Summa de Ecclesia

¹

Against what has already been said, namely that Christ was head of the Church from the beginning of that Church and not from the time of his incarnation, there has arisen in our days an opinion, if it should be called an opinion and not an error, held by certain men who say, as we read in their writings: that Christ before the incarnation was not head of the Church, nor consequently did the Church begin before the incarnation according to its formal denomination, which they say the Church receives from the incarnation of Christ through the grace of union, by which the Church itself has it that it is united with Christ as it were personally. As to what is material in the denomination of the Church, they say that it began from the time of Adam or Abel, because from then, they say, the just began to live under faith in Christ, and for this they adduce the following argument. The head and the members must be of the same nature; this is clear, as Aug. shows in the sermon on the words of the Lord; but before the incarnation of Christ the Word was not head of the Church, as Aug. holds on Ps. 144. For he says, the Word was made flesh that he might become head of the Church. For the Word himself is not head of the Church, but that he might be head of the Church he assumed flesh, and the body of Christ is the Church, as is clear through Aug. in the same place; therefore the Church itself then began according to its formal and actual denomination when Christ assumed human nature, and then the faithful began to be incorporated into him as members, so that one thing might be made from head and members which is the Church. Thus in substance speaks one of them. In our judgment this opinion of theirs cannot be sustained, and they have certainly been deceived by a bad understanding of the sayings of blessed Aug. And in this too they have erred, that they have adduced many sayings of Aug. which were to be explained with reverence rather than stretched, as many examples could be given, just as they stand, in support of their own opinions. For their conclusion is false, the foundations they adduce are weak, and the argument by which they strive to strengthen the conclusion is invalid. For their conclusion is false in all its parts, as is clear first from the authorities adduced around ch. xxii. where the antiquity of the Church was discussed. It is clear also from that passage of Aug. on Ps. 36, who, treating those words, I have been young and now am old, speaks thus of the Church under the name of the body. For the Lord himself in his body which is the Church was young in the first times, and behold now he has grown old in our days, and you recognize and understand, for you are placed in this and so believe, that our head is Christ. We are the body of that head: are we alone, and not also all those who were before us, all the just who from the beginning of the world have had Christ as head? For they believed that he was to come whom we now believe has come, and in his faith they were healed as we are, that he himself might be head of the whole city of Jerusalem, with all the faithful from the beginning to the end numbered together, and further. But the body of Christ which is the Church, as one man, was first young, and behold now at the end of the world it is in a rich old age, thus Aug. From this passage of Aug. the opposite of their conclusion is clearly established. Moreover the Gloss on that word of the Apostle to Col. 1, He is the head of the body of the Church, asks, as was said above: since the Church began from Abel, how is Christ as man head of those who lived then, and answering says rightly: because he himself is the beginning of the Church according to his divinity, that is the founder of the Church, because by the power of his divinity and by the gift of his mercy he enlightened all the just who from Abel to the last just man are born. According to his humanity he can also be called the beginning of the Church, because it was founded upon faith in his humanity, thus the Gloss. Moreover by reason the body of the Church always existed from the beginning of the human race, as was adduced from the saying of Aug., and it is not to be said that it was headless before the incarnation: therefore we must necessarily confess that it had a head, but none other than Christ whom the Father gave as head over the whole Church which is his body, to Col. 1. We pass over many other things pertaining to this matter, both because we have adduced much above and because below in the chapters to be discussed we shall touch on some things as the places allow. For the rest, the foundations of the aforesaid proposition appear false, since they are foreign to and separated from the common teaching of the most enlightened doctors.

First, as to what they presuppose, that in the denomination of the Church what is material is the unity of faith under which the just serve God, whereas it is faith working through love — for by this indeed the just man is said to live and to serve God, Rom. 1 — what they say is false; on the contrary, formed faith is what is formal and actual in the denomination of the Church, which is easily shown thus: because faith working through love is that by which anyone in the state of the present life is called a member of Christ simply and actually and of the body of the Church, and with it removed no man in this present life is called a member of Christ or his body, as was shown above by many testimonies. Hence the Gloss on that passage 1 Cor. 12, You are the body of Christ, says: by the unity of faith of Christ the head. And to Rom. 8, He who has not the spirit of Christ is not his, that is, a member, as the Gloss says.

Furthermore, what they say — that what is formal in the denomination of the Church is the conformity of nature which comes from the incarnation of Christ — is false. First, because such conformity of nature is common to the good and the wicked, to the foreknown and the predestined; for all men plainly are one in species with Christ as man. Secondly, because such conformity of nature places nothing formal in the Church by which she might rather be denominated the body of Christ in some than in others, and be denominated so now and not before — unless they wish to fashion some new kind of union of which we have not yet learned through the ancient tradition of the Fathers. Hence what he says — that through the grace of union, which was proper to Christ, something formal overflows into the universal Church, by which she is newly called the body of Christ and newly compacted with Christ, and not before — appears fashioned and contrary to the sound doctrine of the Fathers of the Church. But concerning this union of the body of the Church with Christ, which these men seem to hint at, we shall say something below for the satisfaction of our conscience. The argument, moreover, which they use to prove the aforesaid conclusion is also of no strength: for Aug. in that authority does not intend that the Son of God was so incarnate as to be our head that he would deny that he himself was head of the body of the Church before the incarnation, since he himself teaches the opposite in many places; but he wishes to say, following the common doctrine of the most distinguished doctor theologians, that the Word was made flesh so that he might be our head not simply, but as to the condition of actual conformity of one nature with his body which is the Church. More principally, however, there seems to be conveyed in the notion of head the principle and origin of that whose head it is, rather than conformity of one nature with the members. Whence the Apostle says in 1 Cor. 11: The head of Christ is God; and in Col. 2 Christ is called the head of every principality and power, even the angelic, according to the Gloss — and yet conformity of nature fails between them. Moreover the devil too is called the head of all wicked men, although the wicked are incorporated into the devil himself by conformity of perverse will alone, and not of nature. We refrain from many more, since around ch. xlviii we have sufficiently shown how Christ as man was head of all the faithful who preceded his incarnation, and around ch. l, in which we resolved all the arguments adduced to the contrary.