penance, dist. 1, ch. Verbum, proves this same point, saying: This right has been permitted to priests alone, the Gloss on the word in 2 Thi. 1, One mediator, etc., says: The good angels cannot be middles between wretched mortals and blessed immortality.

⁶ Furthermore he is the just judge, who sits upon thrones and judges equity, John 5: The Father has given all judgment to the Son. This judicial power Christ himself conferred upon his spouse the Church in her prelates, who as vicars of Jesus Christ himself bear the name of judge in the Church. Whence Matt. 17: If he sins against you — your brother — it follows: If he will not hear you, tell the Church, the Gloss: that is, those who preside over the Church. The eminence of whose throne and principate shines most in the apostolic see. Whence the Lord Jesus Christ Himself says to Peter: To you I will give the keys of the kingdom of heaven, where the Gloss says: See how great a power the rock upon which the Church is built has, that even his judgments remain firm, as though God were judging through her. This has not been given to angels; they are ministers indeed, not judges, which is gathered plainly enough from that place of the Gospel where it is said: He has given him power — that is, to the Son — to execute judgment, because He is the Son of man. Since therefore the angels do not share with us in human nature, it is manifest that it does not befit them to have the authority of judgment in respect of men.

⁷ Likewise Christ is called the singular physician, because by his word alone he restores all things, for virtue went out from him and healed all, Luc. 6. This faculty of healing Christ communicated to the ministers of his spouse the Church, which through the dispensing of the sacraments, which are medicinal vessels in which the divine virtue secretly works salvation, as Augu. says, cures the languors and diseases of souls. This power he did not grant to the angels, because, as Chrysost. says in his book on the praises of Paul, the preaching and administration of the sacraments has been entrusted to men, not to angels. Saint Tho. in 4 Sent., dist. 5, assigns a twofold reason for this. First, because the angels do not agree with the incarnate Word, from whom the sacraments flowed in the assumed nature, as men do, nor with the sacraments in which there is spiritual virtue in corporeal elements, as men compounded of spiritual and sensible nature do. Second, because power conceded to them for the necessity of baptism and the other sacraments would be of no avail, since they are not at hand to men so that their ministry might easily be had. Finally Christ is called the impregnable doorkeeper.

⁸ He is the one who opens and no one shuts, and shuts and no one opens, Apoc. 3. This dignity he conferred upon the shepherds of his Church, to whom he said: Whatever you bind upon earth shall be bound also in heaven, and whatever you loose upon earth shall be loosed also in heaven, as in Matt. 16, whence blessed Peter the Apostle, because he was endowed with this power above the rest, is depicted and called the key-bearer of the kingdom of heaven. Whence blessed August. in a certain sermon on the apostles Peter and Paul says thus: O ineffable and immense power, that a man placed on earth should hold heaven! Behold now at the nod of Peter the bars of the divine kingdom lie open. For he received from Christ the keys of the kingdom of heaven, that, with the bonds of sins loosed, he might open the kingdoms of heaven to believers. And below: Christ himself has become the way for believers; he set Peter in his place in the world as the key-bearer of the heavenly kingdom, lest anyone should judge access to heaven difficult for himself; thus far Aug.

⁹ Likewise Christ is the only-begotten Son of God, to whom the voice of the Father thundered: This is my beloved Son in whom I am well pleased, Matt. 3. And Ps. 109 says: In the brightness of the saints before the day-star, that is, before every creature, I begot you, the Gloss: From my hidden and secret substance I begot you ineffably. This power He bestowed upon the sons of the Church. John 1: He gave them power to become sons of God, to those who believe in his name, the Gloss: Wonderful power, that those who were sons of the devil should be called sons of God and brethren of Christ, liberated through him, of which the Apostle says to Gal. 4: God sent his Son, that we might receive the adoption of sons of God, where the Gloss says: For God has one only Son whom he begot of his own substance, but us he did not beget of his own substance; for the creature — for we are a creature which He did not beget but made — and therefore, that after our own manner we might receive adoption as brethren of Christ, he says, to signify that we lost this in Adam, from whom we are mortal. Thus far the Gloss. Whence, as is said in 3 Sent., dist. 10, we are called adopted sons because, whereas we had been born sons of wrath, through grace we have been made sons of God. This power plainly, this grace, has not been given to angels — namely, that from sons of wrath they might be able to return into sons of God. For irreparable was their fall. For this, as Damascene says: what death is to men, the fall is to angels; nor did Christ die for them but for men, to whom He was born. Whence the angel to the shepherds: I announce to you a great joy; a Saviour of the world is born to you, Luke 2. And concerning what the Church, the spouse of Christ, received in dowry from her spouse Christ Himself, let it suffice us to have said these things.