Contents

DE CONTROVERSIIS FIDEI CHRISTIANI

Copyright Information

FOREWORD

TRANSLATOR’S PREFACE

DEDICATIO

CHAPTER I: On the term “Church”

CHAPTER II: On the Definition of the Church

CHAPTER III: On the Unbaptized

CHAPTER IV: On Heretics and Apostates

CHAPTER V: On Schismatics

CHAPTER VI: On the Excommunicated

CHAPTER VII: On the Predestined

CHAPTER VIII: On Those who are not Perfect

CHAPTER IX: On Great Sinners

CHAPTER X: On Secret Infidels

CHAPTER XI: Another Controversy is Proposed: Whether the Church is Always Visible, or
Whether it can Err and Defect

CHAPTER XII: The Church is Visible

CHAPTER XIII: The Visible Church Cannot Defect

CHAPTER XIV: The Church Cannot Err

CHAPTER XV: The Arguments with Which they Set up an Invisible Church are Refuted

CHAPTER XVI: The Arguments Whereby our Adversaries try to Show the Church can Defect
are Answered

CHAPTER XVII: The Arguments Whereby our Adversaries try to show that all Shepherds of
the Church can Err at the Same Time.

DE CONTROVERSIIS FIDEI CHRISTIANI

DE ECCLESIA MILITANTE

DIFFUSA PER ORBEM TERRARIUM

✠

ON THE CHURCH MILITANT

DIFFUSED THROUGHOUT THE WORLD

by

ST. ROBERT BELLARMINE, S.J.

Doctor of the Church

Translated from the original Latin by:

Ryan Grant

MEDIATRIX PRESS

http://www.mediatrixpress.com/

MMXVI

Copyright Information

Translated from De Controversiis Fidei Christiani, contra haereticos nostri tempori, tomus
primus, De Ecclesia lib. 3.

Ingolstadt, 1588

Sartorius Publishers

First Edition, June 2016

Mediatrix Press

http://www.mediatrixpress.com

©Ryan Grant, 2016.

This work may not be reproduced for commercial purposes; it may not be distributed in electronic form or
as a whole without express permission.

FOREWORD

MICHAEL G. SIRILLA, Ph.D.

Franciscan University of Steubenville

S

T. ROBERT BELLARMINE (1542–1621), a preeminent and officially-recognized Doctor of the
Church, is the most important figure in the Catholic Counter-Reformation. His prodigious
works have been received for centuries as standard and decisive for the promotion and
defense of the truth of Christ’s revelations on justification, the sacraments, the four last things
(eschatology), and Christian spirituality. Even more importantly, his theological writings on the
Church of Christ constitute an invaluable treasure not only for Catholics, but for the commonweal
and eternal salvation of humanity itself. This is no slight exaggeration. His is the very first
independent theological and dogmatic treatise on the Church. Patristic and medieval Catholic
authors treated on the mystery of the Church, to be sure; but they provided no free-standing
treatment de ecclesia. Bellarmine’s is the first and the best of its kind. And yet, his
writings–mostly composed in Latin–have remained largely unavailable to the English-speaking
world until several years ago, when Mr. Ryan Grant began publishing superbly readable
translations of the works of this great doctor. But why were Bellarmine’s works available only
in Latin for so many years?

There are two principal reasons for this. The first is that the theologians who needed to access
them were scholars who had a command of the Latin language—something standard for Catholic
theologians at least until the mid-1960s. For example, up to this time the final examinations for
the licentiate and doctoral degrees in both philosophy and theology in the Church were
administered orally and in Latin. And, of course, it is much better to read the writings of your
primary sources in their original language instead of depending on the work of a translator. The
second reason is more political and ideological in nature. St. Bellarmine, being the most prominent
Catholic intellectual behind the counter-reformation, was viewed just before, during, and most
certainly after Vatican II, as the prime example of the rigid, self-enclosed, anti-ecumenical, and
anti-modern thinker that those inebriated with the ersatz spirit of Vatican II wanted to eschew.
Those possessed of this mentality relegated Bellarmine and all early modern Catholic thinkers (and
this includes the countless other venerable doctors such as Ligouri, De Sales, Suarez, Melchior
Cano, among others) to the dust heap of Catholic history as “ghettoizing” throwbacks who
foolishly clung to an untenable form of Catholic life and thought made irrelevant by the modern
political and religious revolutions.

And yet these claims cannot stand. In fact, the Second Vatican Council itself vindicates St.
Bellarmine’s definition of the Church militant (the Church on earth) in article 14 of the “Dogmatic
Constitution on the Church” where we read, “The bonds which bind men to the Church in a
visible way are the profession of faith, the sacraments, and ecclesiastical government and
communion.” This is essentially how St. Bellarmine defines the Church on earth with in “De
Ecclesia Militante,” book 3, chapter 2, as translated by Mr. Grant: The Church is “that one and true
… body of men of the same Christian profession and of the same Sacraments gathered in
communion, under the rule of legitimate pastors and especially of the one Vicar of Christ on Earth,
the Roman Pontiff.” Thus, the current English translation of Bellarmine’s De Ecclesia is of
inestimable value for those English-speaking students of Catholic theology who wish not only to
understand properly the essence of the ecclesiology of Vatican II, but the official magisterial
teaching of the Church on Her essence and mission as the sole institution established by our Lord
for the salvation of souls and the glory of God.

On a personal note, for over a decade I have had to provide my ecclesiology students with my
own translations of select portions of St. Robert Bellarmine’s treatise on the Church. With this
and his other translations of St. Bellarmine’s works on the Church, Mr. Grant has provided an
unmatched service to the English-speaking world of Catholic theologians and students of theology.
I strongly recommend this volume, along with his others in this series, as a principal text for
teachers and students of Catholic ecclesiology. Mr. Grant’s translation is precise and
consummately readable. Let us look forward with hope to his further translation projects.

Steubenville, Ohio

June 6, 2016

Feast of St. Norbert

TRANSLATOR’S PREFACE

T

HIS particular book, On the Church Militant has been excerpted from Bellarmine’s treatise
on the Church in general, which begins with a treatise on Councils, followed by this work
and then by On the Marks of the Church, which was published in January of 2015. What is
particularly important here, is that Bellarmine lays down principles that become the fundamental
principles of ecclesiology. Then in future books on the Church, such as his work on Clergy, Monks
and Laity, all the particular considerations follow logically from the principles laid out here.

Those familiar with my translations On the Marks of the Church, and On the Roman Pontiff, will
be familiar with Bellarmine’s style and the general mores of books in the 16th century. The original
has no footnotes and sources are in the text as part of the writing. These I have re-written as
footnotes to clean up the readability of the text. I have left the references as they appear in the
text. It is important to note that some of the references may have shifted in their numbering since
Bellarmine’s time, or the verses of certain Scriptures subsequently edited by the Church. If I am
aware of particular changes in numbering I have noted it in the footnotes, but otherwise preserved
what Bellarmine had in place.

A word is in order about Scripture, the Fathers and the Protestants whom Bellarmine quotes.
Bellarmine had most of the Bible completely memorized, from an edition that did not have
versification. Sometimes, subsequent to his time, certain verses in Scripture were rendered
differently. If this has occurred, I translate what Bellarmine has and note the variation in the
footnote. Secondly, where Scripture is concerned, I have made my own translations from the
Vulgate, rather than using Bibles based on the Vulgate that are in print now. This is because it is
important to understand the Vulgate as Bellarmine did, not as Englishmen half a world away that
rendered it for an entirely different purpose. In like manner, I have also rendered the Fathers and
other authors, e.g. Calvin, from their Latin works. With Calvin this is particularly because I have
not found any translations of the Institutes coming from the French satisfactory, so I have
consulted the 1559 Latin version which seems to be the one Bellarmine used in his own citations,
and consequently this is important because it again shows us how Bellarmine understood Calvin.

It is also important to understand the style of argumentation. For Bellarmine argumentation
is made from Scripture and also from the Church Fathers. Though Bellarmine certainly agreed that
individual Fathers could err or go astray, nevertheless, following the principles of all theologians
and the Council of Trent, if they were found in a common consensus then the teaching must be
infallible. Thus the copious citations of the Fathers which make up this work are necessary to
draw a consensus on given points of argument.

Next, I would like to especially thank all of those who made this work possible, firstly my wife,
whose patience and great sacrifices have allowed me to get this completed. Then, I would like to
thank all of those who assisted in the editing of this work, and Dr. Robert Sungenis who graciously
has assisted with the Hebrew, sometimes researching and verifying words that the 16th century
print got wrong.

Lastly, I would like to thank all the benefactors of the Bellarmine translation project, whose
donations have allowed me to work on this at all. This project has its goal to have all of the De
Controversiis translated, but it could never come into being were it not for these great benefactors.
I ask the reader to say a prayer for their intentions, and if anyone else should like to assist in this
project, they can do so by going to http://www.mediatrixpress.com and going to the Bellarmine
project tab.

Post Falls ID

3 June 2016

Feast of the Sacred Heart of Jesus

DEDICATIO

Omnibus benefactoribus laboris S. Roberti Bellarmini votum esse, et præsertim Erico et
Kætalynæ Mack., præsidio ejus remoto, hic liber fieri non posset.

Dedicated to all the benefactors of the St. Robert Bellarmine project, and most especially Eric
and Katherine Mack, without whose assistance this work would not be possible.

CHAPTER I: On the term “Church”

T

HE CONTROVERSY on the Church Militant has many parts. In the first place, what the
Church itself is must be argued, and then on the members, that is, clergy, monks and laity.
Again, the Church Militant must be considered according to what it is, and this is what we
now hasten to dispute. There are three particular controversies: 1) On the term “Church” and its
definition; 2) On the quality or the visibility of the Church; 3) On the marks whereby it can be
known for certain.

We now commence with the first, but before we get too far into it we ought to note those who
have written about the Church, or rather, whose books we have read since we have not read
everything. Therefore, these have written on this point about the Church: St. Augustine;
1 St.
Cyprian;
2 Optatus;
3 and from more recent authors who have written on this matter we have
Thomas Waldens;
4 John Turrecremata;
5 John Driedo;
6 Albert Pighius;
7 Cardinal Hosius in his
confession, as well as in his explication of the Creed, and his Contra prolegomena Brentii, lib. 5;
Pedro de Soto;
8 John of Daventria;
9 John Cochlaeus,
10 Johan Eck;
11 Alphonsus a Castro;
12 John of
Louvain;
13 Francis Turrianus
14 and Melchior Cano.
15 After these, in the beginning of the year 1577,
we disputed this very treatise (which we are now publishing) in the schools, and in that time
Gregory of Valentia also wrote on the same issue
16 and others also wrote, but he was not free from
explaining their books through other occupations.

I come now to the proposed disputation, which is on the first point, the term “Church”. The
name is Greek and is deduced from the word ekkaleō, which means I call out. Therefore, Church
is an evocation, or a body of those called out. Moreover, the people of God is a body of those called
out, because no man joins himself to this people by himself and by his own instinct, but any
whosoever that come have been preceded by the calling of God. For the calling is the first benefit,
which the saints receive from God, as the Apostle says in Romans, “He called them and justified
them, and glorified those whom he had justified.”
17 The Apostle says often enough that Christians
are called, in fact in nearly every epistle.

Moreover, three things must be noted on this term. 1) The name of Church can be joined with
another thing, and can be received on the side of the good and the bad. For the Psalms speak of
the “Church of the malignant,”
18 and “the Church of the Saints”.
19 Moreover, this term is placed
absolutely, it is not understood unless it is about the Church of Christ, with the exception of one
passage, that is Acts XIX where it says about the people of the heathen “For the Church was
confused.”

2) Mark with St. Augustine, “God stood in the synagogue of the gods,”
20 although the Church
of the Old Testament and the New are the same, nevertheless the state of the new Testament
Church is by far more excellent, thus, the names are also distinct, for the people of the Old
Testament are properly called the Synagogue, that is the congregation; but the people of the New
Testament is never called the Synagogue, but always the Church, that is the evocation. To be
gathered is common among both men and beasts, but to be called out is proper to men. It is not
related that the people of the Jews in the Old Testament are also everywhere called the Church;
for both the Synagogue and the Church are called in Hebrew by the word “congregation” (e-dah)
which we translate into Synagogue, and is said to be from (ya-ad) “to assign or gather”. Likewise,
qa-hal, that is “the Church,” is said to be from the same word meaning, “to gather”. Therefore
there are two names, but they mean altogether the same thing.

3) It also must be noted that in the same way as the city on the one hand means a body of men,
on the other the place in which that body lives, so also the Church in the Scriptures means the
body of the faithful, as it says in Romans XVI: “All the Churches of Asia greet you.” Now, all the
faithful are gathered in that very citation, just as in Judith VI: “every people prayed through the
whole night within the Church,” although we now only mean the body of the faithful when we
dispute on the Church.

CHAPTER II: On the Definition of the Church

T

HERE are five heretical opinions on the definition of the Church. The first is that the
Church is the congregation of the predestined, so that only all those who have been
predestined would constitute the Church. This is the opinion of John Wycliff
21 and John
Huss whose position is contained in a condemnation by the Council of Constance: “A man
foreknown, although he might be in grace for a time according to the present justice, is still never
part of the Holy Church whereas a man predestined will always remain a member of the Church,
although at some time he may fall from the grace he has attained thus far, still not from the grace
of predestination.
22

The second is that the Church would be a multitude of perfect men having no sin. Certain
Pelgians taught this, as St. Augustine relates where he says: “They progress in it that they would
say the life of the just in this age is altogether without any sin, and the Church of Christ is
perfected by these in this mortal life.”
23 Calvin attributes the same teaching to the Anabaptists of
this time.
24

The third is that the Church might be a congregation of the just, or better still those who have
never failed to make the confession of faith. This is distinguished from the second opinion in that
it excluded each and every sinner, but this does not exclude anyone except notable sinners.
Formerly, St. Cyprian thought Novation was the author of this opinion,
25 and Augustine the
Donatists,
26 for I believe Calvin and others were deceived who thought that the followers of
Novation and the Donatists excluded every kind of sinner. For, Cyprian and Epiphanius clearly
say that they retained swindlers, adulterers and the like in the Church but only excluded those
who had lapsed under persecution.
27 Moreover, what Ambrose
28 and Theodoret
29 say does not appear
opposed to this, that the Novationists abolished the power of forgiving all sins, save for the
lightest. For even if they did not absolve grave sinners they still retained them in their body unless
they lapsed in the confession of faith. Augustine also teaches
30 that the Donatists did not abhor
all sins, but only certain greater crimes; one that they objected to is that they thought Catholics
were traitors to the divine books.

The fourth is of the Confessionists, who, although they condemn the Pelagians, Novationists
and Donatists by name, still their opinion is a composite of those heresies. For: 1) Not only the
Confessionists, but all Lutherans and Calvinists teach that there is no sin that is venial by nature,
rather, all are in and of themselves mortal, but venial by the mercy of God, who does not impute
these to believers. Luther teaches this
31 as well as Melanchthon
32 and Calvin.
33

2) The Augsburg Confession, in article 7, teaches that the Church is the congregation of the
Saints who truly believe and obey God. And Melanchthon, in his defense of it, tries to show that
sinners do not pertain to the Church except in name. John of Brentz teaches similar things in the
Prolegomena against Pedro de Soto. Nor is it opposed that Melanchthon and Brenz both say that
the wicked are mixed with the good, for they in effect create two Churches. One that is true, and
to which the privileges related in the Scriptures pertain; this is the congregation of the Saints who
truly believe and obey God, and this one is not visible but can only be seen with the eyes of faith.
The other is external, which is a Church in name only, and this is the congregation of men coming
together in the doctrine of faith, and the use of the sacraments; in this the good and bad are
discovered. Consequently, they never mean that the wicked are parts of the true Church and so
Melanchthon cautiously does not say the Church consists from the wicked as well as the good, but
says the wicked are mixed into the Church. Moreover Brenz says that the wicked are in the
Church in some manner, but they are not of the Church.

Luther in his work de Conciliis et Ecclesia, in the third part, says that the Church is the holy
Christian people. That he might show himself to speak on the sanctity of each of the members, he
tries to show the Pope and Cardinals are not of the Church because they are not holy. Therefore,
if only the just are part of the true Church, and all sins, in so far as they are light, are mortal sins
and make a man unjust; it follows that only the perfect and those lacking all sin are in the Church,
which was the opinion of the Pelagians.

3) The Confessionists say, and in this they agree with all Lutherans, that all the works of man,
even of the justified, are mortal sins. The Augsburg Confession
34 indicates this, but Luther more
clearly asserts it in his Assertions,
35 whereby it seems to follow that no man is in the Church. For,
if only the just are in the Church, and there are altogether no just in the world, and naturally when
the works of every man are sins, who, I ask, will constitute the Church? But they easily explain
the whole matter when they say the works of the just are all mortal sins, but still they are not
imputed to them if they have the faith, and hence he who has faith, at the same time is the most
just and also sins by every work. In some manner the Confessionists agree with the Donatists and
the Novationists. For, as they did not exclude all sinners from the Church, but only those who
committed idolatry, so the former do not exclude all sinners, but only those who do not truly
believe. For they think, as we said, that no crime is imputed to believers.

The fifth opinion seems to have been raked together from all these. For it teaches that the
Church is constituted from the predestined. Thus Calvin taught three things in this regard. 1) Once
someone has faith, he can never be damned, and furthermore all who have the faith are necessarily
predestined. He holds this in the Institutes,
36 but the ancient heretic Jovinian expressly taught this
same thing in the ancient Church, as we see from St. Jerome.
37 2) He also teaches that the true
Church can be recognized by God alone since its foundation is divine election, because it is
constituted from the faithful, who are necessary from the number of the elect.
38 3) he teaches
besides a certain external Church, wherein the god and the bad dwell, as the Confessionsts said
above, he holds in the same book and chapter, in the subsequent sections. Martin Bucer seems to
think the same thing and he defines the kingdom of Christ as the charge of salvation of the elect
of God, whom God has gathered on earth.
39 Tilman Hesch teaches the same thing.
40

The Catholic teaching is that the Church is only one, not two, and that the body of men of the
same Christian profession and of the same Sacraments gathered in communion is one and true,
under the rule of legitimate pastors and especially of the one Vicar of Christ on Earth, the Roman
Pontiff. From such a definition it can be clearly understood which men pertain to the Church and
which do not. For there are three parts of this definition; the profession of the true faith, the
communion of the Sacraments, and subjection to the legitimate pastor, the Roman Pontiff. By the
reasoning of the first all infidels and those who have never entered the Church are excluded, such
as Jews, Turks, and Pagans; then those who were in the Church but left, such as heretics and
apostates. By the reasoning of the second part, all Catechumens and excommunicates are
excluded, because they have not been admitted to the communion of the Sacraments, these are
sent out; by reasoning of the third, all schismatics are excluded, that is those who have the faith
and the Sacraments, but are not under the legitimate pastor, and therefore profess the faith and
receive the Sacraments outside of the Church. Yet, all others, even the base, wicked and impious
are included.

This is the difference between our teaching and all others, that all others require external
virtues to constitute someone in the Church, and for that reason they make the Church invisible;
but even though we believe all virtues (e.g. faith, hope and charity and the rest), are discovered
in the Church, still that someone could absolutely be called part of the true Church, on which the
Scriptures speak, we do not think any internal virtue is required, but only the external profession
of faith, as well as the communion of the Sacraments which is taken up in that sense. For the
Church is a body of men that is just as visible and palpable as the body of the Roman people, or
the Kingdom of France, or the Republic of Venice.

Furthermore, it must be noted with Augustine,
41 that the Church is a living body in which there
is a soul and body, and in the soul there are internal gifts of the Holy Spirit, namely Faith, Hope
and Charity, etc. The body is the external profession of faith as well as the communication of the
Sacraments. From there it happens that some men are in the soul and body of the Church and
furthermore are united to Christ the head inwardly and outwardly, and such are perfectly in the
Church, since they are as living members in the body, although among them are also some who
participate more or less in the life of the Church, and some even who might hold only the
beginning of life like a sense but not a motion, just as those who only have faith without charity.
Again, some might be in the soul of the Church and not in the body, such as Catechumens or the
excommunicated if they might have faith and charity, which can happen. Then, some may be in
the body, but not the soul, such as those who have no internal virtue, and still by hope, or by some
temporal fear profess the faith and communicate in the Sacraments under the rule of their pastors,
and such are like hairs or nails, or bad humors in the human body.

Therefore, our definition holds true in this last manner of being in the Church, because this at
least is required, that one can be said to be apart of the visible Church. Therefore, it must in the
proper order be proved that the following do not pertain to the Church: the unbaptized, heretics,
apostates, excommunicates and schismatics. Next, that those who are not predestined do in fact
pertain to the Church, along with the imperfect and also manifest sinners; then lastly, secret
heretics, if they would have the Sacraments as well as the profession of faith and subjection to the
Church, etc.

CHAPTER III: On the Unbaptized

P

AUL certainly speaks about the unbaptized infidels when he says,
42 “Why do you ask me to
judge concerning those who are outside?” He says generally in that passage that they are
outside who did not give their names for Christ through Baptism, but followed some other
religions.

