Summa de Ecclesia

¹

Moreover the holy Church of God is recorded as being named Queen. Whence in Ps. 44 it is said: The Queen stood at your right hand, the Gloss: that is, the Church which rules under the king. She stood at the right hand, that is, in hope of eternal things. In gilded clothing, that is, in the doctrine of wisdom. Surrounded with variety, that is, diversified in all tongues; in tongues there is variety, and unity in the gold, because, as Augu. says in the Gloss, all tongues preach the same wisdom, the same doctrine and discipline. The Church is called Queen for a threefold reason. First, because she is the consort of the Lord, namely Jesus Christ, on whose garment and thigh is written: King of kings and Lord of lords, Apoc. 19. Second, she is called Queen because in her true members she rules herself prudently and virtuously; for her prelates, according to the motions of the flesh, now restrain the appetite of lust, now temper the heat of avarice, now shun glory, now crush the suggestion of envy, now extinguish the fire of anger. Such kings, as Greg. says, truly are those who have learned not to succumb by consenting to the motions of their temptations but to preside by ruling them. Whence kings, as Isid. says, are named from ruling rightly, and therefore the name of king is kept by acting rightly and lost by sinning. Rightly, then, are those called kings who have learned to control both themselves and their subjects by ruling them well. Third, the holy Church is named Queen by reason of the principate and prelacy which her rulers hold in her. Whence the Gloss on Ps. 44: As Queen, because she rules under the king, namely through her prelates, who are not undeservedly called kings. Whence Augu., treating the words of Ps. 44, The daughters of kings have delighted you, says thus: For all the churches born of the apostles preaching and evangelizing are daughters of kings, and the churches, daughters of the apostles, are daughters of kings. For he is the king of kings, and they are the kings of whom it was said: You shall sit upon twelve seats judging the twelve tribes of Israel. And below: They are daughters of kings and they have delighted their king in his honor. And from them all is made one Queen, whence there follows: The Queen stood at your right hand; thus far Augustine. Therefore in Lam., ch. 1, the Church herself is named mistress of the nations and princess of the provinces, the interlinear Gloss: in her prelates. This queen, namely the Church, was figured in the Queen of Saba, of whom it is said in 3 Kings 10 that, having heard the fame of Solomon, she came with a great train to see him, where the Gloss says thus: This queen figured the Church to come from the nations, desiring Christ, who, arrayed in the variety of her people and forgetful of her father's house, ran, barbarous in race but not in spirit, a pilgrim in the open, conscious in secret of becoming one of the saints, desiring. And blessed Augu. in his sermon on the dedication of the church speaks thus of her: This is that queen who came from the parts of Ethiopia to hear the wisdom of Solomon, but she comes to hear the king not so much from one region as from all parts of the world, as the evangelist records: The queen of the south came from the ends of the earth to hear the wisdom of Solomon; the Church came to her redeemer and teacher, that from the folly of error she might receive the doctrine of truth, of which the history of Kings writes more fully as we have heard, saying thus: The queen of Saba entered Jerusalem with a train and riches, with camels carrying spices and exceeding infinite gold and precious gems, and came to Solomon and spoke all that she had in her heart. Therefore in the figure of this queen the Church came from the nations, putting an end to earthly vices and lusts, to hear the wisdom of Solomon, that is, of the peaceful man, our Lord Jesus Christ, who made both one, dissolving the enmities between God and man in his flesh. She came after ancient and profane superstitions to hear and learn of the illumination of faith and of the future judgment, of the immortality of the soul, of the hope of resurrection and glory. She came into Jerusalem with a great company, that is, no longer with one nation of the Jews, as before the Synagogue had only Hebrews, but with the nations of the whole world and diverse peoples. She came, then, displaying gifts worthy of Christ: gold and precious gems, and this carried by camels, that is, by those coming from the gentile people who before had been distorted by the foulness of vices and bowed by the burden of evils and deformed by the depravity of sins; with these as gifts this queen enters to the peaceful king Christ, displaying with her the spices of faith, precious gold, precious incense, and the splendor of gems, that is, adornment of every kind of virtues; thus far Augu.