Summa de Ecclesia

¹ Since it will perhaps seem strange to some who have their sense so accustomed to carnal things and their wit so concreted with sensible things that they judge spiritual things not spiritually but carnally, that the Church should be a consort and a mother most fruitful with a multitude of innumerable sons, and nevertheless be said to be wholly a virgin, we have decided to touch briefly on this matter. Plainly the mother Church is wholly a virgin; otherwise the word in Cant. 4 would not regard her: You are all beautiful, my friend, and there is no spot in you. There are many places of holy Scripture which attest the holy Church of God to be a virgin, such as all those in which among the prophets she was called the virgin daughter of Sion, the virgin of Israel. It is also said in Matt. 25: The kingdom of heaven is like ten virgins, etc. By these ten virgins all Christians are signified. For there are two virginities, one of the body, the other of the spirit. Bodily virginity is, as Aug. says in his book on marriage and concupiscence, the perpetual meditation of incorruption in corruptible flesh, that is, the firm resolve of reason to keep the body intact from all pollution. Or, as he says on Ps. 147, the virginity of the flesh is an untouched body. But the virginity of the mind is uncorrupted faith, which is the virginity of all the faithful. Whence Aug. on John: The whole Church has been called a virgin; the members of the Church are diverse, seen to abound and rejoice in diverse gifts: some married men, some married women, some widowed of their wives seek no wives thereafter, some widows seek no husbands thereafter, others preserve integrity from an early age, others have vowed their virginity to God, diverse are the offices, but all these are one virgin. Where is this virginity? For it is not in the body. For in the body it is in few women, and if virginity can be spoken of in men, in few men. The holiness of women is integrity even of body in the Church, and it is the more honorable member. But all the rest keep virginity not in the body but all in the mind. What is this virginity of the mind? Entire faith, solid hope, sincere charity. What is the virginity of the Church? Entire faith, solid hope, sincere charity. Likewise the same Augustine, as is found in ch. Nuptiarum, 27, q. 1: The Church herself is the consort of Christ, who by the integrity of faith, hope, and charity is wholly a virgin not only in holy virgins but also in married faithful. Of the whole Church indeed, whose members all those are, the Apostle says: I have espoused you to one husband, to present you a chaste virgin to Christ. This the Apostle writes to the Ephesians and in the second to the Corinthians: the sense of which is: I have espoused — that is, I have labored or fitted, by faith and the exhibition of the sacraments, that you be espoused — you to one, not to many: to a husband, namely the lawful Jesus Christ, the true spouse. You, I say, a virgin, not virgins, because although you are many in nature, you are yet one in faith, hope, and charity. Cant. 6: One is my dove. Chaste namely in mind; to present — that is, that you present yourselves to Christ, existing as a chaste virgin through integrity of faith. Where it is to be noted that a twofold difference is assigned between the marriage of Christ and the Church and other carnal marriages of men. The marriage of Christ etc. The first is assigned in the Gloss on that of Hos. 2: I will espouse thee to me forever, which is that men make of a virgin a non-virgin; but God, joined even to harlots, makes them virgins. For the soul, of whatever sort it was before, however much it lay before prostituted to corruptions, joined to Christ through marriage is a virgin. Whence of all the faithful it is said in Apoc. 14: These are they who were not defiled with women; for they are virgins — where by women he signified error, since error began through a woman, as the Gloss says on 2 Cor. 11. But if it be asked how this authority comes to be understood of all the faithful, since of the number of those to be saved there are many who very often were defiled with many errors: we say it is said for this reason, that God in mercy reckons all the finally good as never having been defiled. By like reason in what follows it is said: And in their mouth there was found no lie. Whence the Gloss on that of Hos. 2: I will espouse thee to me forever, says: Mark the mercy of the husband: a harlot long in fornication returns to her husband, and is said not to be reconciled to her husband but to be espoused. The second difference is that men cannot make a spouse fruitful without corruption; but Christ can, whence Augustine, as set in ch. Nuptiarum, in the place above: But he, namely Christ, knows how to make a virgin spouse fruitful without corruption, he whom a mother could bring forth without corruption even in his very flesh. It is not to be wondered at, therefore, if the holy Church is at once called both mother and virgin: a fruitful mother indeed, not by a husband but by the Spirit; a virgin by the sacrament of faith. Whence blessed Ambrose in his book on holy virginity says: The holy mother Church, immaculate in union, fruitful in bringing forth, is a virgin in chastity but a mother in offspring. As a virgin therefore she brings us forth, full not with a husband but with the Spirit; as a virgin she brings us forth, not with pain of limbs but with joys of angels. As a virgin she nurses us, not with milk of body, but with apostolic milk she suckled the age of a people still growing unformed. What married woman therefore has more children than the holy mother Church, which is a virgin in sacrament but a mother to peoples, whose fruitfulness holy Scripture also attests, since the children of the deserted are more than of her who has a husband. Thus Ambrose.