On Catechumens, there is a somewhat greater difficulty because they are faithful, and can be
saved if they die in that state but still no man can be saved outside the Church, just as no one
could outside of the ark of Noah, according to that which is held in the first chapter of the Lateran
Council (III): “The universal Church of the faithful is one, outside of which altogether no one is
saved.” But just the same it is certain that Catechumens are not in the Church properly and by act,
but only in potency, just as in the way a man being conceived but not yet formed and born is not
called a man, except in potency. For we read in Acts II: “Therefore those who received the word
were baptized and on that day around three thousand were added.” Likewise, the Council of
Florence in the instruction of the Armenians teaches that men become members of Christ and
concern the body of the Church when they are baptized, and the Fathers teach likewise.

St. Gregory Nazianzen, in his oration on holy Baptism, says that Catechumens are in the
vestibule of piety, but still they cannot be called faithful unless they enter in through Baptism.
John Chrysostom says that Catechumens are foreign to the faithful and have nothing in common
with them, not citizenship, nor table, etc.
43 Tertullian in the Praescriptiones, condemns among the
heretics those that refused to distinguish the Catechumens from the faithful. Cyril teaches that
Catechumens are with Christians just as the uncircumcised were among the Jews, who on that
account could not feed on the Paschal lamb.
44 Augustine distinguished Catechumens from the
faithful, which other Fathers also do.
45 Moreover, it is certain that the Church is the body of the
faithful.

Therefore, Catechumens do not have the right to any sacraments, nor to other things which
are common to the universal Church. Therefore Catechumens do not pertain to the Church
properly or in act. Therefore, how, you will ask, are they saved, if they are outside the Church?
The author of the book on Ecclesiastical dogmas (cap. 74) clearly responds, that Catechumens are
not saved. But this seems too harsh. Certainly St. Ambrose in his oration on the death of
Valentinian affirms with eloquent words that Catechumens (in which Valentinian was numbered)
can be saved when they have departed from this life.

Therefore, there is another solution. Melchior Cano says that Catechumens can be saved
because even if they are not of the Church, which properly is called Christian, still they are part
of the Church which embraces all the faithful from Abel even to the consummation of the world.
But this does not seem to satisfy. For after the coming of Christ there is no true Church but that
which is properly called Christian; consequently, if Catechumens are not in it, they are in nothing.

Consequently, I respond that it is said outside the Church no man is saved, and this ought to
be understood on those who are neither in fact nor in desire within the Church, just as all the
Theologians commonly teach on Baptism. Moreover, if the Catechumens are not in the Church
de facto, at least they are in the Church in desire, therefore they can be saved. This is not opposed
to the similitude of the Ark of Noah (outside of which no man was saved), even if he were in it by
desire since similitudes do not agree in all things. For that reason, 1 Peter III compares Baptism
to the ark of Noah and still it is certain that some are saved without Baptism in fact.

But, one might say, Augustine says that Catechumens are in the Church;
46 it is true, but in the
same place he separates them from the faithful. Therefore, he meant that they are in the Church
not by act, but by potency, which he explains in the beginning of the 2nd book on the Creed,
where he compares Catechumens to men who are conceived but not yet born.

CHAPTER IV: On Heretics and Apostates

A

LPHONSUS DE CASTRO teaches that heretics and baptized apostates are members and parts
of the Church, even if they openly profess a false doctrine.
47 Such an opinion is clearly false,
and it can easily be refuted. 1) Scripture shows this, since in 1 Timothy I:19 it says that
certain men are shipwrecked in regard to the faith. In that passage, it understands heretics by
means of a metaphor of a shipwreck, after being broken from one part of the boat of the Church,
after which they sink into the sea, which also is meant by the Lord’s parable of the net which is
torn before the multitude.
48 Besides, to Titus he says, “after a heretic has been given one or two
corrections, knowing that he is subversive, who is of this sort, he has been condemned by his own
judgment.” There the Apostle commands the Bishop that he should avoid heretics, because
certainly he would not command it if they were within the Church. For a shepherd ought not
avoid those whom he has care of when they pertain to his own flock. And he adds the reason that
such a pertinacious heretic is condemned by his own judgment, that is (as Jerome explains it), he
has not been thrown out of the Church by excommunication, as many other sinners, but he cast
himself out of the Church. Likewise, 1 John II says, “They went out from us, but they were not
from among us,” in other words, they went out from us because they were with us in the same
Church but they were not from us according to divine election, as St. Augustine explains.
49

2) This is proved from the 18th and 19th chapter of the Council of Nicaea, where heretics are said
to be able to be received in the Church if they wish to return to it, although under certain
conditions. In like manner, from the chapter Firmiter of the Lateran Council, on the Supreme
Trinity and the Catholic Faith, where the Church is called the congregation of the faithful. It is
certain that heretics are not in any manner among the faithful.

3) From the Fathers, Irenaeus says that Polycarp converted many heretics to the Church,
50
whence it follows that beforehand they had gone out from the Church. Tertullian says that when
Marcion wanted to rejoin the Church, he received the same condition as the others that he had
perverted, that he should be restored to the Church.
51 Cyprian says, in an epistle to Jubaianum, that
heretics, although they are outside the Church, still claim the power of the Church for themselves
after the fashion of apes who, although they are not men, nevertheless wish to appear as men.

Jerome says, in his Dialogue against the Luciferians, “If you will have heard anywhere some
who are called “Christs”, not by the Lord Jesus Christ, but by some other name, as the Marcionists,
Valentinians, Montanists, or Campenses, know that this is not the Church of Christ, but it is the
Synagogue of Antichrist.”

St. Augustine says sometimes it may happen that a heretic who is outside the Church might
not act against it, while a Catholic inside the Church might act against it.
52 And in his book on the
Unity of the Church, chapter IV: “Those who do not believe that Christ came in the flesh from the
Virgin Mary, from the seed of David or that he rose in his own body in which he was crucified and
buried, indeed they are not in the Church.”

Lastly, it happens that when the Church was a united multitude (for a certain people are either
a kingdom, or one body) and this particular union consists in the profession of the one faith, the
observance of the same laws and rights; no reason permits that we might say they are of the body
of the Church who have altogether no union with it.

On the other hand, some object firstly with what is said in Matthew on the parable of the
cockle the three that are discovered in the same field, wheat, the husks and the chaff, which mean
good Catholics, bad Catholics and heretics, as Augustine
53 and Jerome explain on this passage, as
well as Chrysostom. Moreover, the Church would be sick, as Cyprian
54 and Augustine
55 teach.

I respond: Some understand through cockle not heretics but wicked men who are in the
Church. Thus Cyprian (loc. cit.) and often Augustine,
56 speaking not so much from his own
opinion as much as by the mind of Cyprian. Moreover, the fact is Cyprian does not understand
heretics by cockle, thereupon it can be understood that in those citations, where he says the cockle
is in the Church, he says that heretics are not in the Church. Besides, the fact is made plain from
the intention of Cyprian who writes in those places against the Novatianists, who refused to admit
the lapsed penitents into the Church, fearing lest they might communicate their sins with others.
Cyprian showed them that by the Lord’s parable there are not only strong men in the Church but
also weak who fall at some point, just as the cockle is in the field at the same time as the grain.

But although such an exposition might not be condemned and is not contrary to our position,
nevertheless it seems better to respond with what Augustine says, that the field does not mean
the Church, but the whole world.
57 For the Lord, explaining the parable, says the field is the world.
Hence, by the name of “cockle,” although heretics are rightly understood, still perhaps we might
understand it more literally as all the wicked in general, whether they be heretics or not. The
scope of the parable, therefore, is to show that there were always going to be some wicked men
in the world, nor can any human diligence cleanse the world before the day of judgment. For that
reason, the Lord says that the cockle are the wicked sons, and all those who at length will be cast
into eternal fire.

Secondly, they object with the verse in 2 Timothy II:20, “In a great house there are vessels,
some golden, some silver, some wooden, and some clay.” There by the name house it seems that
Paul understands the Church and by the name of the wooden and clay vessels, heretics. Thus he
said a little earlier: “Their word creeps like a crab, from which are Hymnaeus and Philetus who
are cut off from the truth.”
58 Moreover, the house is understood as the Church which Cyprian,
59
Ambrose (in his commentary on this passage), and Augustine
60 teach.

I respond: This varies in the expositions of the Fathers. One is of the Greek Fathers,
Chrysostom and Theophylactus who understand by the word house not the Church, but the world
just as we said about the field in which there is cockle. The other is of the Latins, Cyprian,
Ambrose and Augustine, who understand the house to be the Church. Although Augustine and
Ambrose would have it that that the wood and clay vessels represent heretics, nevertheless
Augustine explains that same passage must be understood in the sense that they are in the
Church, when he says they are in it before they are separated from it by obstinacy and pertinacity,
and this is the time the Apostle considers, so that they are not heretics as much as they are said
to be erring in the Church.
61 He also adds that it can be said they are in the Church after they have
left it, on account of the administration of the Saraments, because even they truly administer some
sacraments. In other words, they are in the Church according to something, not on their own
account. Ambrose receives it as the Church in a broad sense that is more common than proper,
according to how it embraces all who are named Christians in any manner, in the same way that
the Pagans usually said that in the body of Christians there are many opposed opinions and sects.

But according to Cyprian (whose explanation I reckon is more true), through wooden and clay
vessels heretics are not understood, but the weak and frail who are easily seduced. When the
Apostle says that in a great house there are vessels of gold, silver, etc., he is not referring to
“whose word lurks like a crab”, whereby Hymnaeus and Philetus are cut off from the truth, but
to the part where he says: “And they overturn the faith of some men.” The Apostle means that if
they overturn some, they are not a danger for this reason, lest all would be overturned. For in the
Church there are the strong and the weak, etc.

But one might say that Augustine, who understands heretics by the wooden and clay vessels,
says he is moved to think this by Cyprian’s words in his epistle to Antioninus, which is the second
of book 4.

I respond: Augustine thought these words of the Apostle were related by Cyprian: “In a great
house there are golden vessels, etc.,” referred to the verse “whose word creeps like a crab,” just
as he says. Moreover, the words of Cyprian do not sound that way, and Cyprian correctly did not
mean that heretics are in the Church, as is clear from the same epistle, where he clearly says that
Novation is outside of the Church because he is a heretic.

Thirdly, the argument is made that the Church can judge and punish heretics, therefore they
are within it, “For what is it to me to judge those who are on the outside?”
62 Besides, heretics
retain the character of Baptism and priesthood, therefore they are Christians and priests.

I respond: Although heretics are not in the Church, nevertheless they ought to be; hence they
pertain to her like sheep to the sheepfold when they roam outside the sheepfold. The Church can
judge concerning those who are inside by that very fact, or who ought to be, just as a pastor really
can judge and compel the sheep who wander outside of the sheepfold through the mountains to
return to it. In the same way, a general can compel by force a deserter from the army who has fled
across to the camp of the enemy to return or even to hang him. The Apostle, on the other hand,
speaks on those who were never truly in the Church.

Now I speak to that which relates to the character. Heretics retain those indelible characters
outside of the Church, just as lost sheep retain the branding in their back and deserters of the
army military signs: but they are not in the Church for that reason because those characters do
not suffice to constitute someone in the Church; otherwise the Church would also be in hell. St.
Thomas Aquinas says that the damned are not members of Christ in either act or potency.
63
Besides, the character does not properly unite a man with the head, rather it is a sign of the power
of a certain union, and consequently, in hell they are recognized by that sign as men who were
members of Christ. Nevertheless, that it does not unite them is clear since something that is
invisible cannot unite outwardly, nor interiorly when it is not in act or when it is not an operative
habit. For that reason St. Thomas places the first internal union in faith.

CHAPTER V: On Schismatics

S

EVERAL Catholics deliberate whether schismatics are in the Church, on the other hand
there are those who affirm that they are in the Church, such as Alphonsus de Castro in the
place we cited. Yet it is easy to teach the contrary from the Scripture and from the tradition
of the Fathers. In the first place, when it is said in Luke that the nets were torn,
64 schisms in the
Church are understood through the tearing of the nets and the exit of the fish from it, and the exit
of heretics and schismatics, as St. Augustine explains.
65

Besides, Scripture calls the Church, “One sheepfold,”
66 “One body,”
67 “One spouse, friend and
dove.”
68 Moreover, schism tears that which was one into parts, as is clear from its very name, as
schizein is to tear, and schismē means a tear. Consequently, schismatics are not in the Church nor
are they of the Church. For the part that is torn from the body is no longer a part of that body. For
that reason Cyprian beautifully says that the Church is signified through the seamless garment
of Christ which was not torn, that we might understand the Church can be torn, but not in that
manner in which a garment is torn, so that some parts remain equally part of the garment, but
how a branch is torn from a tree, which dies right away while the tree still lives.
69 In like manner,
he adds it is similar to a river from its source which soon dries up while the source flows, and the
ray from the sun, which fails right away while the sun remains as it was. Or, if one were to
contend that the part torn from the Church is also a certain Church, then he would make many
Churches; but that is against the Scriptures recently cited.

Secondly it is proved from the decrees of Pope Pelagius, who clearly proves that schismatics
are not part of the Church.
70 Moreover, the testimony of the whole Church witnesses the fact, since
on Good Friday it prays for heretics and schismatics that God would deign to recall them to the
Catholic Church, which would not be the case if it believed they were in the Church. The
testimony of the Roman Catechism also pertains to this, which is of no scanty authority in the
Church of God. Thus the Catechism separates schismatics from the Church in its explanation of
the Creed.
71

Thirdly, it is proved from the Fathers. Irenaeus, after he had said earlier in his work that a
spiritual man judges all heretics and schismatics and had enumerated them into many particular
heresies, he also had added them under those properly called schismatic, and he concludes in the
end: “He will judge all those who are outside the truth, that is outside the Church.”
72 St. Cyprian
says, “The people has been joined to the priest even as the flock adheres to its shepherd, for that
reason you ought to know that the Bishop is in the Church and the Church in the Bishop, and if
there would be someone who is not with the bishop, he is not in the Church.”
73 But certainly
schismatics are not with the Bishop; therefore they are not in the Church.

Chrysostom said, “The meaning of schism convicts them enough, or rather more its name is
enough to strike them, since they had not become many parts, rather the one had perished. For
they constituted these many into whole Churches.”
74 And in another homily he teaches that
schismatics are like a hand that is cut from the body which soon ceases to be a member and he
says in the same place that schismatics are in another Church even if they agree with the true
Church of Christ in faith and doctrines.
75

Jerome says, “Schismatics really separate a deceived multitude from the Church of God; still
they do not do this from belief, as heretics do.”
76 And again, “We hold this is between heresy and
schism, because a heresy holds a perverse doctrine, but schism equally separates from the Church
by reason of Episcopal dissension.”
77 There note the word equally.

Augustine says: “We believe in the Holy Catholic Church, since even the heretics and
schismatics call their congregations “Churches”, but the heretics violate faith in God by believing
false things, while the schismatics leap from fraternal charity by wicked dissensions, even if they
believe what we believe. For that very reason neither the heretic pertains to the Catholic Church
because he loves God nor the schismatic because he loves his neighbor.”
78

Optatus of Miletus, speaking of schismatics, says: “After deserting their Catholic mother, the
wicked sons run about outside of her and separate themselves, as you have done, being cut off
from the root of the hated mother Church by sickles, like rebels who recede by wandering away.”
79
In book 2 of that work he compares schismatics with branches, rivers and rays cut off from the
tree, font and sun. Fulgentius says: “Hold most firmly and do not by any means doubt that not only
Pagans but also Jews, heretics and schismatics who end the present life outside the Catholic
Church are going into the eternal fire.”
80 Next Thomas Waldens holds the same thing,
81 as well as
John Driedo,
82 and other more recent writers.

Lastly, it is proven from reason. From the very notion of what the Church is, that it is one in
regard to the union of members within her, and with her head, but schism abolishes this union
since it separates itself from communion with the head and other members. Moreover the essential
unity of the Church consists in that union of that joining of the members among and with the
head is proven, since there is a manifold unity discovered in the Church. 1) The unity of the same
beginning; that is the calling of God. “No one comes to me, etc.”
83 2) The unity by reason of the
same final end, which is signified in Matthew XX in that one denarius promised to all the workers.
3) By reason of the same means, that is the Faith, Sacraments, and laws according to what is said
in Ephesians IV, “One faith, one baptism.” 4) By unity of the same Holy Spirit, by whom the
Universal Church is steered as if by an external and separate Captain, “There are divisions of
grace, but the same Spirit.”
84 5) By reason of the same head, just as an internal and continuous
Captain; for every Church obeys the same Christ and his vicar just like a head, “He gave the him
as the head over the whole Church,”
85 and, “Simon Peter, feed my sheep.”
86 6) By reason of the
connection of the members among themselves and especially with the head as the principal
member, “We are one body, each one members of another.”
87

Moreover, among these unities we have enumerated that properly make one Church there are
two ends. By the first, the Church is not one as much as it is from one. By the second, it is not as
much one as to one. By the third it is not as much one as through one. By the fourth it is not as
much one as under one. By the fifth and sixth, it is properly one, that is one body, one people and
one society. Schism, however, is opposed to these last unities; consequently there is schism when
one member refuses to be any longer a member of that body, nor under the head, this is the reason
why it abolishes the essential unity and also the Church herself; therefore a schismatic is not of
the Church.

Now they object: 1) The Church is a congregation of Catholics, as Pope Nicholas defined,
88 But
schismatics are Catholics, therefore they are of the Church.

I respond: Firstly, even if schismatics have the Catholic faith, nevertheless, they cannot
properly be called Catholics even if they profess the faith in the Catholic Church, as is clear from
the citations we provided from St. Augustine and Optatus. I say secondly, this is not the full
definition of Pope Nicholas, nor did he mean to define the Church but only exclude heretics from
the Church. Just as Innocent did when he said that the Church is the congregation of the faithful.
89

They object 2) Even if schismatics refuse to submit to the Pope, nevertheless they mean to
submit to Christ the Supreme Head, and although they refuse to communicate with this Church
on earth, nevertheless, they mean to communicate with the Church that is in heaven, namely the
better part of the Church, therefore they do not abolish the unity of the Church nor are they
absolutely outside it. This argument is confirmed from like things. For if anyone would refuse to
be under his particular Bishop nor communicate with that particular Church under that Bishop,
and nevertheless he means to be under the Roman Pontiff and communicates with the universal
Church, he cannot be said to be outside the Church.

I respond: No man can be under Christ and communicate with the Church who is not subject
to the Pope and is not in communion with the Church militant—even if he wishes to be. For Christ
said, “He who hears you, hears me,”
90 and besides, just as Christ is the supreme head in regard to
the interior life (since he breaths sense and motion into his members, that is faith and charity), so
the Pope is the supreme head over the Church militant, in regard to the exterior life of the doctrine
and the sacraments. Furthermore, the Church triumphant is united, nay more, it is one with the
Church militant, and hence no man can be separated from one without being separated from the
other.

In a similar fashion I respond with a confirmation. One who separates himself from a particular
Church and Bishop is necessarily separated from the Church and the universal Bishop (unless
perhaps someone had done it because that particular Church and its bishop were heretics or
schismatics). For Cyprian rightly says, “They deceive themselves in vain, who, not having peace
with the priests of God, creep and believe that they secretly communicate with the Church, which
is Catholic and one and that it would not be torn nor divided but really is the connection of those
adhering to each other and joined with the glue of the priests.
91

CHAPTER VI: On the Excommunicated

C

ONCERNING the Excommunicated, the Roman Catechism teaches they are not in the
Church.
92 Furthermore, Thomas Waldens,
93 John de Turrecremata,
94 John Driedo
95 and several
others teach the same thing. It is proven first from what we read in Matthew XVIII:17, “If
they will not listen to the Church, let him be to you as a heathen and a tax-collector.” There the
Lord speaks about the excommunicated according to the exposition of all. Heathens are not in the
Church. Likewise we see in 1 Corinthinas, “Have you not rather not mourned that he is taken
away from your midst, that did such a thing? . . . Do you not know that a little leaven corrupts the
whole mass? . . . Put away the evil one from yourselves.”
96 With these words, the Apostle describes
what it means to be excommunicated. For he bids anyone to be excommunicated who would have
the wife of his father.

Secondly it is proved from Canon law, “It is canonically established, following the examples
of the holy Fathers, that we eliminate violators of the Church of God from the lap of holy mother
the Church and the consort with the whole Christian world by the authority of God and the
judgment of the Holy Spirit.”
97

Thirdly from the Fathers. Eusebius, relating the extent to which Pope Victor had
excommunicated all the Galatians says, “He sent a letter in which he separated everyone at the
same time without distinction from Ecclesiastical union. . . . Irenaeus argued with Victor because
it was not right to cut so many and such Churches from the unity of the body.”
98 Epiphanius,
speaking about Marcion (who had professed virginity prior to becoming a heretic and nevertheless
violated a woman who also had professed virginity and consequently was excommunicated by his
father), said, “He was ejected from the Church by his own father, for his father was famous due
to the excellence of his piety and persevered living honestly in the ministry of the episcopate.”
99

Hilary, commenting on that verse, “Let him be to you as a heathen and a tax-collector,” says
that God did that very thing with the people of Israel as Christ advises must be done. Firstly, he
corrected the people between him and it alone, when he appeared to them with majesty on mount
Sinai. Secondly, he applied two witnesses to himself, that is the Law and the Prophets. Third, he
spoke to the Church, that is, he sent Christ as the Supreme Prelate of the Church who reproached
the Jews. Lastly, when they did not listen to the prelate of the Church, he neglected them and left
them behind, just as the heathen and the tax-collectors. With such words he showed that through
excommunication a man becomes just as a heathen and a tax-collector, cast out from the people
of God, and no longer governed by that peculiar providence whereby the Church is governed.

Chrysostom and Theophylactus explain on this citation that one is said to be cast out from the
Church because he becomes as a heathen and a tax-collector. Jerome says that some sinners are
pushed outside the Church through the excommunications of bishops and become heretics and
schismatics by their very own will. Augustine says that those who are excommunicated are visibly
cut from the body of the Church.
100 Likewise he says that through excommunication diseased sheep
are separated from the healthy lest dangerous plagues creep through a great many of them.
101 This
opinion is cited by Augustine: “Every Christian who is excommunicated by priests is handed over
to Satan. How? Because obviously the devil is outside the Church, just as Christ is in the
Church.”
102 Anselm subscribes to this when says that a man is handed over to Satan that is pushed
out of the Church through excommunication.
103

Lastly it is proven by reason. Firstly, by excommunication men are deprived from all the
spiritual privileges that men in the Church have, as Tertullian teaches;
104 consequently they are no
longer in the body of the Church. What is it for some citizen to be deprived of his city except to
be deprived of all privileges that are due to men of that city? Secondly, excommunication has that
place in the Church that the death penalty had in the Old Testament as well as in Republican
times, but through death men are separated from the whole Republic. Augustine says,
“Excommunication now does in the Church what death did formerly.”
105 There he compares what
is said in Deuteronomy XXIV, “You will abolish the evil one from your midst,” with what Paul
says, “Remove the wicked man from your presence.”
106 Thirdly, there is no penalty that the Church
can inflict more severe than excommunication, as St. Augustine teaches,
107 therefore by
excommunication a man is cast out from the Church. It is more serious to be cast from the Church
than any penalty you like that remains for the Church to take up.

Fourthly, excommunication can not be imposed except upon those who are contumacious and
incorrigible, as St. Augustine teaches.
108 And indeed, even all Theologians deduce this from that
passage of Matthew XVIII we have been citing. Consequently, excommunication is the ejection
from the Church; for if excommunication were to be imposed for some penalty short of ejection,
it would also be imposed in every degree whatsoever upon murderers, adulterers and other
malefactors even if they are not contumacious. Add to this that when the excommunicates are
absolved, it is said: “Now you have been restored to the unity of the Church and the participation
of the members.” That is a clear sign that the excommunicates were separated from the unity of
the Church.

But they object to the contrary. First, an excommunicated man remains baptized, retains the
profession of faith and the subjection of the legitimate Prelate, and to the extent that he is a friend
of God, if he will be unjustly excommunicated then the excommunicate can also justly do penance
and have those three before he is absolved, therefore he will be in the Church, even while
remaining excommunicated.

I respond, such a person is in the Church by mind, or by desire, which suffices to salvation, but
still not in the body or the external communion which properly causes a man to be in this visible
Church which is on Earth. Augustine says, “Often divine providence may permit that even good
men may be expelled from the Christian congregation. If men will bear such contumely or injury
very patiently for the peace of the Church, nor will have created any novelties, schisms or heresies
then they will teach men how truly God must be served by good will and by such genuine charity.
The Father who sees in secret will crown these in secret.”
109

Secondly they object because Augustine says, “And we do not separate from the people of God
those whom we reduce to a lower place by degradation or excommunication.”
110

I respond: I suspect this passage has been corrupted and thus the phrase “And we do not
separate from the people of God,” must be picked out, since what follows after that is, “And we
are not allowed to do this for the sake of peace and tranquility of the Church, still we do not so
neglect the Church, but we tolerate that which we refuse to arrive where we wish, using the
precaution of the Lord’s precept, lest we might wish to gather the cockle before its time and
eradicate the wheat with it.” But if this passage has not been corrupted then the response can be
made that through the words, “the people of God,” not only the Church militant is understood but
the absolute number of those going to be saved, whether they might be in the Church or whether
they can be; since by excommunication pastors do not intend to separate men from the number
of those who can be saved, but rather more to help them to salvation by that correction.

They object thirdly that excommunication is a type of spiritual medicine established for the
assistance of those who are excommunicated. For this reason the Apostle says, “But if any man
does not obey our word by epistle, mark such a man lest you keep company with him so that he
shall be ashamed.”
111

I respond: Excommunication, even if it tears a man from the Church, nevertheless does not take
away potency so that he cannot again be inserted into the Church when he is cut off from it if he
should do penance. Therefore, the Church, through excommunication, separates certain men from
its body, but for their sake because she desires them to be humbled by that shame, and once
humbled then received again into the body of the Church.

CHAPTER VII: On the Predestined

M

OREOVER, the fact that not only the predestined but even the reprobate can pertain to
the Church (contrary to Wycliffe and Calvin) must be proved. 1) From the very clear
parables of the Lord. In Matthew the Church is compared with a threshing floor, “He will
clear his threshing floor and will gather the wheat into his barn, but he will burn the chaff in the
inextinguishable fire.”
112 Certainly the term “threshing floor” cannot be understood except about
the Church, in which the threshing floor is discovered, but the part about the inextinguishable fire
cannot be understood about the elect. Later in Matthew he compares the net let down in the sea
that gathers every kind of fish but at length some of them are sent into the furnace of fire,
113 but
that certainly is not said about the predestined.

Later in Matthew’s Gospel the nuptial dinner is compared to that in which the good and the
wicked enter and afterward the wicked do not have the nuptial garment and are cast into exterior
darkness. Then the Lord concludes it saying, “Many are called but few are chosen,”
114 i.e., many are
in the Church, which is a certain evocation, or the body of those called who still are of the elect.
Likewise he compares it to ten virgins, of whom the five prudent will enter the nuptials with the
spouse on the day of judgment, but the five foolish will be excluded.
115 In the same place it is
compared to a sheepfold in which there are sheep and goats and the former, as the Lord himself
explains, are the elect while the latter are the reprobate.
116 Paul bids the incestuous to be expelled
from the Church,
117 and still he could not cause him to be cast out from the predestined, nor did he
will it, since he cast him out that, having been humbled, he would return and be saved on the day
of the Lord, as he says in the same place.
118 Likewise in 2 Timothy II he says, “In a great house there
are vessels, some gold and silver, some wooden and made of clay, some in glory and some in
contumely.” There does not seem to be a doubt that the vessels in glory are the elect while the
vessels in contumely are the reprobate even though they are in the same house.

St. Cyprian confirms the same thing
119 and he clearly teaches that in the Church there are wheat
and cockle, as well as golden and wooden vessels, since it is certain that the cockle is burned and
the wooden vessels are in contumely. Moreover St. Augustine says, “According to foreknowledge
and predestination how many sheep are outside and how many wolves inside?”
120 There he says
that many predestined are outside the Church and many reprobates are within it.

Besides, the examples of Paul and Judas agree with it. John Huss said that Paul was always in
the Church but Judas was never in it. On the other hand, Paul himself says that he had persecuted
the Church of God, just as Luke affirms.
121 Therefore I ask, was the Church which Paul persecuted
the true Church, or it was not? If the true Church, then Paul was not a member of the true Church
at some point. For how was he of the Church which he opposed with all his strength? If that was
not the true Church, then Paul and Luke lie when they unreservedly call it the Church of God.

Hence, St. Augustine teaches that Paul, although he was predestined, was a wolf before the fact
and a sheep afterward.
122 Chrysostom says that Paul was a clay vessel but turned into gold while
Judas was gold but turned into clay.
123 Hence Judas became reprobate, as is clear from the Acts of
the Apostles,
124 and nevertheless, was at some point in the true Church. It is said in the same
passage of Acts that he was an Apostle from the twelve and was called a Bishop by David,
125 This
could not be true unless he were in the Church at some point. For this reason Augustine says that
Judas was a son of Christ and still persecuted his father just as Absalom did David.
126 He also says
that Judas was in the Church in which the rest of the Apostles were.
127

Reason also agrees for if predestination alone makes a man in the Church, it would follow that
if the Turks, Jews, heretics or any impious men were predestined, then they are now in the Church
and the living members of Christ; but on the other hand certain holy and pious baptized men, if
they might not be predestined, are not in the Church or the body of Christ. But each is false and
against what is expressed in the Scripture. For above we showed the fact that the unbaptized and
heretics are not in the Church, and the impious are not living members as it says in Romans, “If
anyone does not have the spirit of Christ, he is not of him,”
128 i.e. a living member. That the impious
do not have the spirit of Christ, but the spirit of the devil is clear from their works. For they are
not patient, chaste, etc., which are works of the spirit, rather they are adulterers, murderers,
blasphemers, etc., which are works of the flesh.
129 On the contrary, we find that all pious baptized
men are members of the Church in Paul, “We are all baptized in one spirit into one body,”
130 and
again, “You are all sons of God through faith in Christ Jesus, whoever you are that has been
baptized in Christ, have put on Christ.”
131 And still it is not believable that all the Corinthians and
Galatians were predestined.

Next, Augustine says, “In the bond of Christ, just as in a living building of the temple of God,
which is the Church, men are born not from the works of justice that they do rather they are
transferred by works of grace just as from the mass of a ruin to the solidity of a building.”
132 Again,
showing that the impious do not pertain to the living members of Christ, he says, “God forbid that
they could enter the confines of the enclosed garden that has such a guard as cannot be deceived,
who nevertheless if they confess and are corrected, then enter, then are cleansed, then are
enclosed among the trees of the garden, then are numbered in the members of the singular dove.”
133

Lastly it is proven from what is disagreeable; for if only the predestined were in the Church,
then everything would be uncertain. Then no man could recognize his brothers, nor would
shepherds know their sheep or be recognized by them, since nobody would know who is
predestined and besides nobody would know which would be the true Scripture, which would be
the true Sacraments, or the true faith, etc., since all these depend upon the testimony of the true
Church.

Yet they object to this with several arguments. 1) That verse in the Canticles, “An enclosed
garden, a sealed font, a well of living water, etc.,” without a doubt means the Church, and still St.
Augustine explains all of these about the elect alone.
134

I respond: Firstly, Scripture often attributes one thing by a figure of speech to the whole which
only agrees with a part. In Matthew it says that the thieves that were crucified with the Lord
blasphemed against him,
135 when it is certain from Luke that only one of them blasphemed.
136 In
Philippians it says “All seek what is their own,”
137 and yet there were not very many saints like this
who lived then and especially the Philippians. Secondly I say that what is said about the spouse
in the Canticles must not necessarily be understood on the Church. Some men understand this to
be about the Church, and others about the Blessed Virgin, and others every perfect soul (which
seems more probable), for it is said, “There are sixty queens and eighty concubines and the young
women are beyond number. One is my dove, my perfect, my mother is one chosen by her
mother.”
138 In that passage, if you understand the Church through that one spouse, what will you
understand by the queens, concubines and young women? Therefore the Church is understood
by the mother while the souls of the more imperfect by the queens, concubines and young women
and at length the faithful and good souls. For it is said, “For that reason the young women have
loved you.”
139 But through the one perfect spouse and dove is understood a perfect soul. Thus it is
also said in that very place, “Just as a lily among thorns, so my beloved among the daughters.”
140
If you understand the Church through the beloved, what will you understand for the other
daughters? Would it be the congregation of the unfaithful? God forbid. Thus, it speaks on the
perfect soul, which is called to mind amidst the multitude of sinners in the same garden of the
Church. St. Augustine says, “The thorns are described on account of the malignity of morals, the
daughters are described on account of the communion of the Sacraments.”
141

2) They make the second objection that the ark of Noah was a figure of the Church, as
Augustine teaches,
142 but there was nobody in the ark but those who were going to be saved from
the waters, therefore only the predestined are in the Church.

I respond: Similitudes do not agree in all things, otherwise every baptized person would be
predestined, since Peter compares Baptism to the ark of Noah,
143 thus not only the good but even
the wicked would be saved because in the ark both the clean and unclean animals were saved. For
that very reason the ark agrees with the Church; for just as outside the ark no man could be saved,
so not outside the Church as Augustine remarks on that citation, as well as Cyprian and Jerome,
144
nor must any other similitude be sought out.

3) They make their third objection that Christ is not the head except of his Church which he
will save, and which he will show to himself on the glorious day of judgment, not having spot or
stain, as Paul says.
145 But only the predestined will be saved and glorious, therefore only the
predestined pertain to the Church of Christ.

I respond: When it is said that Christ is not the head except of his Church which he will save,
that, “of his Church,” can mean of his part of the Church which he will save, and then the
proposition is false. For he is the head of his whole body although certain members are going to
cease to be members and will perish in eternity. It can also mean, “of his Church,” as in the whole
Church, as is distinguished from other congregations of infidels and then the proposition is true
but the consequent is bad. Although some members of this Church will not be saved, it does not
follow on that account that Christ did not save his Church, of which he is the head.

4) They argue fourthly that the mystical body is like a true body, but the whole true body of
Christ is safe and glorious with all its parts, therefore the mystical body in all of its members and
parts ought to be saved.

I respond: Firstly, similitudes do not agree in all things. Secondly, just as the body of Christ is
true, saved and glorious in regard to all its formal parts, still not in regard to all its material parts,
for the material parts flowed out from and were changed in Christ as we see happens among us,
so also the mystical body is going to be saved in regard to all the formal parts, which are Apostles,
Prophets, Pastors, Teachers, etc.; some will be saved from every race of men, but not in regard to
all material parts, which are all men individually.

5) The Church is one sheepfold,
146 but there are no sheep except the predestined,
147 therefore,
only the predestined are in the Church.

I respond: In some places of Scripture the word “sheep” means only the predestined as in
Matthew XXV where the sheep are separated from the goats, and in John X, “My sheep hear my
voice.” In other places it means everyone in general, both the good and the bad who are in the
Church, as in the last chapter of John, “Feed my sheep,” and in the Psalms, “Your furor has been
aroused over thy pasture,”
148 and in Ezechiel XXXIV, the sheep of God are described as some fat,
some lean, some healthy and some sick, but according to this second meaning the argument does
not have any force.

Still, we respond following the earlier meaning that in the sheepfold there are not only sheep
but also goats, as is clear from Matthew XXV, where they are separated since beforehand they
were present together in the same sheepfold. Moreover, the sheepfold is so called even if it does
not only contain sheep from the greater part of them. Just the same, Rome is called a city although
she embraces many who are not her citizens.

6) They argue from John, “I have other sheep who are not from this sheepfold,”
149 and also,
“Jesus was going to die for the nation, but not only for the nation but even that the sons of God
who were dispersed would be gathered into one.”
150 In such places the predestined are called sheep
and sons of God, even when they lived amidst the errors of the Gentiles, for this reason the
predestined are always in the Church. Likewise we see in 2 Timothy, “The strong foundation of
God stands having this seal, the Lord knew who were his own,”
151 and in 1 John, “They went out
from us but they were not from us, for if they were from us they would certainly have remained
with us.”
152 Therefore, even before they went out they were not from us but seemed to be. And it
is confirmed by Augustine, “Some are sons of God because they received grace temporally, as
when it says ‘from us,’ nevertheless they are not of God. . . . They went out from us, but they were
not of us, i.e. even when they seemed to be among us they were not. Likewise, they were not sons
even when they seemed to be in profession and in the name of sons. . . . because they did not have
perseverance, just as they were not truly disciples of Christ so they were not truly sons of God,
even when they seemed to be and were so called.”
153 Besides, in Doctrina Christiana, arguing with
Ticonius who called the mystical body of the Lord, i.e. the Church, divided, he says, “It ought not
be so called, for that part which will not be with him forever is not really the Lord’s body.”
154

I respond: Two distinct things must be noted for the explanation of these passages. The first
is that a man can be called a sheep of Christ, a son, a member in two ways; a) according to
predestination; b) according to present justice. This distinction is contained with Paul, for when
he says, “Whoever does not have the spirit of Christ is not of him,”
155 and nevertheless in 2
Timothy he says about the predestined, “The Lord knows who are his own.”
156 Therefore, a member
and a non-member of Christ can be one and the same. For he will be his if he has been predestined,
and he will not be his if meanwhile he does not have his spirit. Likewise Augustine teaches,
“According to foreknowledge, many who are certainly outside, and even those who are called
heretics, are better than many and good Catholics.” And again, “According to foreknowledge and
predestination how many sheep are outside? But how many wolves are inside?”
157

The difference between these is that those who are the sheep, sons, or members, are only so
according to predestination, such as are by potency but not by act. For predestination places
nothing in man, rather it is an act remaining in God himself. But those who are such according
to present justice are simply such by act, because they really have this act in themselves, whence
they are called such. Augustine clearly teaches this when he says, “Why is it that I said how many
sheep are outside? How many that revel are going to be chaste? How many that blaspheme Christ
are going to believe in Christ? And these are sheep. Even so, they only hear a foreign voice, they
follow strangers. Likewise how many praise God on the inside but are going to blaspheme? How
many are chaste but will fornicate and who now stand but are going to fall? And we say they are
not sheep from the predestined.”
158 There you can see how he speaks about the future, “they who
revel are going to be chaste, etc.” For in the same way it can be said that those who are outside are
going to be inside, and from this distinction it should be clear enough from the Scriptures we have
brought forth. For there the sheep are spoken of, as well as the sons of God who still were not in
the Church because they were such according to predestination and in potency, not however in
act and simply.

For equal reasoning, it is said in 2 Timothy II, “The Lord knows who are his,” this phrase is
about those who are his through predestination but not on the whole Church, since he adds in the
same place, “In a great house there are many vessels, some of gold, some silver, some wooden and
others of clay.” And the reprobate are similarly called those who went out from the Church and
were not from us, because they were not from us according to predestination, although they were
according to the communion of the Sacraments. In this way it ought also be understood what the
author of the incomplete work says in homily 20 on Matthew, namely, that one who falls from the
Church was never Christian; there he understands it according to predestination.

The second distinction is that one can truly be said to be a son of God or a member of the body
of Christ in two ways, in one way by the truth of essence, or the form, and in the other way by the
truth of the end, or as others say, from the truth of permanence. By the truth of essence it is the
son of God who has charity. “Everyone who loves is born of God.”
159 And likewise by the truth of
essence is the member of Christ who lives in the same spirit. “In one spirit you all were baptized
into one body.”
160 But by the truth of the end one is called a son of God, who attains inheritance;
and who will not attain it seemed to be a son but was not. For the purpose of descent is
inheritance, “Such if a son and heir through God.”
161 thus even by the truth of the end one is a
member who will be saved, for Christ united the Church to himself for this purpose, just as the
body to the head that he would save her, as it is said in Ephesians IV. Therefore, who is in grace
and still has not been predestined, is truly a son and member by the truth of essence and is not
truly a son or a member by the truth of the end. On the other hand, one who is not in grace, and
still has been predestined, is not truly a son or a member by the truth of essence, and nevertheless
is truly both by the truth of the end. The verse, “Who keeps his word, truly the charity of God has
been perfected in him,”
162 is understood on the first truth; while the verse, “If you will have
remained in my word, you will truly be my disciple,”
163 is on the second.

Since we have made such a notation, the passages of Augustine will be easily understood,
where he says that the just who are not predestined are neither truly sons nor members. For he
speaks on the truth of the end, not on the truth of the essence, as he explains himself in the same
passage. Likewise in his book on Rebuke and Grace, after he had said the predestined—not the
good—were truly sons,
164 he added, “Not because they feigned justice but because they did not
remain in it.” and in Doctrina Christiana,
165 rendering an account as to why he had said that those
who will not be with Christ in eternity do not truly pertain to his body he said, “Now they are in
one, still they will not always be in one. He is indeed that servant called to mind in the Gospel, of
whom when the Lord will have come he will divide him and place him in the lot of the
hypocrites.”

CHAPTER VIII: On Those who are not Perfect

I

T can easily be proven that there are imperfect men in the Church, against the opinion of the
Pelagians and the Anabaptists. If those who had any imperfection were not in the Church,
then there never would have been nor would be any Church on earth. For with the exception
of Christ and the Blessed Virgin (who by themselves do not make the Church), there is no one,
even if he were very holy in this life, who does not have some venial sins, even though they do
not abolish justice nor make man an enemy of God, as the Pelagians thought. That is particularly
taught in Scripture. “You forgave the impiety of my sin, for this every holy man will pray to you
in due season.”
166 What is the “for this,” except for this remission of sin? Furthermore, the holy man
is a man, and he still has something that he begs to be remitted him. In the Old Testament it says,
“For there is no man who shall not sin,”
167 and again, “The just man falls seven times a day and rises
again,”
168 and, “No man is so just on earth that he does good and does not sin.”
169 In Mathew all are
bid to say, “Forgive us our sins.” James says, “We have all offended in many things.”
170 and “If we
will have said that we do not have sin, we deceive ourselves and we do not have the truth.”
171 Such
testimonies are certainly so clear that they hardly need any explanation.

Likewise the Council of Miletus defines in canons 7 and 8 that the just say “forgive our sins,”
not just out of humility but also in truth—not just for others but even for themselves.

The Fathers witness the same thing. St. Cyprian said, “Whoever says he is without fault is
either proud or stupid.”
172 St. Gregory Nazianzen said, “To be free from every sin altogether is
something God constituted above the mode of human nature.”
173 St. Ambrose said, “The just man
cannot deny this because no man is without sin.”
174 St. John Chrysostom says, “The Church is not
constituted from the perfect but contains those given over both to industry and sluggishness.”
175
St. Jerome said, “I concede there are just men, but I do not agree they are without any sin.”
176 In
book 3 of the same work, Jerome proves this same thing from the whole matter, when he at length
admits that a man can go a very brief time without sin, but not long.

St. Augustine teaches that a man can live without any sin by a singular privilege from God, but
really there is no one who lives or has lived thus but Christ.
177 He says the same thing in de natura
et gratia, cap. 34, where he also exempts the Blessed Virgin, and in epist. 89, 95 and in the whole
book on perfect justice, and finally in book 1 against the two Pelagian epistles, cap. 14. “There is
no one in the Church that could rightly be ordained a minister, if the Apostle would have said if
anyone is free from sin, where he said free from crime; or if he had said those having no sin when
he said those having no crime. To be sure, there are many baptized faithful that are not guilty of
a crime, but in this life I say there is no one without sin.” St. Gregory the Great said that in this
life there are many not guilty of a crime, but no one that lives without sin.
178

There are many arguments to the contrary, but they do not all need to be answered here. Those
which are advanced to prove that any sin destroys justice, or that a man can live without any sin,
do not lack an answer since a little later we will show that the best and the most wicked men are
in the Church. There are only two arguments proper to this place. One is from the Canticles, “You
are all beautiful, my beloved, and there is no stain in you,”
179 and the other, “That he might show
the glorious Church to himself, having no stain or blemish, or anything of this kind.”
180 That
passage must be understood about the Church, as the sixth Council of Toledo teaches in its first
chapter, explaining the confession of faith.

I respond: To the first, it is either understood on the Church by reason of only one part, i.e. by
reason of just souls or on the perfect soul, which I would prefer to argue. For the just soul is called
all beautiful, either through hyperbole (which is familiar to lovers), or because the just and perfect
soul lacks mortal sins, which properly leave behind a stain and avoids venial sins as much as it is
permitted for human frailty to do so, and if it were to commit such it will soon labor to blot them
out. Even if it is not immaculate simply, still it is immaculate for the state of this life, as Augustine
explains in his book on the perfection of justice. In this way no one is perfect in this life absolutely,
and nevertheless many in the Scriptures are said to be perfect because they were such for the state
of this life. In Genesis it says, “Noah was a just man and also perfect,”
181 and, “Let all of us who are
perfect be of this mind.”
182 Nay more they are also called Immaculate who lack venial sins, “And
I will be Immaculate with him.”
183 “Blessed are the immaculate on the road.”
184 “He chose us in
himself, that we might be holy and immaculate in truth.”
185

I say to the second argument that a) it can be understood about the Church, not as it now is
but as it will be after the resurrection, as St. Jerome explains it,
186 as well as St. Augustine,
187 and St.
Bernard.
188 The Council of Toledo is not opposed to this either, because even if the Council
understood those words on the Church in this time, nevertheless it did not define it. Still, I say b)
it is more probable that the Apostle spoke about the Church of this time but attributed it through
a figure of speech to the whole Church, which agrees with one part of it. For those who are now
the just in the Church, that are glorious through the beauty of grace which is an innate glory, who
are the ones without stain, as it was expressed a little earlier, without blemish, because they have
been renewed through baptism; they have laid aside the old man and put on the new, the
blemishes are signs of the old man. So all understand this passage apart from the Council of
Toledo that has already been cited, such as Chrysostom, Jerome and Theophylactus in their
commentaries on those passages.

CHAPTER IX: On Great Sinners

M

OREOVER, in the one true and Catholic Church of Christ there are not only imperfect
men but even great sinners, and not only secret ones but even manifest ones. This is
proved against the error of the Novationists, Donatists and Confessionists. First, it is
proved from the parables of the Gospels on the chaff, on the net, on the nuptial dinner, the ten
virgins and on the sheepfold that we cited above, with which Catholics once so refuted the
Donatists that the latter found no way to escape them, as Augustine relates in his short work on
the conference with the Donatists, explaining the conference of the third day.

Besides, there are other very clear passages. In Matthew it says, “If your brother might have
sinned against you, go correct him, etc. If he will not hear you, speak to the Church, if he will not
hear the Church, let him be to you just as a pagan and a publican.”
189 Here it cannot be denied that
the discourse is on the true Church, for Christ speaks about his Church and in this Church it is
certain that sinners are discovered, even such sinners who often are not mended by fraternal
correction, nor by the application of two witnesses, and still they remain in the Church until they
are thrown out of the Church by the judgment of a prelate. We also see in Matthew that the Lord
commands in regard to wicked overseers that we should do what they say but not what they do.
190
Next the Lord describes a wicked overseer who strikes the converted, eats and drinks with the
drunk and he says, “The Lord will come on a day which he hopes not and he will divide him and
place his share with that of the hypocrites.”
191 Hilary, Jerome, Chrysostom and others teach on that
passage that it is on those in charge of the Church. Likewise Paul says that he writes to the
Church of God, which is in Corinth, and soon he adds, “It has been shown to me that there are
contentions among you.”
192 And in chapter V, “fornication is heard of among you and such
fornication that is not known among the nations, so that a man has the wife of his father.”
193 What
will they say here? That it is not the true Church? But the Apostle calls it the Church of God; that
it was not a very great and manifest sinner? Yet the Apostle says it. That he was not in that
Church? But the Apostle commands that they expel him through excommunication. “Let him be
taken away from your midst, etc.”

Additionally, St. John writes in the book of the Apocalypse to the seven Churches of Asia,
194 and
condemns individuals for no light matters. As Augustine remarks, John not only condemns the
Churches, but even the Bishops, signified by the Angel of the Church of Sardis, “You have the
name which you could live, but you are dead, be watchful, etc.”
195 Add that in the time of the Old
Testament the people of God never lacked very serious sins, and still we never read that Moses
or Samuel or other Prophets who lived in different times, or Mary, Anna, Elizabeth, Simeon,
Zachariah, John the Baptist and the other just, whom the Lord discovered in the people of the
Jews, separated themselves from the other very evil men in regard to the temple, altar, sacrifices
and other things which are of religion, hence, the good and the bad remained in the same
congregation. St. Augustine duly urges this very argument.
196

Secondly it is proven from the testimony of the Catholic Church in St. Augustine’s time. For
Augustine relates a famous conference held in Carthage among 306 Catholic Bishops (of which
he himself was one), with 296 Donatist Bishops. Augustine indicates that there were that many
on the first day, then in the conference on the third day the Donatists were compelled to admit
that the good and the bad are in the Church, and the Catholics advanced the parables on the net
gathering the good and bad fish, but the Donatists still said those who are secretly wicked are in
the Church, just as in the net while it is in the sea the good fish are not known from the bad, but
on the shore they will soon be separated. The Catholic Bishops responded to this that on that
account the Church is compared to a seine, in which the chaff is discerned from the grain, nay
more the chaff appears more than the grain. Further they argued that in the ark of Noah, after the
exit of the raven (which signifies heretics), the clean and unclean animals still clearly remained
in the ark.

Augustine also adds that when the Donatists misrepresented Catholics as making two
Churches, one on earth which would have the good and evil but the other in heaven which had
none but the good, then the Catholics responded they do not make two Churches but distinguish
two periods of the Church, “They said that there is now one and the same holy Church, but later
it will be otherwise, now it is mixed with the wicked, then it is not going to have them just as
there are not two Christs because Christ was at one point mortal and then immortal.” Such things
must also be noted against the Confessionists and the Calvinists who create two Churches.

Thirdly, it is proven from the testimonies of the Fathers. Cyprian said, “Neither faith nor our
charity ought to be impeded just because we discern that cockle is in the Church, it is no reason
to depart from the Church.”
197 St. Gregory Nazianzen compares the Church to a vast sea monster
composed of many such creatures, that is from the great, the small, wild, meek, etc. to show that
the greatest labor is that of Bishops who ought to rule so many kinds of men, the perfect and the
imperfect, the good and the bad.
198 St. John Chrysostom says many similar things on the sins of
those who are ruled by Bishops.
199 Commenting on Psalm 39 (40), on that verse, They are multiplied
over the hairs of my head, he said: “The whole Church is certainly not constituted from the perfect,
but it also has those who from laziness give themselves over to inaction, and embrace a soft and
dissolute life, and gladly serve their desires, at length both the former and the latter announce that
it is one body from one person.”

Jerome says, “The ark of Noah was a type of the Church, just as in it were all kinds of animals
so also in the Church there are men of all kinds of nations and morals, just in the ark there were
leopards, goats and wolves as well as sheep, so also in the Church there are the just and sinners,
i.e., vessels of gold and silver along with those of wood and clay.”
200 Augustine says, “We affirm
that both the good and the wicked are in the Catholic Church, but just as the grain and the
chaff.”
201 Fulgentius says, “Firmly hold and in nowise doubt the threshing floor of God is the
Catholic Church and within it even to the end of the world it contains the chaff mixed with grain,
that is, the wicked are mixed with the good in the communion of the Sacraments.”
202 St. Gregory
also teaches the wicked are in the Church and proves it with many arguments.
203

Lastly, it is proved from reason. For if only the good were in the Church then the Sacrament
of Penance would be in vain since it is administered only to those who are in the Church. Besides
no man would know for certain who was or was not in the Church, since it would be uncertain
who was really good or not. Likewise, if some prelate were to sooner or later fall into sin then he
would no longer be in the Church and hence no longer a prelate and therefore it would not be
necessary to obey him any longer; just the same if his subjects sooner or later would sin, they
would no longer be in the flock and therefore it would be lawful for the pastors to omit their care;
but from such confusion great disturbance would arise.

Still they object; 1) from the Scripture: “He will not add beyond that he should pass over to the
uncircumcised and the unclean. . . . Withdraw, withdraw, go out from there do not touch anyone
polluted go out from their midst.”
204 The Apostle explains this passage thus, “I will receive you, says
the Lord.”
205 Therefore, God does not receive anyone in his Church except those who separate
themselves from the unclean and sinners. Paul gives the reason (loc. cit.) saying, “What
participation does justice have with iniquity? What compact does Christ have with Belial?” In 1
Corinthinas he says, “One bread and one body we are many.”
206 But bread is only effected from
grain, not chaff and grain. In Romans he says, “Whoever does not have the spirit of Christ is not
of him,”
207 and, “In the one spirit we are all baptized into one body.”
208 Therefore, whoever does not
have the spirit is a sinner, and not a member of Christ. If one were to say he is not a living member
but still he is a member, on the other hand because he is a dead member he is not a member except
by a figure of speech, therefore he is not a true member and thus not one at all.

St. Augustine responds to the first argument.
209 The Church triumphant is understood in that
passage, “he will not add more that he should pass over to the uncircumcised and unclean.” What
is added, “Recede, go out, etc.,” is understood on the separation which ought to happen in the soul
and the dead but not in the corporal separation from the same temple and Sacraments, etc.

But Cyril of Jerusalem says it better when he comments on this passage of Isaiah (and it does
not seem that Jerome disagrees). He teaches that it is according to the historic sense, and it is a
question of the temporal persecution of the Jews that the sense might be when you return from
captivity an addition should not be made, i.e. for a long time, some infidel persecutor shall pass
through your lands, devastating them, but according to the mystical sense it is a question of the
Church, and Isaiah foretold that the gates of hell would not prevail against it. For the
uncircumcised and the unclean are principally the enemies of the Church, that is the demons. For
equal reasoning it follows that, “recede, recede, etc.” according to the historic sense is understood
about the Jews whom Isaiah exhorts go out from Babylon since the time of captivity was limited;
but according to the mystical sense it is understood about Christians who ought, after Baptism,
to be separated from the bodies, temples and sacrifices of unbelievers, along with their spouses and
all the rest which also pertain to religion. And St. Paul understands this passage in that manner
when he says speaks not on the commerce with certain sinners, but only with the infidels, “Do not
take up the yoke with infidels, what share do the faithful have with the unbeliever? What union
is there with the temple of God and idols?”

To what was said on the one bread, which is from the wheat alone, I respond: the similitudes
do not agree in everything. This similitude consists of the bread and of the Church, as Cyprian and
Irenaeus explain,
210 just as one bread is made from many grains through water, so also from many
men through the waters of Baptism, or through the Holy Spirit, who is also called water,
211 one
people of God is made. No man is in the Church who has not been baptized and does not
participate in either an internal or external gift of the Holy Spirit. Although it is also not true that
bread consists of wheat alone. Meanwhile either from negligence or from their malice, were those
who make bread to mix in even a grain of chaff, just as often in wine from the malice of the sellers
it is mixed with water. Next, the same is shown from the very words of Paul when he says, “We
are one bread and one body, we who participate in one bread.” But the good and the bad
participated in the one bread, otherwise Paul would not have argued that some communicate
unworthily.
212

To the last point I say that the wicked are not living members of the body of Christ and the
Scriptures themselves signify this. To that which is added, that they are members by a figure of
speech, etc., it is usually conceded by many men that the wicked are not true members of the body
of the Church, nor simply, but only according to something and by a figure of speech, such as John
de Turrecremata
213, and he tries to show it from Alexander of Hales, Hugh and St. Thomas. Pedro
de Soto, Melchior Cano and others that also teach the same thing; even if they say the wicked are
not true members, just the same they say they are truly in the Church, or in the body of the
Church and are faithful, that is Christians, simply. For not only are members in the body, but also
the humors, the teeth, the hair and other things. And faithful or Christians are not called such
from charity, but from faith or by the profession of faith. But if that is so, it follows that a bad Pope
is not the head of the Church and other bishops, if they will be bad, are not the heads of their
Churches. For the head is not a humor, or a hair, but a member and certainly a special one; but this
is against the Council of Constance wherein the error of John Huss was condemned which
asserted that a bad shepherd is only a shepherd by a figure of speech. It also condemned his error
which asserted that a bad prelate is not truly a prelate.
214

Consequently, I respond that members can be considered in two ways: a) as there are certain
matters according to themselves or according to their essence and substance; b) as they are
operative instruments, e.g., a man’s eye and a cow’s eye, as they are certain substances they are
different in regard to species, by reason of different souls. But as operative instruments, they are
species of the same thing because they have the same object.

Therefore I say, a bad Bishop, priest, teacher, etc., are dead members and so they are not true
members of the body of Christ in so far as it attains to the purpose of the member, as it is a certain
part of the living body, nevertheless they are truly members by reason of the instrument, i.e. the
Pope and the Bishops are true heads, the Doctors true eyes, or a true tongue of this body, etc. and
the reason is because they are constituted living members by charity, which the impious lack. But
the operative instruments are constituted either by the power of order or of jurisdiction, which
can also exist without grace. For even if in the natural body a dead member cannot be an
instrument of operation, still it can in the mystical body. In a natural body the work depends upon
the goodness of the instrument, because the soul cannot operate well unless it does through good
instruments, nor can it exercise works of life except through living instruments. The soul of this
body, i.e., the Holy Spirit works equally well through good and bad instruments, as well as living
and dead, etc.

The second objection. The Church is called “Holy” in the Creed, therefore it is constituted by
none but the holy. Those who make this objection will say that the response that the Church is
called holy because one part of the Church is holy does not suffice. For then the Church could also
be called sinful because one part, nay more the greater part is sinful.

I respond: The Church is truly said to be holy because all the things that pertain to her
constitution are holy. First baptism, which no man denies is holy. Secondly, Christian profession,
that is the profession of faith, as well as of morals, doctrines and Christian precepts. It is certain
that she is holy and that only she is holy by this profession since the profession of the Jews, Turks,
Heathen and heretics is not holy; and only that of Christians is. Thirdly, the union of members
among themselves and with the head, at least the external head, and in regard to those things
which pertain to religion is also certainly holy. She is called holy on account of the saints that she
has, but she ought not be called sinful on that account since a denomination is made from its
better part. Besides, it is proper for the Church to have saints because she alone truly has holy
people, but to have wicked men is not proper to the Church, for that agrees with other bodies as
well. Next, she is called holy because she is wholly consecrated to God and because Christ her
head is the holy of holies.

The third objection. He who does not have the Church as a mother does not have God as a
Father, as St. Cyprian teaches; likewise one who does not have the Church as a mother does not
have God as a father. But none of the wicked have God as a father, “For those who are urged by
the Spirit of God, these are the sons of God,”
215 and it is said to the wicked, “You are from your
father the devil.”
216 and again, “In this you are manifested as sons of God and sons of the devil,
everyone who is not just is not from God.” Therefore only the good have the Church as a mother,
therefore only the good are in the Church.

I respond with St. Augustine
217 that the name of son is received in three ways in the Scriptures.
In one way sons are called according to production, whether that is properly by generation, or
creation, or regeneration; thus Christ the Lord is properly called the Son of God because he was
generated by God the Father, all men also are sons by reason of creation. “Is he not your father
who made and created you?”
218 Still by reason of a new regeneration all sons are called just, and
only just as in the places we have cited, Romans VIII and 1 John III. Secondly, some are called sons
by reason of imitation, just as the Apostle calls the sons of Abraham those who imitate the faith
of Abraham,
219 and again, “Love your enemies and do good to those who hate you that you might
be sons of your father, etc.”
220 And in this way only the good are sons of God, for all the wicked are
sons of the devil, as it says in John VIII and 1 John III. Thirdly, they are called sons by reason of
doctrine, this is why the Apostle calls the Corinthians sons,
221 because he taught them the Gospel,
and again he says, “My children, whom I give birth to a second time until Christ will have been
formed in you.”
222 In this way all who are in the Church are sons of God and the Church, because
they adhere to the true doctrine of God and the Church, but they can still be good and wicked.
This is why Isaiah says, “I nurtured the children and raised them up, and they hoped in me,”
223 and
the Canticles declare, “My beloved is among the daughters as a lily among thorns.” There,
Christian souls are called daughters, but wicked.

With these being noted we respond to the argument. If it is a question of the sons of doctrine,
the assumption is false, for it is not true that only the just are sons of God if only the reason of
doctrine is considered; but if it is a question of the sons of God by regeneration or imitation, the
last consequent is bad, therefore only the good are in the Church; for not only the sons but even
the servants although these do not remain in the house for ever, the sons remain forever,
224 and this
is the mind of St. Cyprian. He did not mean that in the Church there are none but the sons, but
there are not any sons outside the Church, just as there are not any good men outside, although
there might be evil ones within. He meant to terrify heretics and schismatics, and to warn them
to not think they are able be either good or sons outside the Church.

The fourth objection is also from St. Cyprian, when he says, “Only the peaceful and
harmonious dwell in the Church, as God who makes those in unity dwell in his home, says in the
Psalms through the Holy Spirit.”
225 Therefore, sinners who fight and make contentions with others
are not in the Church.”

I respond: Cyprian does not speak on every peace, but on that which is properly said to be
opposed to schismatics. Besides, there can be other dissentions in the Church and in fact one often
finds them, as Cyprian himself witnesses in his sermon de Lapsis, where among other sins, he also
places among men in the Church who separated themselves from pertinacious hatred for each
other.

The fifth argument is from St. John Chrysostom and Theophylactus commenting on 2 Timothy
II, where they say, “In a great house there are golden vessels, etc.” They say that this cannot be
understood about the Church but about the world, because in the Church there are no vases but
gold and silver.

I respond: They do not deny that the wicked can be in the Church but they say it is not
necessary that they be in the Church because when the Apostle says that in a great house there
are golden, silver, clay and wooden vessels, it is known that all these are necessary lest someone
might think the Church cannot exist without the wicked. So these Fathers say that by the term
“house”, not the Church but the world should be understood since the Church does not need the
wicked, nay more when it will be in its best state, i.e. in heaven, it will have no wicked members.
Yet the world is furnished with the wicked, not per se but per accidens, if there were no wicked
men then the patience of the just would not be exercised in this world, nor the justice of God.

The sixth argument is taken from St. Jerome in his commentary on Ephesians V. He says on
the subjection of the Church to Christ, “The Church of Christ is glorious, having no stain, no
blemish, nor anything of this sort. A sinner or anyone stained with filth cannot be said to be of the
Church nor subject to Christ.”

I respond: Jerome means that the wicked cannot be said to be in that part of the Church that
contains only the perfect. He explains in his commentary on Galatians I on that verse, “Paul, an
Apostle, ... to the Churches of Galatia,” he means to explain how the words of the Apostle embrace
in themselves those who now seem to praise all the Churches, then reproach and rebuke them;
he says the Church is received in a two-fold sense, i.e. not that there are two Churches, but on the
one diverse-mode the Scriptures speak; sometimes Scripture attributes that which is proper to the
perfect to the whole Church, namely, that it lacks stain or blemish, and sometimes that which is
proper to the imperfect, such as to sin and the need for correction. When the Church is praised
it must be taken in respect to that part which contains the perfect, when it is rebuked then to that
which contains the imperfect.

The seventh argument is from Pacianus, who says, “In the Church there is no stain or blemish
because sinners are not in the Church until they will have done penance for their prior life, and
after that are cleansed.”
226

I respond: He does not speak about all sinners, but only on sinners who fell into heresy, for
before that he had said the Church lacks stain and blemish because she lacks heresy.

The eighth argument is taken from St. Augustine who says, “But by this, even without the
knowledge of the Church, on account of the wicked and polluted conscience, those damned by
Christ are not in the body of Christ, which is the Church, because Christ cannot have damned
members.”
227 He holds similar things in other places.
228

I respond, on account of these citations, not only Brenz and Calvin, but even some Catholics
imagine that there are two Churches, but they really imagine it, for neither the Scriptures nor
Augustine ever call to mind two Churches, but only one. Certainly in the brief conference with
the Donatists, where they falsely asserted that Catholics make two Churches (one for the good and
another which contains the good with the wicked), the Catholic side responded that they never
dreamed of two Churches, but only distinguish parts, or times of the Church. Parts, because on
the one hand the good pertain to the Church, and on the other the wicked, since the good are the
interior part, just like the soul of the Church, and the wicked are the exterior part, just like the
body and they gave the example concerning the interior man and the exterior, which are not two
men but one part of the same man.

With regard to times, they spoke distinguishing on the one hand the Church today, and on
another the church after the resurrection; today it has good and wicked men, after the resurrection
it will not have any but the good. They also placed the example of Christ, who is always the same
but nevertheless was mortal and passible before his resurrection, but afterwards immortal and
impassible. St. Augustine often confirms the same doctrine in other places and explains it with
various similitudes. Against the Donatists he says that the good are in the house of God, which
is the Church, so that the house of God might be built upon living stones, while the wicked are
in the same house, but these, nevertheless are not the house.
229 In the last chapter of his book On
the Unity of the Church, he says that the wicked are cut off from the Church in spirit but not in
body; in other words they pertain to the Church as to the exterior man, but not to the interior. In
Doctrina Christiana, while explaining the verse in the Canticles, “I am black but beautiful, just as
a cedar tent, just as the skin of Solomon,” he notes that it was not said “I was black and I am
beautiful,” but “I am black and beautiful,” because the Church now is one and the same, black just
as a cedar tent, on account of the sinners which she has in her, and at the same time beautiful, just
as the skin of Solomon, i.e., just as the halls of a king, because of the good which she has in her.
230

Augustine says the same thing on the epistle of John, where he teaches that the wicked are
indeed in the body of the Church, not as members, but as corrupted humors which remain in the
breast and really are in the body, and nevertheless are also truly separated from the members of
the body. From the latter the response is made that when Augustine says the wicked are not in
the Church, it ought to be understood to be in that way in which the good are, that is, they are not
living members of the body.

But one might object that St. Augustine also teaches that only the saints are the Church, which
is founded upon the rock, and to which was given the keys of the kingdom,
231 and about which it
was said if he will not hear the Church, let him be to you just as a heathen and a publican.

I respond: Augustine meant nothing other than that all privileges which were conceded to the
universal Church by God were conceded on account of the saints alone for the advantage and
benefit of those who obtain eternal salvation. Otherwise, Augustine frequently repeats the same
thing; wicked Christians advantageously administer the Sacraments and hence rule men, loose
them, bind them, etc. Consequently,
232 he compares evil ministers to a stony channel, through
which water passes to the garden, and although it acquires no advantage for itself, nevertheless
it is the cause for grass and flowers to be born and grow in the garden.
233

The ninth argument is of the Lutheran Centuriators of Magdeburg. They try to show that there
are two Churches, one of the good and one of the wicked.
234 They distinguish the justice of the
disciples in Matthew V from the justice of the Pharisees, in Matthew VI of the pious from the
hypocrites, in Matthew VII the body of wayfarers traveling on the narrow path from the body of
those going through the broad road, and in the same place they distinguish the house founded
upon the rock from the one founded upon sand. Moreover, they say it is certain that the Church
of the wicked is not one holy Catholic Church, therefore the true Church of Christ only embraces
the good.

I respond: Two Churches are not distinguished in any of those passages, but only different
qualities of those who are in one and the same Church. Just the same, Matthew XIII distinguishes
good fish from bad fish, and still they are in the same net, which signifies the Church, so they are
also in the same Church who make the profession of the same faith and are in the communication
of the same Sacraments, indeed they are those who walk on the broad road of vices, just as those
who walk on the narrow path of virtue and just as those who are truly pious and those who are
hypocrites, and those who follow the justice of the Pharisees as well as those who follow the
justice of the Apostles. Lastly, there are some just as a house founded upon a rock, and those like
a house founded upon sand. For in this passage it does not signify two Churches, as if we wanted
to make as many Churches as there are men, for the Lord says, “Therefore, everyone who hears
my words and does them, he will be compared to a wise man who built his house upon the rock,
etc.”

The tenth argument. If the body of Christ is the Church they cannot be parts and members of
this body, among whom Christ works nothing. For he works nothing in the impious and the
hypocrites; as a result, they are not of the same sort as those who can pertain to the Church of
Christ. Likewise, it is altogether fitting to distinguish the kingdom of Christ from the kingdom of
the devil, but all the impious pertain to the kingdom of the devil, therefore, only the pious pertain
to the kingdom of Christ, which is the Church.

I respond: It is not necessary that Christ work something in all his members, for there are some
dead members, some shriveled, which only adhere to the rest by an external connection.
Moreover, if the kingdom of Christ is distinct from the kingdom of the devil, still the same men
can pertain to each kingdom; those who are provided with bad morals persevere in the Catholic
faith, and the union with the other faithful, pertain to the kingdom of Christ in so far as the
profession of faith, but to the kingdom of the devil in respect to the perversity of morals. For this
reason Augustine says the impious who are in the Church are sons and foreigners; sons on
account of the form of piety, but foreigners on account of the loss of virtues.
235

CHAPTER X: On Secret Infidels

L

ASTLY, it remains to speak of secret infidels, i.e. those who have neither internal faith nor
any Christian virtue, but nevertheless profess the Catholic faith due to some temporal
advantage and mix with the true faithful by the communion of the Sacraments. Both the
Confessionists and Calvinists teach that such men in no way pertain to the true Church, and even
some Catholics, one of whom is John de Turrecremata,
236 although this author perhaps meant
nothing other than that they require faith for someone can be said to be united by an internal
union to the body of Christ, which is the Church, which would be very true.

Nevertheless, we follow the manner of speaking of a great many authors who teach that they
who are joined with the remaining faithful only by an external profession are true parts and even
members of the Church but withered and dead.
237

1) This opinion can be demonstrated from those words of John: “And now many have become
Antichrists, they went out from us, but they were not from us; for if they were from us they would
have remained with us.”
238 John speaks in this place on heretics, whom he calls Antichrists, and he
says that before they went out, they were not from us, i.e. they were not Catholics in spirit and
will but heretics and Antichrists, and still they went out from us because if they were not from us,
in spirit and will, nevertheless they were by external profession; but after they betrayed
themselves and broke out into open schism, they already ceased to be from us in every manner.

And, although at some time St. Augustine explained those words, “They were not from us,”
about predestination, still in his commentary on this passage, he explains they are about secret
heretics. He speaks thus: “All heretics, all schismatics, went out from us, that is, they went out
from the Church, but they would not have gone out if they were from us, i.e. they went out from
the Church, but they would not have gone out if they were from us. Before they went out,
therefore, they were not from us, if before they went out they were not from us, many are inside
that did not go out, and yet they are Antichrists. . . . And those who are inside are certainly in the
body of our Lord Jesus Christ since he still takes care of his own body; and health will not be
completed except in the resurrection of the dead; thus they are in the body of Christ in the same
way as bad humors, when they are vomited then the body is relieved; thus even the wicked, when
they go out, then the Church is relieved and when she vomits them out, and the body casts them
out, she says these humors go out from me, but they were not from me. Why were they not from
me? They were not cut from my flesh but pressed from my breast when they were present there.”
239
He explains it in the same way in other places,
240 which we will present below.

2) Next the same thing is proven from the testimonies of those Fathers who teach in a common
consensus that those who are outside the Church have no authority or jurisdiction in the Church.
241

Moreover, right reason manifestly teaches the same thing: By what arrangement can it be
devised or imagined that one might have jurisdiction and hence be the head of the Church, who
is not a member of the Church? Whoever heard of a head which was not a member? Moreover it
is certain, whatever one or another might think, a secret heretic, if he might be a Bishop, or even
the Supreme Pontiff, does not lose jurisdiction, nor dignity, or the name of the head in the Church,
until either he separates himself publicly from the Church, or being convicted of heresy is
separated against his will; for this reason, Celestine and Nicholas say (loc. cit.) that a heretical
Bishop, to the extent that he began to preach heresy, could bind and loose no one although
without a doubt if he had already conceived the error, were it before he began to preach publicly,
he could still bind and loose. The fact is likewise confirmed from the canon Audivimus, 24, quaest.
1, where we read: “But if he will have devised a new heresy in their heart, to the extent that he
begins to preach such things, he can condemn no man.” Besides, what if secret heretics could have
no jurisdiction, every act that depends upon jurisdiction would be rendered uncertain, which
would disturb the universal Church in no small measure. Therefore, now if he who is not in the
Church cannot have authority in the Church and a secret heretic can have it, and at some point
really has authority in the Church, certainly a secret heretic can be in the Church.

3) The same thing is proven from Origen, Augustine and Gregory. Origen says, “Even here in
Jerusalem (i.e. in the Church), there are some Jebusites who are perverse in their faith and deeds.”
242
There is no doubt whether he spoke on secret heretics, for he adds: “Nor do we speak about those
who are manifestly and evidently guilty enough to be expelled from the Church.”

Augustine says, “The enemies of this fraternal charity are either clearly outside or seem to be
inside, as pseudochristians and Antichrists, for after the opportunities have been discovered they
go out. But even if they lack opportunities, although they seem to be inside, they have been
separated by the invisible bond of charity.”
243 When Augustine says these things about secret
heretics, that they seem to be in the Church, he does not mean they are not really in the Church,
but that they are not in the mode in which they seem. They seem to be united by an internal and
external bond with the other members but still they are not united except by an external bond. For
if they were not really inside in any way but only seemed to be, for equal reasoning they would
not truly go out when they clearly betray themselves, but would only seem to go out. Moreover,
Augustine says they go out after the opportunities have been discovered, and he adds they were
separated even before they went out, but from the invisible bond of charity, not from the external
communion of the Church. What Augustine says later in the same work
244 ought to be understood
in the same way. There he says that secret heretics are separated so that they may be judged, even
if they do not go out. He speaks on the internal separation, not on the external, and this is not
proper in Augustine to secret heretics but to all sinners, whom Augustine affirms are not in the
body of the Church, as is clear from the chapters we cited above. Augustine continues in this
place: “Wherefore, John said they went out from us but they were not from us, he did not say they
became foreigners by going out, but that they were foreigners on account of this they declared
they left.” The Apostle Paul also speaks on certain men who erred concerning faith, they were in
one great house, I believe that they had not yet gone out.

Augustine continues, “Even if only the cockle must be spoken of, which even to the end
endures in deadly error and much great is outside, and much cockle inside.”
245 The sense of such
words seems to be that we understand outside the Church there are many manifest heretics who
at length will be converted to the true faith, and inside in the Church herself there are many secret
heretics who never converted. He has the same thing in City of God, where he says, “He rightly
called to mind that those who were going to be citizens lurked among his very enemies, just as the
city of God would hold itself from their number connected in communion of the Sacraments.”
246
Here it must be observed on enemies, who are outside the Church, Augustine said they are future
citizens because they are merely not citizens but will be in their time. But on enemies who lurk
within the Church, he does not say they are going to be enemies, but they are presently, now they
are in the Church itself although they nevertheless pertain to the number of enemies.

Again, when Augustine is treating on John XIII, where we read Christ was present while Judas
was leaving, he says, “For us, the Lord deigned to signify with his disturbance that it is necessary
to tolerate false brethren even as the cockle of the Lord’s field amidst the grain even to the time
of the harvest, that when some pressing reason compels a separation from them before the
harvest, this cannot be done without a disturbance to the Church. This disturbance of its saints
by future schismatics and heretics in just the manner the Lord foretold prefigured in himself the
wicked man made his exit, and the mixture of the grain in which it had been so long tolerated was
clearly left behind in the separation; he was disturbed but not in the flesh, rather in the spirit.”
247
Further on in the same tract he declares that Judas was one of the Lord’s disciples and nevertheless
bore the type of the heretic, “One from the number, but not rightly; one in species but not in
virtue; by a corporal mixture but not by a spiritual bond, joined in a unity of the flesh but not a
friend of the heart; . . . Both are true, both from us and not from us, according to one from us,
according to another thing not from us, according to the communion of the Sacraments from us,
according to the propriety of his crimes not from us.” He speaks likewise in another work, “Some
men are still placed in heart on the side of the Donatists but show themselves to be with us
corporally; in regard to the flesh they are inside, but in regard to the spirit outside.”
248

Next, in his work On Catechizing the Unlearned, he distinguished three kinds of Christians,
secret heretics, bad Catholics and good Catholics, “There are those who wish to be Christians, to
either be brought into the view of men from whom they hope for agreeable temporal assistance
or because they do not want to offend some that they fear. But if they are reprobate, the Church
bears them, albeit for a time, just as the sand bears the chaff for a time. If they do not correct
themselves and begin to be Christians on account of the coming eternal rest, then in the end they
will be separated. They cannot flatter themselves that they can be in the sand with the grain of
God, because they will not be in the barn with it, rather, they will be destined for the fated fire.
There are also others with better hope, but still not with lesser danger, who now fear God and do
not mock the Christian name, nor enter the Church of God with a feigned heart, but hope for
happiness in this life.”
249 You can clearly see there, from the discussion of these two kinds of men,
the first is of those who do not fear God but mock the Christian name and enter the Church with
a feigned heart, and still they are in it and remain and make up the number [of Christians] and
will not be separated until that clear exodus.

St. Gregory the Great, while explaining the words of Job, “My wrinkles bear witness against
me,”
250 says: “What, except the duplicitous are meant by ‘wrinkles’? The wrinkles are all those who
live two-faced in this life, who shout the faith of the holy Church loudly but deny it with their
works. Without a doubt, they lie that they are faithful in a time of peace because they see the same
faith honored by the powers of the world; but when the holy Church is disturbed by the gales of
sudden adversity, they show themselves on the spot to be soft in a treacherous mind. . . . But
because the Church holds even many reprobates within the fold of faith, when a time of
persecution rages, she suffers these enemies whom she seemed to nourish with the words of
preaching. Let it be said, therefore, ‘my wrinkles bear testimony against me,’ i.e. they rebuke me
in declaration who now place themselves in the body by their duplicity and do not amend their
malice. ... Even in a time of peace the holy Church suffers false brethren while there are many in
her who despair of the promise of eternity and still lie that they are faithful, but when the time
of malice breaks out he who now lies lays aside what must be gainsaid, he comes before the face
because he resisted the words of the true faith with a loud voice.”

4) It is proven from reason and the similitude of the human body argues for that which we
seek. The Church is like the human body, as the Apostle teaches in Romans XII and 1 Cor. XII.
Moreover, in the human body we see there are many different kinds of parts to the extent that
some are live and feel, some are alive and do not feel, some are neither alive nor feel, which is
obvious. Therefore, nothing prevents some men who have the faith and charity from being in the
Church, as well as some who have only faith, and some who do not even have the faith at all but
merely an external union.

Next, if those who lack internal faith are not, nor can be, in the Church, there will be no further
question between us and the heretics on the visibility of the Church, hence (which I consider to
be a great matter), so many disputations of the most erudite men will be redundant, which to this
point have been brought forth. All who have written to this point object to the Lutherans and
Calvinists because they make the Church invisible. I will now prove it beyond question.

The Lutherans and Calvinists establish certain visible and external signs, namely, the preaching
of the word of God and the administration of the Sacraments, and they constantly teach that
wherever these signs are seen there is also the true Church of Christ. Nevertheless, because they
mean only the just and the pious pertain to the true Church (and no man can say for certain who
might be truly just and pious among so many that outwardly wear justice and piety before them,
although it is certain that in every place there are many hypocrites and false brethren), then our
writers correctly conclude that the former make the Church invisible. Since, for the Lutherans and
Calvinists, justice consists only in faith and the same thing is said by those who say the Church
is the body of the just and the pious and the body of true believers, then who does not see that we
would plainly agree with them if we were to exclude all those from the Church who do not have
true faith in their heart?

For this purpose, it is necessary that it should be constituted for us—with infallible
certitude—what body of men make-up the true Church of Christ, since the traditions of Scripture
and clearly all dogmas depend upon the testimony of the Church; unless we were absolutely
certain what is the true Church, everything will be altogether uncertain. But one cannot constitute
what the true Church might be with infallible certainty if internal faith in every member or part
of the Church is required. Who knows for certain in whom there is such faith? Consequently, faith
(whether it is something invisible or secret) is required for someone to pertain to the Church in
some way.

Some respond to this argument in two ways. Firstly, it is certain enough that the body of
faithful men can be recognized, so that it could be said if the effect of faith is discerned, then the
type of protestation and confession of faith is of some sort; we even say that we truly and properly
see a man even though we do not see the soul except in its effects. Secondly, they add that it is not
necessary for it to be easy for us to see distinctly who these men are that make the Church, rather
it is enough to assign a certain body of men within which we would know for certain or at least
could believe that they all pertain to the Church. Accordingly, if the universal Roman people were
shown to someone in the forum or in the theatre, even though some outsiders might ultimately
be mixed in, truly it would be said that he saw the Roman people even if he could not discern
Romans from foreigners.

But neither answer seems to satisfy, and it was easily refuted earlier, the recognition that is not
certain from the effects, but conjectural. Furthermore, the example of man does not convince, for
in the first place, the effects of life in man are natural and necessary, but the effects of faith are
free and voluntary, hence much less certain. We could never know for sure just by looking at
someone that he whom we see is a man; accordingly it can happen that when we believe we see
a man we might see an Angel or a demon in human form. Certainly, Abraham, Lot, Tobit and
others in the Old Testament often believed some to be men who were angels. We, however, want
to have infallible certitude concerning the Church, such as we have not from man himself, but
from the form and exterior colors, as well as features of the human body, by which we cannot be
deceived when we look upon it.

The second answer does not satisfy for many reasons. a) Because it can happen that the
number of hypocrites would so increase that there might be more secret heretics than true and
perfect Catholics and no one could truly say this body is the Church of Christ, when in that body
that he shows a greater part does not pertain to the Church, nor would he himself know who
might be those few who make the Church. Although it would have to be hoped that a greater part
of those who profess the faith are sincere, still that is not certain.

b) Because the whole Church would not come together in one place so that we could say for
certain that in this body is the Church; rather, it has been dispersed through various places, and
we might be certain on no part, or that whole part might be without the true faith; wherever we
go we will always be in doubt whether we communicate with the true Church of Christ. Now, this
is not opposed to what we said elsewhere, that the particular Roman Church cannot defect from
the true faith,
251 for the whole Roman Church itself comes together in some place at the same time,
but is gathered while spread out in different churches, which are in the city of Rome, nor do we
know for certain with infallible certitude in that body, to which we by chance have approached,
that all are not without true faith in heart.

c) Because it can also happen that a whole general Council might be outside the Church; for
how great would it be if, among so many thousands professing faith in Christ, three-hundred or
four-hundred men, who come together in a Council, might lack the true faith? Evidently matters
that are otherwise so well known, and which it is necessary that they be certain, will be called into
doubt. Certainly Brenz, as we remarked in the disputation on Councils, elevates the authority of
Councils for this reason, because we are not certain whether any of the Fathers had true faith in
heart, and therefore were in the Church of God, for a false Church is not a column and firmament
of truth, but only a true Church.

d) Because if we do not distinctly know who might constitute the Church, then we will be
ignorant, not only as to what the Church is but where it is, or rather more where the Church
hides, which is insufficient to save the visibility of the Church, which we will take up in the
following chapter; but now let us see what some object.

Firstly, they object that faith is a foundation like the form of the Church, when we read, “Just
as a good architect placed a foundation and no man can place another foundation apart from that
which has been placed, which is Christ Jesus;”
252 and, “You are built upon the foundation of
Apostles and Prophets in Christ Jesus the chief cornerstone.”
253 “One God, one faith, one baptism.”
254

I respond: The form of the Church is not internal faith (unless we mean to have an invisible
Church) but external faith, i.e. the confession of faith. St. Augustine teaches this very clearly,
255 and
experience witnesses it. For they are admitted to the Church who profess the faith. Moreover, in
those passages, faith is not said to be the form or the foundation of the Church, but the foundation
of justice, or the doctrine which is in the Church. Add that the Scriptures, just as they place faith
in the Church, so also do they place charity and every gift of the Holy Spirit, but no Catholic
teaches that those who lack charity and the gifts of the Holy Spirit are not in the Church.

Secondly, they object that in the definition of the Lateran Council, which is contained in the
chapter Firmiter, de summa Trinitate et fide Catholica, there is one universal Church of the faithful,
outside of which no man is saved; to which there is a similar definition of Pope Nicholas which
is contained in de consecrat. dist. 1, can. Ecclesia, the Church is a gathering of Catholics, but none
are faithful and Catholic who do not have faith in their heart, even if they profess it in mouth.

I respond: These are not definitions of the Church. The Lateran Council only meant to assert
that there is one Church, not to accurately describe what it might be. Moreover it addresses the
Church of the faithful, because by this name the baptized Christians are distinguished both from
those who are manifestly infidels and also from catechumens who are not called faithful, as we
showed above. Therefore, it is the same as if the Council would have said the Church of Christians
is one, not many. Secondly, the name of faithful can be received for one who publicly professes
the faith, and we will speak soon in the same way about the name Catholic. Thirdly, it could truly
be said that the Church of the faithful, i.e., of those who have true faith in heart, is one; for the
Church especially gathers faithful only from intention, but when some false men are mixed in who
do not truly believe, that happens apart from the intention of the Church. For if she could refuse
then she would never admit them, or immediately exclude those just admitted after their fall.

Thus we come to those words of Pope Nicholas, “The Church is a gathering of Catholics.” We
are necessarily compelled to say that they are called Catholics who profess the Catholic faith,
irrespective of their internal faith; for Nicholas bids that Churches not be made, i.e. as he explains
it, gatherings of Catholics, without the nod of the Apostolic See. Moreover it is plain that
gatherings of Catholics cannot otherwise happen than by calling into one place all of those that
are said to be Catholic, i.e. those who publicly profess that they are Catholics.

Thirdly, they object with the testimony of the Fathers, who said that heretics are not truly
Christians, such as Tertullian,
256 Cyprian,
257 Athanasius,
258 and Augustine,
259 but the Church of Christ
cannot be made of any but Christians, therefore those who do not have true faith do not pertain
to the Church.

I respond: Those fathers speak on manifest heretics who have the faith of Christ neither in
their heart nor in their mouth. The Christian name is of profession, and they are called Christians
who preserve and follow the law and faith of Christ publicly.

Fourthly, they object that before the coming of Christ, not only the Synagogue of the Jews
pertained to the Church of God, but all the Gentiles as well who, though dispersed throughout the
world, truly worshiped one God. From that it seems to follow that faith might be a bond of the
Church and hence, he who does not have faith does not pertain to the Church.

I respond: all those, and only those, constituted the Church of God, in all ages, who had been
gathered at the same time in confession and asservation of one faith in one God, the creator of
heaven and earth, whether these were made by sacrifices, or in another mode.

The last objection. The principle reason why secret heretics are included among the members
of the Church, is that it seems that it is constituted for us with infallible certitude what body of
men might be the Church; but this certitude cannot be had, even if secret heretics pertain to the
Church, which is confirmed by the following arguments.

a) Those who are not baptized are not members of the Church, but no man knows for certain
who might be truly baptized, both because the character of Baptism is invisible, and because even
when exterior Baptism is furnished, few are present to see, and consequently the rest ought to be
content with human faith.

b) The Church cannot exist without Bishops and priests, as Jerome teaches.
260 But who knows
for certain who might be true Bishops and priests since that depends upon the intention of the one
ordaining and upon an invisible character.

c) The excommunicated are not in the Church, as we taught above, but many are secretly
excommunicated, namely, excommunicated ipso facto by law, and not promulgated in the
presence of the people, for that reason will we not be compelled to doubt when we see someone
whether they may be in the Church or not?

d) It often happens, or certainly can happen in some places, that manifest heretics feign
themselves to be Catholics, and also Jews, Turks and pagans mix themselves with the faithful, and
still, either they will not be of the Church, or we will say that the Church is the body of heretics,
pagans and hypocrites.

I respond to these arguments: resp. a) That someone might be in the body of the Church does
not require the character of Baptism, but external Baptism; nor is external Baptism required to
reckon someone might be in the Church, but only that he might be admitted since, if anyone asks
to be admitted to the Church, it will not happen without Baptism. Nevertheless, if someone says
he has been baptized, and the contrary is not certain, he shall be admitted to the other sacraments,
and through this he will be of the body of the Church. Now, the sign of this that if afterward it
were to become know that he was not baptized, then he will be expelled from the congregation
if he deceived them and not received again unless after penance he will be baptized. On the other
hand, if it is not his fault, he would not be cast out, rather what he lacked will be perfected in him.
It would not be judged that he was not in the Church, but will be judged to have entered through
another way than the ordinary power. For this very reason, Innocent III,
261 judged that a priest who
was not baptized was truly in the Church, and commanded sacrifice to be offered for his soul just
as for the faithful. Dionysius of Alexandria, as we have it in church history,
262 judged that a certain
man was truly in the Church whom it was certain was not truly baptized but only secured the
other Sacraments as one of the baptized.

resp. b) Two things can be considered on Bishops: Firstly, that they hold the place of Christ so
for that reason we owe obedience to them, and because they cannot deceive us in those things
necessary for salvation. Secondly, that they might have the power of Order and Jurisdiction. If it
is considered in the first mode, we are certain with an infallible certitude that these, whom we see,
are our true Bishops and Pastors. For this, neither faith, nor the character of order, nor even
legitimate election is required, but only that they be held for such by the Church. Since they are
Bishops on account of the Church, they are not against it; God assists those who are held for such
lest they would err in teaching the Church. Now, if this is considered in the second manner, we
do not have any but a moral certitude that these will truly be Bishops, although it is certain, with
infallible certitude, that at least some are true, otherwise God will have deserted the Church. For
this purpose, to hold the Church is certain and clearly visible in so far as the heads and members,
the first consideration suffices.

resp. c) The secret excommunicates are in the Church by number but not by merit, de facto not
de jure.

resp. d) In the first place, I say the difficulty is that men of this sort are not detected on the spot,
but nevertheless delude the Church for a long time, still nothing detrimental can happen from that.
The Church does not number those among her own except by reason of external profession (they
do not judge men regarding their internal life). Moreover, that external profession is very holy,
although badly usurped by men such as these. Therefore, they are in the body of the Church while
they are joined to the faithful in the bond of profession and obedience, because it binds the
universal Church, and renders it into one body. Nevertheless, it does not follow that the Church
on that account is the body of heretics, pagans and hypocrites, since even if a few men such as
these are in the Church, nevertheless, we are certain with the certitude of divine faith that in the
same Church, there are truly many faithful, pious and elect; just as in the human body nail and
hair are discovered which do not live, and still no man thence gathers that the human body is
nothing but nails and hair.

CHAPTER XI: Another Controversy is Proposed:
Whether the Church is Always Visible, or Whether it can
Err and Defect

W

E HAVE explained what the Church is. Now what kind of thing it is must be
spoken of. There is a conflict between the heretics, and us on three matters. 1)
They say the true Church is invisible and known only to God. Thus it is noted by
Frederick Staphilus
263 that, in the beginning the Lutherans made the Church invisible, then
at length, when they saw the absurdity which followed thence, by a secret counsel, they
established that the Church may be said to be visible, but still by this name of visible they
mean really invisible.

First of all, we take Luther in his work on The Slave Will. When Erasmus objected to him
that it was not credible that God would desert the Church for so long a time, Luther
responded that God never deserted the true Church, but that which is commonly called the
Church is not the Church of Christ, i.e. the Pope, Bishops, clergy, monks and the remaining
multitude of Catholics, rather it is a certain pious few whom, like a remnant, God preserves.
And this was always in the world, that the Church that men said was the Church was not
rather the certain pious and few. In another place he says the Church is spiritual and only
perceptible by faith.
264 In another work he says the same thing, “Who will show us the Church
since it is hidden in the spirit and only believed? In the same way as it is said, I believe in
the holy Church?”
265

Now the Centuriators of Magdeburg define the Church as a visible body,
266 nevertheless
they distinguish two Churches, and say the true Church is for the most part scanty, while
the false one is very numerous,
267 because only they pertain to the true Church who enter
through the narrow gate, i.e. the truly pious, hence the true Church is invisible. They add
that in the time of Christ, truly the Shepherds as well as the Magi, Zacharia, Simeon, Mary,
and Anna, were in the Church but not the Priests and the Sadducees, because the former
were pious, the latter were impious.
268

Philip Melanchthon repeats as often as he can that the Church is visible.
269 Nevertheless,
he says in the same place that the word of God must be followed in controversies according
to the confession of the true Church; moreover, this true Church he says cannot be Bishops
and priests, nor a greater part of a Council, but certain pious and elect illuminated by God.
Moreover, he says in the time of Elijah, the true Church was Elijah, Elisha, and the others
that adhered to them, but not the remaining multitude of the Jews. Lastly, that in the time
of Christ, the Church was Zachariah, Simeon, Mary and the shepherds because they were
pious.

John of Brenz says in the Württemberg Confession
270 that the Church of God has the
promise, still one must not stand before the judgment of Councils because few of the elect
are there, and because often the greater part conquers the better part. And in his
prolegomena he says: “You see that he [Pedro de Soto] makes the Church visible and
perceptible in its corporeal senses. Therefore that article of the Creed will have to be blotted
out, ‘I believe in the holy Catholic Church,’ and must be replaced with, I see and perceive
the holy Catholic Church.’” In like manner, Calvin says, “Scripture speaks on the Church
in two ways, on the one hand when it gives the name to the Church, it understands that
which is really in the presence of God. ... It is necessary for us to believe the Church is
invisible and conspicuous only to the eyes of God.”
271 and again, “Moreover, to embrace the
unity of the Church in that way, there is no need to pick out the Church herself with the
eyes, or to touch it with the hands.”
272

2) They teach that the visible Church so erred in faith and morals that it defected
inwardly. Calvin says this in his preface to The Institutes: “But it is no small thing that they
erred from the truth, while they did not recognize the Church except that which they
discerned with their physical eye. . . . They groan unless the Church is always shown with
a finger. . . . Why don’t we rather more permit God that, since he alone knows who are his
own, he will, now and again, take the exterior notice of his Church from the sight of men.”

3) They teach that the true Church, that is the invisible one, cannot indeed defect, nor
err, in those matters which necessarily pertain to salvation; nevertheless it can err in other
things. Calvin argues thus.
273 We assert the contrary and we will confirm each point with its
own arguments.

CHAPTER XII: The Church is Visible

F

IRST, therefore, that the true Church is visible can be proved from all the Scriptures where
the term Church is discovered. A visible congregation is always meant by the term Church.
Calvin could not, and did not, advance even one passage where the term is attributed to an
invisible congregation. Certainly, when it is said in Numbers, “Why did you lead the Church of
the Lord into the wilderness?”
274 the Church is called that people who had gone out from Egypt.
Thus in Kings, Scripture manifestly speaks on the visible Church, when it says, “The king turned
his face and blessed every Church of Israel; for every Church of Israel stood.”
275 In Matthew XVI,
“Upon this rock I will build my Church,” by the name of rock one either understands Christ, or the
confession of faith as the heretics do, or Peter as we believe, the foundation of the Church is
always something perceptible, as is clear, and consequently, the Church herself is perceptible, or
visible. Even if now we see neither Christ nor Peter, still both had been put forth to be seen by
corporeal senses, and now both are seen not in themselves but in a vicar, or in their successor, just
as the King of Naples is not invisible when the king is away since he is seen in his viceroy. “Speak
to the Church, if he will not hear the Church, etc.”
276

Certainly neither [foundation] can be saved if the Church were invisible, as Acts relates,
“Attend to the whole flock over which the Holy Spirit has placed you as Bishops to rule the
Church of God.”
277 How could they rule a Church that they did not know? “These being removed
from the Church passed into Phoenicia,”
278 and in the same chapter, “When they came to Jerusalem,
they were received by the Church.” “Paul went up and greeted the Church.”
279 How do these agree
with an invisible Church? Paul says that he persecuted the Church of God;
280 but it is known whom
he persecuted from Acts IX. Next, he says, “I write these things to you, son Timothy, that you
know how you ought to live in the house of God, which is the Church of the living God, etc.”
281 But
rightly he could not live in it unless he know what it might be.

Secondly, it is proven from other Scriptures where the Church is not named, but is clearly
described. “He placed his tent in the sun.”
282 St. Augustine explains that he placed his Church in the
open, just as the sun which cannot be completely hidden, so neither can the Church be hidden.
283
Likewise in Isaiah II, Daniel II, and Micah IV, the Church is compared to a great and conspicuous
mountain which can be in no wise hidden, according to the common exposition of Jerome on these
citations, as well as Augustine.
284 Likewise in Matthew, “A city placed on a mountain cannot be
hidden.”
285 Augustine explains this on the Church. Therefore the gospel parables on the sand, the
net and the sheepfold, the dinner party etc. all show that the true Church, which is the kingdom
of heaven, is visible.
286

Thirdly, it is proved from the very beginning and progress of the Church. So as to pass over
the Old Testament we note that the Church was so visible that they carried the visible sign of
circumcision in their flesh. In the New Testament the Christian Church was whole in the
beginning in the Apostles and disciples of Christ, who were so visible that the Holy Spirit visibly
descended over them on the day of Pentecost. Next, on one day three thousand men were added
to them, and again five thousand by the confession of faith and Baptism, as is clear from Acts.
287
Thereafter, all these and only these were held to be in the Church of Christ, who had united
themselves to those first through Baptism and Confession of faith, and thence they did not receive
through heresy or schism, or were expelled through excommunication.

Fourthly, it is proven from the very plan of the Church. The Church is a certain society, not
of Angels, nor of souls, but of men. For a society of men cannot be spoken of unless it consists of
external and visible signs, for it is not a society unless the members of that society recognize each
other, i.e., unless the bonds of society are external and visible. It is also confirmed from the custom
of all human societies, for in the army, in a city, in a kingdom, and like things, men are ascribed
to them in no other manner than with visible signs. For this reason St. Augustine says, “In no
name of religion, whether true or false, can men be gathered together except by some participation
in signs or visible Sacraments.”
288

Fifthly, in the time of Christ, as Melanchthon and Illyricus would have it, the Church was only
in Zacharia, Simeon, Anne, Mary and a few other pious persons, but not in the priests and the
remaining multitude of the Jews. But it is certain that Zacharias, Simeon and the others
communicated with the Priests in the temple, the sacrifices, etc. Zacharias was sacrificing in the
same temple; Anna did not leave the temple; Mary went yearly to the temple; Christ himself sent
lepers to the priests and said, “Do what they tell you.” Therefore, the Lutherans actually act
wrongly by not communicating with us and by not obeying the Pope.

Sixthly, it is proven from necessity; for we are all held to unite ourselves to the true Church
and persevere in it under the danger of eternal death, i.e. to obey its head and communicate with
the other members, as is clear from St. Cyprian,
289 Jerome,
290 and Augustine.
291 But this cannot be
done if the Church is invisible.

Seventhly, from the aforesaid in the previous question, if the Church is a gathering of men
using the same Sacraments and professing the faith of Christ, under the rule of legitimate pastors,
as it was proved there, it necessarily follows that it is visible.

Finally, by the testimony of the Fathers, such as Origen, “The Church is full of brilliance from
East to West, etc.”
292 Cyprian, “The Church, imbued with the light of the Lord, sprinkles its rays
throughout the whole world.”
293 Chrysostom says, “It is easier for the sun to be extinguished than
the Church hidden.”
294 Augustine says, “There is no safety in unity except from the promises of
God that were declared to the Church, that, being set up on a mountain (as it was said), cannot
be hidden,”
295 and again, “Can we not show the Church with our finger, brethren? Is it not clear?”
296
“What more is there to say than that they who do not see so great a mountain are blind? Who
close their eyes to the lamp placed upon a lamp stand?”
297

CHAPTER XIII: The Visible Church Cannot Defect

N

OW that this true and visible Church cannot defect can be easily proven. Moreover it must
be observed that many waste their time when they try to show that the Church cannot
defect absolutely, for Calvin and the other heretics concede that, but they say it ought to
be understood about the invisible Church. Therefore, we mean to show the visible Church cannot
defect, and by the name Church, we do not understand one thing or another, but the multitude
gathered together, in which there are Prelates and subjects.

1) It is shown from the Scriptures where the Church is clearly named, “Upon this rock I will
build my Church, and the gates of hell will not prevail against it.”
298 What is said in 1 Timothy is
similar to this, “That you might know how you ought to live in the house of God which is the
Church of the living God, the pillar and firmament of truth.”
299 In both it is a question of the visible
Church, as we see and still hear the very truth asserted that the gates of hell are not going to
prevail against that Church.

2) The promise is clear from other passages without the name Church, such as in the last
chapter of Matthew: “Behold I am with you even to the consummation of the age.” Such words
were spoken to a visible Church, evidently to the Apostles and the remaining disciples, whom the
Lord spoke to on the day of his ascension. And since these men were not going to remain in the
body even to the end of the world, it was necessary to say this promise pertained to their
successors. Therefore St. Leo I
300 and Leo II
301 understand this on the perpetual duration of the
Church.

Moreover, in Ephesians we read, “And he gave some as Apostles, others Prophets, other
Evangelists, others Pastors and Teachers to the consummation of the Saints in the work of
ministry, in the building of the body of Christ until we all run in the unit of faith, and the
recognition of the son of God, in the completion of strength and the measure of the age of the
fullness of Christ.
302 There the Apostle teaches that the ministry of pastors and teachers is going to
remain in that Church for the continual building of the body of Christ, and hence the visible
Church, even to the day of Judgment. Were only an invisible Church to be in the world, that
ministry would not be able to be found which cannot be exercised unless shepherds and sheep
recognize it. It must be noted that although the Fathers understand this passage on the spiritual
measure of the mystical body, more recent authors understand it on the corporal measure of the
body of the blessed which they say is going to be of such a magnitude, as things were or had been
in its perfect state of age. Nevertheless, all understand this passage on the last days, when the
number of the elect will be filled.
303

Besides, the Psalmist says, “God founded her in eternity,”
304 i.e. his Church, which is his city, as
Augustine explains, and the matter speaks for itself, for the whole Psalm is on the foundation of
the Christian Church, just as of a new and visible city. It begins, “The Lord is great and
exceedingly praiseworthy, in the city of our God on his holy mountain: the whole world is
founded in exaltation, etc.” Likewise in Isaiah, “The Spirit of the Lord is upon me, ... and I will
strike a perpetual covenant with them, and their seed will be known among the Nations, and their
seed in the midst of the people. All who see them recognize them, because they are the seed which
the Lord has blessed.”
305 That this chapter is understood on the Church of the New Testament,
Christ taught in Luke IV when he recited it in the Synagogue and explained it on his coming.
Certainly this passage is so clear that it does not require exposition. How will that body be
invisible if it is said, “All who saw them knew them because they are the seed which the Lord has
blessed.”

3) Next come the testimonies from parables in which the Church is meant by the consensus
of all, for the sand in which there are grains and chaff; the net in which there are good fish and
bad; the field in which there is the grain and cockle; the dinner party in which there are the good
and evil reclining; the sheepfold in which there are sheep and goats mean the visible Church, as
even the heretics affirm. For an invisible Church does not have wicked and good, but only the
good, according to their opinion. But the same parables teach that the Church visible Church is
never going to perish even to the Day of Judgment. In Matthew it is said, “He will cleans his field,
and he will gather the wheat into his barn, but the chaff he will burn in the inextinguishable fire,”
306
which certainly will happen before the day of judgment. And again, “Permit each to rise even to
the harvest. The harvest will be the end of the world ... Thus the angels will go out in the
consummation of the age, and will separate the wicked from the midst of the just, etc.”
307

Fourthly, it is proven from the Scriptures, which speak on the reign of Christ. The Psalmist
says, “His throne is as the sun in my sight, and just as the moon completed forever, and a faithful
witness in the sky . . . and I will place his seed in age upon age and his thrown as a day of
heaven.”
308 “In the days of those kingdoms God will raise the kingdom of heaven which will never
be destroyed: and his kingdom will be handed to another people.”
309 “And for his kingdom there
will be no end.”
310 These passages cannot be understood except about the fact that the true and
visible Church of Christ is not going perish. For the Kingdom of Christ, without a doubt, is his true
Church. One cannot call a few secret men dispersed and separated from each other a kingdom,
where one does not know the other such as the invisible Church of the Lutherans. For the
kingdom is a multitude of men gathered who know one another.

Besides, in Psalm 88 (89) where the eternal kingdom of Christ is spoken of, it also says that in
it there will be the good and the evil, and hence that the Church is visible, “But if its sons forsake
my law and do not keep my justice, ... I will visit their iniquity with the rod and their sins with
beatings, but I will not dispense my mercy from it, etc.” St. Cyprian beautifully explains such a
passage in de Lapsis. In the other verse in Daniel where it says the kingdom of Christ is perpetual,
we also read that the kingdom is a great mountain filling all the earth, which Isaiah
311 and Micah
312
call a conspicuous mountain according to the Septuagint.

5) It is proven from the testimonies of the Fathers. Origen and Chrysostom affirm it in the
places we cited, but Augustine and Bernard express it more clearly. St. Augustine, disputing on
Psal. 101 against the Donatists, (who said the whole visible Church had perished and only
remained among the just in Africa) said, “But that Church, which was of all nations, no longer
exists, it perished, yet those who are not in it say this. O impudent voice, just because you are not
in it does not make it so. See to it lest you might not exist, since it will, even if you may not.”
313
Further on, he introduces the Church speaking in this way: “How long will I be in this world? Tell
me, on account of those who say the Church did exist but does so no longer, that it apostatized
and perished from all nations; yea it announced and that voice was not empty. Who announced
it to me, unless it was on the road? When did he announce it? Behold, I am with you even to the
end of the age.” He says similar things on Psalm 147 and in his work On the Unity of the Church,
chapter 13, 20, and in other places.

The response cannot be made that Augustine speaks about the invisible Church since that does
not perish nor is it going to, as the Donatists admitted, when they tried to apply the verse “I am
with you even to the end of the age,” to themselves, as Augustine related above.

On that verse in the Canticles, “I held him, nor will I let him go until I lead him into the house
of my mother,” St. Bernard explains, “Then and thereafter the Christian race is not going to defect,
neither faith from the earth nor charity from the Church; the rivers came, the winds blew and
dashed against her, and she did not fall, to the extent that she was founded upon the rock, and the
rock was Christ. Therefore neither the verbosity of the philosophers nor the jeering of heretics nor
the swords of persecutors could or will be able to separate her from the love of God.”
314 These
cannot be understood on the invisible Church, for the swords of tyrants will not pursue her, nor
the verbosity of Philosophers or the jeering of heretics; therefore, the visible Church does not
defect. Vincent of Lérin agrees, who rebukes the opinion of Nestorius as a grave error that taught
the whole Church erred in the mystery of the Incarnation, to the extent that it followed blind
Doctors.
315

Lastly, it is proved by natural reason. Firstly, if at some time only an invisible Church remained
in the world, then at sometime salvation was impossible for those who are outside the Church,
since they cannot be saved unless they enter the Church just as in the time of Noah they
necessarily perished who were not added to the ark; but they could not enter a Church that they
were ignorant of, therefore they have no remedy.

Besides that, it is also shown from the plan of the one true Church that it is visible, therefore
if the visible Church were to perish then no true Church would remain.

Next, either those hidden men who constituted an invisible Church openly profess their faith
and abstain from the worship of idols or not; if they profess it, therefore the Church is not
invisible, but especially visible just as it was in the time of the Martyrs; if they do not profess it,
therefore there is no Church since the Church is not the true Church if there are no good men in
it who are saved; moreover they are neither good nor saved who do not confess the faith, but
instead, after they restrain it in their heart, profess treachery and idolatry outwardly, since in
Romans the Apostle says, “For the man who believes in heart to justice, let confession be made by
his mouth unto salvation,”
316 and again, “Everyone who denies me before men, I will deny him
before my Father.”
317 Consequently, it involves a contradiction for there to be a Church that
altogether lacks a visible form, unless one were to place it outside the world where it will never
be necessary to confess the faith.

CHAPTER XIV: The Church Cannot Err

I

T remains that we prove the Church cannot err in any way, not even by apostatizing from
God. Still, first place must be given to a little more careful explanation of our adversaries
teachings and our own.

Calvin says that the famous proposition, “The Church cannot err,” is true with a two-fold
restriction. 1) If the Church does not propose doctrines outside of Scripture, i.e. if it rejects
traditions not written and only faithfully proposes what is contained in the Scriptures. Moreover,
if you ask whether we might be certain that the Church always faithfully proposes those things
that are in the Scriptures, Calvin responds by applying a second restriction, the Church always
proposes faithfully what is contained in the Scriptures in matters necessary to salvation, still not
in other matters and consequently some blemishes of error always remain in the Church.

The second restriction is that “The Church cannot err,” is understood on the universal Church
alone, it is not extended to the Bishops who are representatives of the Church, as it is said on the
Catholic side. Every Bishop manages the person of his particular Church and therefore all Bishops
manage the person of the whole Church. So Calvin holds of the greater institution,
318 while in the
lesser institution,
319 he fraudulently and mendaciously explains our opinion, saying we advance that
the Church cannot err whether it uses the Word of God or not, since still he does not know we do
not speak on the word of God absolutely, but only on the written word, and to say the Church
cannot err whether it proposes that which is contained in the Scriptures, or doctrines outside of
the Scriptures.

Next, our opinion is that the Church absolutely cannot err, neither in matters absolutely
necessary, nor in others which must be believed or proposed that we must do, whether they are
expressly held in the Scriptures or not, and when we say the Church cannot err, we understand
that both on the universality of the faithful and on the universality of the Bishops, so that the
sense might be of this proposition that the Church cannot err, i.e. that which all faithful hold as
de fide is necessarily true and de fide, and likewise that which all Bishops teach as pertaining to
the faith necessarily is true and de fide.

Since these have been explained this truth must be proved. 1) From the universal Church as
it contains all the faithful and especially from that we read in 1 Timothy: “The Church of God is
a pillar and firmament of truth.” Calvin responds that the Church is called a pillar and firmament
of truth because, like a most trusty guardian, it preserves the preaching of the written word of
God, not because it cannot err in any matter.

On the other hand, in this manner the offices of copyists were the pillars of truth because they
very carefully safeguard all Scriptures, then the Apostle mentions Scriptures here, but he simply
says the Church is the pillar and firmament of truth. Besides, how much more is a pillar than a
simple guard? For the house rests upon the pillar and without that it falls. Thus when the Apostle
calls the Church the pillar of truth, he means the truth of faith, in regard to us, rests upon the
authority of the Church and the Church sanctions whatever is true and rejects whatever is false.
Add that the Church was a pillar when there were no Scriptures, from which it follows that it is
not called a pillar on account of protection of the Scriptures. Next, if it were a question of
protection, then it would be better if Paul had compared the Church to a strong-box than to a
pillar, for strong-boxes preserve books.

2) Besides, the Church is governed by Christ just as a spouse by her head, and by the Holy
Spirit just as by the soul, which is clear from Ephesians, “He gave it a head over every Church,
which is his body,”
320 and, “One body, one Spirit,”
321 and “A man is the head of a woman just as Christ
is the head of the Church.”
322 Therefore, if the Church could err in doctrines of faith or morals, error
would be attributed to Christ and the Holy Spirit. For that reason, the Lord said, “The Spirit of
truth will teach you all truth.”
323

Calvin responds that Christ and the Holy Spirit teach the Church all the truth that is simply
necessary, but still some blemish is always left behind. It doesn’t follow that error would be
attributed to Christ or the Holy Spirit, just as ignorance, which is beyond doubt in the Church, is
not attributed to them.

I respond: Just as a man who is head of a woman is not held to remove from his wife all
ignorance, still he is held to remove all error from which some great evil might arise, although the
wife may be excused by ignorance; so also Christ is held to remove all error from the Church, from
which great evil arises, such is all error in regard to faith. For it is a great evil because the Church
would worship God with a false faith, since divine worship consists in Faith, Hope and Charity,
as Augustine teaches.
324

3) We are obliged under the penalty of anathema to believe the Church in everything, as is
clear from Scripture, “But if he will not listen to the Church, let him be to you as a heathen and
a tax-collector.”
325 Councils impose every anathema on those not assenting to the decrees of the
Church, but it would be wicked to oblige under so grave a penalty to assent to uncertain and false
matters.

Calvin responds: Christ commanded that we listen to the Church because he knew the Church
was going to teach nothing outside of the written word of God. On the other hand, so as to omit
a great many things which we said in the disputation on traditions, the true Church teaches that
the epistle to the Romans is the word of God, but the epistle to the Laodiceans is not, and likewise
the about the Gospel of Mark and that of Nicodemus and other things that can be said, which were
never written, consequently, it is not true that the Church teaches nothing outside the written
word of God.

4) The Apostles’ Creed teaches that the Church is holy and this holiness properly consists in
the profession of doctrines, therefore, Christian profession contains nothing but what is holy, i.e.
what is true in regard to a doctrine of faith and just in regard to precepts of morals, and in this it
really excels all the professions of the Philosophers, Heathen, Jews and heretics. For all have some
false doctrines mixed with true ones.

5) If Calvin’s opinion were true, then a great part of dogmas of faith could be called into doubt,
for there are many de fide which are not absolutely necessary to salvation. Duly to believe in the
histories of the Old Testament, or that the Gospels of Mark and Luke are canonical writings, nay
more any of the Scriptures, is not altogether necessary for salvation, since without this faith many
were saved before the Scriptures were read; afterward, in the time of the New Testament, many
barbarian nations were saved without them, as Irenaeus writes.
326 But this is most absurd, nor would
Calvin admit there can be any doubt about Scripture, therefore it is not true that the Church
cannot err only in those matters necessary for salvation.

Lastly it is proven from the Fathers who, as we in the Controversy on the Word of God, in the
question on the judge of controversies, all call upon the Church in whatever question of faith.
Certainly they would not do this if they thought the Church could be deceived in some way.
Tertullian says, “Well then, all Churches erred and the Holy Spirit looks to no one.”
327 Augustine
said, “We hold to the truth of the Scriptures since we do that which has already pleased the
universal Church, which the authority of the Scriptures themselves commends, that because the
Holy Scripture cannot be deceived, whoever fears to be deceived by the obscurity of this question,
let him consult the Church about it, as Sacred Scripture points out without any ambiguity.”
328 And
again, “He speaks of the most insolent madness to dispute against that which the universal Church
senses.”
329

Now that the Church also can not err representatively is proven first from the fact that if all
Bishops would err, the whole Church would also err, because the people are held to follow their
own pastors, by what the Lord says in Luke, “He who hears you, hears me,”
330 and “Whatsoever
they say, do.”
331 Secondly, from the epistle of the Council of Ephesus to Nestorius, where Nestorius
is compelled if he would satisfy the Church he could swear an oath to attest that he believes just
as the Bishops of the East and West do. Likewise we see that St. Augustine calls the decree of a
general Council the consensus of the universal Church,
332 and rightly so since the Church does not
teach that it does not discern anything except through her pastors, just as any body you like
through its head. For that reason, in Scripture a congregation of Priests and elders is called the
assembly (ecclesia) of all Israel.
333 Chrysostom explains what verse of Matthew XVIII, “Speak to the
Church,” that is, to a Prelate. But this has more to do with the tract on Councils.

CHAPTER XV: The Arguments with Which they Set up
an Invisible Church are Refuted

I

T remains that we rebut the arguments of our adversaries. And the first is where they try to
show that the Church is invisible by these testimonies. 1) “I will give my law in their hearts,
and I will be their God, and they will be my people.”
334 There, God distinguishes the Church
of the New Testament from the Church of the Old Testament, which was an external body and
for that reason had a written law on external tablets, e.g. stone; the Church of the New Testament,
however is a people that has an interior law and for that reason it is written on their hearts. The
same thing is contained in Luke, “The kingdom of God does not come with observation and they
will not say, “look her, or look there. Behold, the kingdom of God is within you.”
335 And in John,
“The hour comes and now is when true worshipers will adore the Father in spirit and truth.”
336
Therefore the Church of the New Testament does not consist in some exterior sign, nor is it bound
to places and corporal ceremonies, just as we see in Hebrews, “For you have not come to an easy
mountain or an accessible fire, but to Mount Zion, the city of the living God,” etc.
337 There he
compares the Synagogue to Mount Sinai the visible and tangible Church to the spiritual Mountain
of Zion. Likewise in first Peter, “And you yourselves are built just as living stones of a spiritual
house, a holy priesthood, offering spiritual sacrifices to God;”
338 But this house is the Church. At
length that the Church exists is an article of faith, consequently the Church is not seen, but
believed.”

I respond: In the first passage from Jeremiah, it does not compare the Church with the
Synagogue but the New Testament with the Old, which is clear in that passage. And although the
New testament is properly charity, which is the law written on our hearts, the Old Testament is
properly external doctrine, or the law written on stones, still it does not follow that the Church
of the New Testament is invisible; just as the body of any animal you like is visible, still it has
many internal parts which are not seen, such as the heart, the liver, the vitals of life, and like
things; so also the visible Church has many invisible things, Faith, Hope and Charity, etc. and
although these gifts are invisible, they are necessary in the Church and in the Church alone; still
not in all its parts, just as a sense is necessarily in an animal and only in an animal, and
nevertheless not in all its parts.

To the second I say the kingdom of God is understood in Luke by grace, through which God
now reigns in the hearts of men, as Theophylactus explains it, or Christ himself as Bede explains
it. For Christ speaks on both comings. The Pharisees asked, “When will the kingdom of God
come,” i.e., the kingdom of the Messiah? But the Lord responded that the Messiah came and is
going to come again on the Day of Judgment. Therefore, on the first coming he said, “The kingdom
of God will not come with observation, behold the kingdom of God is within you,” i.e. the Messiah
has come and is present now. On the second he adds, “And they will say to you, behold he is here,
or behold there, do not go out, just as lightening strikes under heaven, etc., so will be the coming
of the son of man.”

To the third I say, it is taught in that passage that the particular worship of God in the Church
is going to be internal, but for that reason it does not follow that the Church herself is invisible,
as we said above, nor does it follow that all external worship must be rejected and external
temples be destroyed. The Lord does not treat on the place of prayer in that verse, but on the
manner and rite. For if he meant to say that true worshipers are no longer going to worship God
in Jerusalem or on Mount Gerizim, what he said would have been false. It is certain that Peter and
John, after they received the Holy Spirit went up to the temple in Jerusalem at the ninth hour for
prayer.
339 It is also certain that afterward there always were in Palestine Christians who worshipped
God in Jerusalem and on mount Gerizim, and everywhere that bordered those places. He speaks
on the rite of worship, or of prayer, in other words, you will adore the Father neither on this
mountain nor in Jerusalem, i.e. neither the rite of the Samaritans nor that of the Jews, but you will
worship in the rite of Christians which is a rite worshiping in spirit and truth, but that is explained
in two ways.

Chrysostom, Cyril, Euthymius oppose “in the spirit” in this passage to the ceremonies of the
Jews, in so far as they were corporal, that “in truth”, to the same ceremonies in so far as they were
a figure and shadow of things to come. Theophylactus, St. Thomas and Cajetan oppose “in the
Spirit” to the ritual of the Jews, which was especially external and corporal, but that, “In truth,”
to the ritual of the Samaritans, which was false and erroneous, for these worshiped the true God
as well as false gods. Consequently, the Lord says that the rite of the Christian people will be
particularly spiritual and at the same time true and pure from all error, although the spiritual rite
will not exclude corporal ceremonies, in so far as they promote spiritual worship.

I answer the fourth with Chrysostom and Theophylictus, St. Thomas and others. Through the
spiritual mountain of Zion and the city of the living God the Apostle does not understand the
Church militant, but the Church triumphant, which is constituted from blessed souls. Accordingly,
he compares the Synagogue with the Church and says the men of the Old Testament came to a
physical mount Zion that they would see God there in some manner through corporeal images,
but the men of the new Testament came not in fact but in hope, to the spiritual mount Zion, i.e.
to the glory of the blessed, where God is seen face to face, and it is added for this reason, “And the
abundance of many thousands of Angels, and the spirits of the perfect just, etc.”

I respond to the fifth that something can be said to be spiritual in two ways. In one way,
according to substance, which is why in Ephesians they are called, “Spiritual wickedness in the
heavens.”
340 In the other way, according to the ordination to the Spirit, because something is
ordered to the spirit or the spirit is dominated in it. This is why in 1 Corinthians II a man is called
spiritual, and in 1 Cor. XV the spiritual body, and in 1 Peter II all good works are called spiritual
offerings, such as almsgiving and fasting. Therefore, St. Peter, when he says the Church is a
spiritual house, he understands this in the second way, for he means the Church is not a house
made from wood and stones, but built from men consecrated to God.

To the sixth it can be said that in the Creed it is not merely I believe in the Church, but, I
believe in the holy Church. Consequently the holiness of the Church is without any doubt
invisible. But it is better to say that in the Church something is seen and something is believed.
For we see that body of men which is the Church, yet we do not see the fact that this body is the
true Church of Christ, rather we believe it. For the true Church is that which professes the faith
of Christ. Who clearly knows our faith is of Christ? We indeed believe it is firm and certain, but
it is one thing to believe and another to see, nay more to believe is the very thing defined by the
Apostle, the argument is not of appearances.

What must be noted so as to understand it better, is that every teaching that is de fide is born
from two propositions on faith and then the whole conclusion is not apparent; or one is on faith
and the other is from what is apparent and then the conclusion is partly apparent, partly not
apparent. Such is this conclusion, these men who now profess the faith under the Roman Pontiff
are in the Church of Christ; for it arises from a syllogism: the Church of Christ is a body of men
professing the faith of Christ, under the rule of the legitimate pastors; but these who are under the
Roman Pontiff today are of such a body; therefore they are the Church of Christ. In such a
syllogism, the major is on faith, and consequently is not apparent whereas the minor is evident,
for we place nothing in the minor that is not perceived with the eyes or the ears. Therefore the
conclusion is properly advanced as partly evident and partly non-apparent.

Next, the very matter, or (that we might speak logically) that incomplexity, concerning which
the plan and definition of the Church is preached, is a certain visible thing; whereas the
complexity, or the connection of what has been preached with the subject is preserved only by
faith. The examples whereby this is illustrated are not lacking. Accordingly, that man who is
Christ the son of God, the Apostles saw and at length that he was Christ the son of God they did
not see, but they believed. For this reason in John XX, it was said to Thomas, “You have believed
Thomas because you have seen me.” And in the creed we say, “I believe in one Baptism,” although
we might see and perceive Baptism, i.e. the aspersion of water and the conferral of the words.
Therefore we do not see, but we believe that the sprinkling of the water and the conferral of the
words is the Baptism of Christ, that is a specific sacrament.

CHAPTER XVI: The Arguments Whereby our
Adversaries try to Show the Church can Defect are
Answered

N

OW, our adversaries attempt to show that the Church can defect and at some time did
defect with these arguments. 1) In the beginning of the world Adam and Eve alone
constituted the whole Church at least in power; but each lost the faith and apostatized
from God, as is clear from Genesis III and from the Fathers.
341

2) In the time of Moses the whole Church apostatized from God. For Aaron, the High priest,
proposed to worship the calf, and the whole people shouted, “These are the gods of Israel.”
342

3) In the time of Elijah the whole visible Church had defected. For in 3 Kings Elijah says, “I
alone am left. And the Lord said to him, ‘I have reserved to myself seven thousand men in Israel
who have not bent the knee to Baal’,”
343 but these were secret not doubtful, since not even Elijah
knew them.

4) It is said in Isaiah, “The ox knows its owner and the ass the trough of its lord, but Israel does
not know me. From the soul of the foot even to the crown of the head there is no health in it.”
344
And in Jeremiah, “The houses of Israel have been confounded and their kings and princes, even
the priests and prophets speaking in the wood; you are my Father, why do you contend with me
in judgment? All have forsaken me, says the Lord.”
345 And in Chronicles, “Many days will pass in
Israel without the true God, without a priest or teacher, and without the law.”
346

5) It was foretold that the Church would be in visible inactivity. “The hosts will cease, and the
sacrifice.”
347 “When the son of man will come, do you think he will find faith on earth?”
348 “Unless
the great dispersal will happen first, and the man of sin will have been revealed.”
349 Therefore,
Calvin thinks that what we read in Jeremiah has been said to us, “Do not trust in the words of the
a lie, saying the Temple of the Lord, the temple of the Lord,”
350 namely these ancient Jews did not
believe the prophets’ warnings about the desolation because they saw the had the temple of the
Lord, and external ceremonies; so Calvin thinks we boast that we have the ancient Churches, the
successions of Bishops, the Apostolic See and meanwhile we do not attend to the Scriptures, which
clearly foretell desolation to us.

6) The General Council of Basel deposed Eugene as a heretic and all those adhering to him and
chose Felix, thereupon after the Council was concluded and dispersed, again Eugene crept into the
See without any canonical election and from him were born as many as were Popes, Cardinal and
Bishops afterward, therefore at least from that time the Church adhering to the Roman Pontiff was
not the true Church and since there was no other visible body, the visible Church perished. Calvin
places this argument in the preface of his Institutes and again in the last place as though it were
his strongest argument, adding, “This is discovered that it is necessary for them to adhere or to
define the Church otherwise, or else we hold all to be schismatics.”

7) They advance the testimony of the Fathers and first of all Hilary. “The love of walls gave you
a beginning; you venerate the Church of God badly in buildings, you badly heaped under them the
name of peace; to me mountains, lakes, prisons and deep holes are safer.”
351 There he says the true
Church was so obscured in his time that it could only be found in catacombs and caverns. Then
Jerome, speaking in the same time, says, “The whole world groaned and marveled that it was
Arian.”
352 St. Basil says the same thing,
353 and St. Bernard,
354 so deplore the vices of the prelates of
their times that they sufficiently show everyone had gone their own way and there was no visible
Church. Then, Chrysostom teaches that sometimes there is no visible sign by which the true
Church could be recognized, and therefore the only recourse is to return to the Scriptures.
355

I respond, ad 1) If that our first parents sinned was for the Church to defect then not only the
visible but even the invisible Church defected which is against our adversaries’ point. Secondly
I say there was no Church then, nor only two human beings in the Church, rather it was only the
beginning of the Church and the beginning was both material and formal. Adam was the material
beginning of the Church because he was the first of all in the Church; he was also the formal
principle because he was the head or teacher and ruler of the people of God so long as he lived.
Consequently the head of the Church cannot err by teaching false doctrine, nevertheless he can
err by living badly and even by thinking badly as a private man. We see this happened in Adam
since at one time he lived badly and perhaps even thought badly about God, nevertheless he did
not teach badly.

ad 2) In regard to Aaron and the people that worshiped the golden calf, I say in that time there
was neither a head nor a body of the Church to have defected since only Moses was the head
whom it is certain did not err. Accordingly, Aaron was not yet the high priest since that happened
later, as is clear from Exodus XL. Moreover the body did not fail, for all the Levites were immune
from that sin, which is clear from the same chapter, where Moses said, “‘If anyone is of the Lord
let him join with me,’ and all the sons of Levi gathered around him.”
356

ad 3) Concerning the time of Elijah, both the consequent and the antecedent of this argument
are denied. The consequent because the plan for the Jewish people and the Christian people are
not the same. The people of the Jews were not a universal Church as the Christian people are, but
a particular one and on that account faithful and just men were found outside of that people, such
as Melchisedech, Job and later Cornelius, the Centurion and the Eunuch of Queen Candice, as well
as several others. Therefore, even if the whole Synagogue of the Jews defected all the Church of
God on earth would not have defected on the spot. But the antecedent is also denied since it
cannot be shown that the Synagogue of the Jews altogether defected even to the coming of Christ.
After that it did not as much defect as it was changed into something better.

Now to that about Elijah I say that he did not speak on every people of the Jews, but only about
the part that had been subjected to the king of Samaria. It is certain from the same book of Kings
that in the time of Elijah Asa ruled in Jerusalem and after him Josaphat, the best kings, and under
them the people and the priests very clearly persisted in true religion. Next, when the Lord said,
“I have reserved to myself seven thousand men,” he added, “in Israel.” Then those who were under
the king of Samaria were said to be of Israel, while those who were under the king of Jerusalem
were said to be of Judah. Thus Philip Melanchthon was evidently deceived, since in his work he
says that in the time of Elijah the Church was only in Elijah, Elisha and a few priests.
357 Calvin
followed him in this error in the preface of his Institutes, which especially rests upon this argument
on Elijah.

ad 4) Augustine responds to this when he taught that Prophets and Apostles sometimes rebuke
the whole people as though not one of them were good, although there still might be many good
and on the contrary sometimes they console all as if all were good when it is certain there are
many wicked. Ezekiel says, “All the house of Israel is contrite on their forehead, and hard of
heart.”
358 Yet he also says, “The sign of the Thau is upon the foreheads of all that groan and weep,
over all abominations that are done in its midst.”
359 In Galatians the Apostle says, “O irrational
Galatians, who bewitched you to not obey the truth?”
360 Yet he says later, “Brethren, and if a man
be overtaken in any fault, you, who are spiritual, instruct such a one in the spirit of meekness.”
361

To the verse from Chronicles I respond that in the first place it is only understood on the
kingdom of Israel, not the kingdom of Judah. Next, perhaps the Scripture speaks on the time that
was going to be after the coming of the Messiah, for now many days have passed in Israel without
God, without Priest and without the Law.

ad 5) I say that we do not boast in temples and the succession of Bishops and the Apostolic See
in themselves, but on account of the promise of Christ who said, “You are Peter and upon this
rock, ... and the gates of hell will not prevail.” The Jews never had such a promise. Nor is it true
that the ruin of the Church was foretold in the Scriptures, rather they oppose is true everywhere.
Hence, to that passage of Daniel, even if Hilary, as well as even Hyppolitus and Apollinarius who
are cited by Jerome
362 understand that prophecy on the time of Antichrist, still it is beyond doubt
that they were deceived. For Daniel speaks on the overturning of Jerusalem and the end of the
sacrifice of the Jews. This is how Chrysostom and Theophylactus, and Jerome,
363 Augustine,
364 as
well as Eusebius,
365 Clement of Alexandria,
366 Tertullian,
367 and the common opinion of the Jews as
we also see cited by Jerome in his commentary on Daniel IX.

And the heretics are compelled to admit this answer; for they say that now is the times of
Antichrist and has been for many centuries, and nevertheless the sacrifices and the sacrifice has
not ceased, therefore they ought to understand this passage of Daniel not on the time of Antichrist
but on the overturning of Jerusalem, which is evidently gathered from the Gospel. “When you will
see the abomination of desolation which was spoken of by the Prophet Daniel, standing in the holy
place, he who reads shall understand, then those who are in Judea should flee to the mountains.
368
Likewise he explained the same thing in Luke, “When you see Jerusalem surrounded by an army,
then know that its destruction approaches, then those who are in Judea, let them flee to the
mountains.”
369

Now, to that which we find later in Luke, “Do you think he will find faith on earth?”
370 I say that
the Lord does not speak on faith simply, but on the outstanding faith that is found in only a few,
and in the last days among very few. This is how Jerome explains it,
371 and Augustine,
372 or we could
say with Theophylactus that the Lord speaks on faith absolutely and means few faithful are going
to be left in the time of Antichrist, but still not be none, nor so few that they could not make the
Church.

Now to that of Paul I say that by the name of dispersal either Antichrist himself is understood,
as Chrysostom, Theodoret, Oecumenius, Theophylactus and Augustine
373 explain. They argue it
should be called a dispersal as a metonym, because it will cause many to leave Christ; or it means
the defection from the Roman Empire, as Ambrose, Sedulius and Primasius explain, which is a
very probable opinion, or at length it will mean a going out from the Church that is not general
but particular, i.e. not of all but of many, or at least of all secret heretics, as some of the Fathers
beautifully explain it.
374 in the same way that many who were in the Church for a long time with
a feigned spirit, at length clearly leave through the profession of manifest heresy, so when
Antichrist comes nearly every secret heretic who then will be discovered in the Church will leave
it, and join themselves to Antichrist.

ad 6) I say that the Council of Basel was at first legitimate, for even the legate of the Roman
Pontiff was present, as well as a great number of Bishops, but in the time that it “deposed” Eugene
and elected Felix, it was not a Council of the Church but a schismatic Council, seditious and of
altogether no authority. Thus it is called in the last Lateran Council, sess. 11, and hence Eugene
was always a true Pope and this clearly another lie of Calvin when he says that this Council
preserved its authority and dignity even to the end.

In the first place, at the time the Council dared to pronounce sentence, there was no legate of
the Pope present and all the Bishops had left, but a certain Cardinal from Arles usurped the office
of president and because the Bishops were very few, they introduced into the Council a multitude
of priests so that it became against the form of ancient Councils, being composed not of Bishops
but of priests.

Next, in the same time another Council was held in Florence in which the Supreme Pontiff
presided and since the Latin and Greek Bishops who sat there without comparison many more
than were at Basel, and together with the Bishops the Greek Emperor and the legate of the Latin
Emperor were present, so that it could not be doubted which of the two was a true general Council
of the Church.

Thirdly, God willed to show what he though by afflicting Basel with a plague so horrible that
a greater part of the Fathers who were there either were killed or were compelled to withdraw.
Aeneas Sylvius (the future Pius II) related all of this in his history of the Council of Basel as well
as what the heretics there had recently published as if favoring them on account of the
condemnation of Eugene, when really he did them a great deal of harm. Add that the Council of
Basel was continued at Lausanne and it subjected itself to Pope Nicholas V, as is clear from his
epistle.

ad 7) Now we come to the citations of the Fathers. To the one from Hilary, firstly I respond in
the way Augustine once did to the Donatists,
375 who objected with the same testimony, that the
Church was at one time obscured by a multitude of scandals, still it stood out in its most loyal
members, just as it did in the time which Hilary spoke. The Church stood out in Pope Julius I,
Athanasius, Hilary, Eusebius Vercellensis, and then in Pope Damasus, Ambrose, Basil, Gregory
Nazanzien and many others who were steadfast pillars of the Church.

Secondly, I say that Hilary spoke in that citation on the Church at Milan, in which many simple
people venerated Auxentius as a Catholic even though he was still an Arian, since Auxentius
behaved with such a wonderful subtly the Arians knew them as one of their own yet he was
believed to be Catholic by man simple men. Hilary meant that no trust should be put in Auxentius
even if he seemed to be a Bishop and preached in the Church and that it would be better to remain
in prisons and caves with right faith than to be in the Church of God with heretics.

Nevertheless, what he said about one city, one Church and one Bishop cannot be applied to the
universal Church. It can happen that one Bishop in one city and in one temple should teach heresy
but still that all the Bishops in other cities and churches of the whole world would not do the same
thing.

To that passage of Jerome I respond, there are two figures in his words, one of understanding,
when he says, “The world groaned,” for he calls the world a great part of the world, but not the
whole world, the second of abuse, when he says, “and marveled to find itself Arian,” for he calls
the Arians improperly those who subscribe to heresy through ignorance. He speaks on that
multitude of Bishops who throughout the world agreed with Ariminus and being deceived by the
Arians decreed that the term o`moousioj (homoousios, i.e. consubstantial) must be abolished, even
though they did not know what it meant. Certainly they were not heretics, nor did they err at least
materially, just as if some Catholic might advance a blasphemous opinion externally with the
tongue thinking it is a pious prayer, such a man would not properly be a blasphemer. For that
reason the same Bishops, as they were admonished and recognized the fallacy, immediately
corrected their error and with tears did penance for the blasphemy, even though it was only
advanced by the tongue, and it seemed the whole world marveled and groaned to find itself Arian.

To Basil I say that in those epistles he did not deplore the vices of Catholics but the misery of
the Church on account of the infestation of heretics. What was said in that citation are against
Bishops, not against Catholic Bishops as Brenz though, but against Arian Bishops.

It is perfectly credible that Brenz erred from malice rather than ignorance. In the same place
that he teaches that Catholic Bishops are not the true Church he relates from the history of
Ruffinus about the holy monk Moses, who refused in any way to be ordained by the Bishop of
Alexandria, who was the primary Patriarch of Alexandria after the Roman Pontiff.
376

But in the same book and chapter, Ruffinus says that the Bishop of Alexandria was an Arian
and savagely persecuted Catholics and for this reason Moses refused to be ordained by him in
preference to a Catholic Bishop, thus there is no reason with which one could excuse or cover-up
the fraud and impudence of Brenz.

To the quote from Bernard I say that he rebukes the vices of morals, but not of doctrine, and
for that reason believed that those wicked Bishops were not truly Bishops. He himself refuted the
heretics who said that bad Bishops were not really Bishops from the Apostolic Institution.
377

To the quote from Chrysostom the response is above, those words were taken from an
incomplete work which either has an Arian heretic for an author or was corrupted by heretics.

CHAPTER XVII: The Arguments Whereby our
Adversaries try to show that all Shepherds of the Church
can Err at the Same Time.

O

UR adversaries try to show that the Church, or at least all the shepherds of the Church
could err at the same time. 1) Because in the time of the prophet Micah, all the Prophets
(about 400 with the exception of him) erred, as is clear from the Kings,
378 hence the Church,
which they followed as they ought, was deceived. Secondly, in Isaiah it says, “His watchmen are
all blind, they know nothing.”
379 Thirdly, in the Lord’s passion the High priest along with all the
priests and elders of the people condemned Christ to the penalty of death. In Mark XIV the whole
people, seduced by the priests, cried out to Pilate, “Crucify him!” In Mark XV we see that at the
same time all the Apostles lost the faith, since the Lord, “Reproached them for their unbelief and
hardness of heart, etc.”
380 And in Matthew, “You will all be scandalized on my account.”
381

Add that there are also Catholics that say during in the Lord’s passion the true faith only
remained in the Blessed Virgin Mary, consequently they believe this is signified by the one candle
that is kept alight in the Night Office
382 during the Triduum such as Alexander Alensis,
383 and John
Turrecremata.
384 But these are light enough and will be refuted with little labor.

To the first I say, those four hundred prophets clearly were pseudoprophets, and it is not
unknown that they were even counseled by Achab himself. For in the same book when King
Josaphat said, “Is there not any prophet of the Lord by whom we might ask the Lord?” Achab
responded, “One remains, but I hate him because he prophecies nothing but evil.” Certainly if
anyone now in the midst of Saxony would counsel four hundred Lutheran ministers about
justifying faith, and afterwards one Catholic, it would be no wonder if the greater part would err.
Still, besides the Lutheran ministers, because apart from Saxony and neighboring places, there are
many others where the true faith is preached, so it does not follow that all the Jewish teachers in
the time of Achab erred, even if the four hundred erred. The Prophets who were in Samaria erred,
but besides these there were in Judaea many other Prophets and (what is foremost) there were
priests in Jerusalem, by whom they duly apply to respond to consult from the law of the Lord.

To the second I say the those words of the Prophets are figurative, and directed to all, but really
they ought to be understood not on all, but on many, as we said above.

To the third I say the priests and the High Priests did not have the privilege to not err when
teaching the people, even to the times of Christ, but with Christ present and teaching us their
error was a little nuisance. Nay more, this seems to have been foretold by Jeremiah when he said,
“The law will perish from the priest, the word from the profit and counsel from the wise.”
385
However, on account of the honor of the priesthood God provided that the judgment of the high
priest Caiaphas in some sense (though not from his intent) was true and just. It is said in John XI
that he was the priest for that year and he prophesized.

What attains to the people, who cried out, “Crucify him,” I say that people was not all of the
Jews, but only some and perhaps a lesser part, for in the city of Jerusalem there was also
Nicodemus and Joseph of Arimathea, and many others who disapproved of this, and outside of
Jerusalem in the rest of all Judaea, and there were many Jews dispersed throughout the world who
knew nothing about the death of Christ, hence they remained in the true faith and religion.

Now I will speak to what the what was said to the Apostles: First, it is clear the Apostles were
not Bishops except by designation, rather they were only material parts of the Church which could
err, nor did the Church consist in them alone, for the status of the Christian Church with the
obligation to enter it began on the day of Pentecost, when after all the mysteries of the redemption
were carried out the Apostles began to publically promulgate faith in Christ as well as Baptism
in Jerusalem. Therefore, even if all the Apostles erred in the time of Christ’s passion in regard to
faith, their error caused no harm to the universal Church.

Secondly I say, it is not probable that the Apostles lost the faith, since we do not read that they
were rebuked except on the faith of the resurrection, but they could not lose that when they did
not have it, unless after the Lord rose, were Christ often to have preached to them beforehand that
he was going to rise; nevertheless they thought he spoke figuratively and did not understand, nor
did they believe. Accordingly, when he said in Luke, “They will kill him and he will rise on the
third day,” Luke adds, “and they understood none of this, and the word was hidden from them and
they did not understand what was said.”
386 We also read in John XX that Peter and John, after they
heard from Mary Magdalene that the Lord’s body was taken from the tomb, right away they ran
to the tomb and after they saw the garments and the shroud they believed that the body of Christ
was taken by someone, “For they did not yet know the Scriptures that it was fitting or him to rise
again from the dead,” i.e. they believed he was taken by someone because they did not know he
ought to rise again. Besides, in Luke it was said to Peter, “I have prayed for thee that thy faith shall
not fail.”
387 How believable will it be that on the same night the faith of Peter failed so that it would
not remain in faith, since what did not remain in his mouth is certain. Next, Mary Magdalene
burned with the greatest charity in that three day period, as is clear from John XIX and XX, but
without faith there can be no charity, therefore the Magdalene did not lose faith in Christ, which
she had beforehand, therefore it is not the case that faith only remained in the Blessed Virgin.

Now, to what is said in the last chapter in Mark, “He rebuked their unbelief,” this does not
mean they lost the faith that they had, but they were late to believe what they did not yet believe,
which at least would have been some kind of sin, but not properly infidelity. Moreover, that of
Matthew XXVI, “You will all suffer scandal on my account this night,” means the sin the Apostles
would commit in flight, fear and staggering, even in regard to the faith, due to the fact of the
Lord’s passion; still not every staggering is infidelity, but only deliberate staggering.

But I marvel at John de Turrecremata, who, on account of this very weak argument based on
the candle, says it is against the faith of the universal Church to assert that faith did not remain
only in the Blessed Virgin on the day of the Lord’s passion. Rupert says,
388 that the last candle is
also customarily extinguished at that time, and he adds that on those three nights after all the
lights are extinguished, a new fire is customarily lit from a stone, and through it all the lights
which beforehand were extinguished are lit, which signifies the Prophets whom the Jews killed
in different centuries, and brought darkness to the minds of those killing them. Through the last
Christ is signified, whom they killed, giving birth to the worst darkness in themselves, but through
the new light, which is struck from the stone after those three days the new light of Christians is
signified, which arose from Christ the stone struck by the Jews in our minds.

But if custom were neglected, the ancient Churches shall bring the force in that use which we
have now, the last candle is not extinguished; then the response can be made with Abulensis
389 that
through that candle the Blessed Virgin is meant, in whom alone, it is piously believed, there was
explicit faith in the resurrection in those three days. Still, it does not follow that there was error
in others or infidelity, because they were not held to explicitly believe in the resurrection until
after its legitimate promulgation and approval, and especially for those who were out of Jerusalem
and had heard nothing about Christ, and there it seems dangerous to say that true faith only
remained in the Blessed Virgin; both because if the Church would have perished then not one
person could be said to be the Church, since the Church is the people and the kingdom of God; and
because then they who were away from Jerusalem even to that time that they had the true faith,
would soon have lost it without fault.

FINIS

Footnotes

1

De Unitate Ecclesiae.

2

De Unitate Ecclesiae.

3

Contra Parmenianum, in six books.

4

lib. 2. doctrin. fid. cap. 8.9.10, etc.

5

Summam de Ecclesia.

6

in lib. 4 de dogm. Ecclesiast., cap. 2.

7

Controversia, 3.

8

1 parte defensionis suae contra Brentium.

9

in confut. 7 artic. Confessionis Augustanae.

10

Philippica 4, et in lib. de Scripturae et Ecclesiae Auctoritrate.

11

Enchiridium.

12

lib. 6 contra haeres.

13

In explicat. Symboli and all others who have written on the Creed.

14

In two books de Ecclesia et ordinat. Ministr.

15

de Locis, lib. 4.

16

In his Analysis fidei Catholicae, parte 6.

17

Romans VIIII:30.

18

Psal. 25(26)

19

Psalm. 88 (89)

20

In Psal. 81 (82)

21

Quoted in Waldens, tom. 1, lib. 2, cap. 8.

22

Artic. 1,2, 3, 5, 6 as is contained in the Council of Constance, sess. 15.

23

De haeresibus, ca. 88.

24

Instit., lib. 4, cap. 1, §13.

25

Lib. 1, epist. 2

26

lib. De Haeres. cap. 69.

27

Cyprian lib. 4, epist. 2; Epiphanius in haeres. Catharorum.

28

lib. 1 de poenitentia, cap. 1-2.

29

lib. 3 de fabulis haereticorum.

30

Contra Parmenianum, lib. 3, cap. 2.

31

in assert. art. 32.

32

In locis cap. de discrimine peccati mortalis et venialis.

33

Instit. lib. 2, cap. 8, §58 et 59.

34

Articl. 6 & 20.

35

artc. 32.

36

lib. 3, ca. 2, §8-11.

37

Contra Iovinianum, lib. 2.

38

Instit., lib. 3, cap. 1, §2 and to a lesser degree in cap. 8, §4 et sequentibus.

39

De regno Christi, lib. 1, cap. 5.

40

De erroribus Pontificorum, locus 12; de Ecclesia, lib. 1, cap. 3.

41

Breviculus collation., collat. 3.

42

1 Cor. V:12.

43

hom. 24 in Ioannem.

44

Lib. 12 in Ioan., cap. 50.

45

Tract 4 in Ioannem and elsewhere,

46

Tract. 4 in Ioannem.

47

De Justa haereticorum punitione, lib. 2, cap. 2.

48

Luke V.

49

de bono persever., cap. 8.

50

Lib. 3, cap. 3.

51

De Praescriptionibus.

52

Contra Donatistas, lib. 4, cap. 10.

53

Quaest. 11 super Matthaeum.

54

Lib. 3, epist. 3.

55

Lib. 2, Contra Cresconium, cap. 34.

56

Lib. 4, ep. 2.

57

Quest. 11 super Matthaeum.

58

2 Tim. II:17.

59

Lib. 3, epist 3; lib. 4 epist. 2.

60

Lib. 4 de Baptismo, cap. 12.

61

De Baptismo, lib. 3, cap. 19.

62

1 Cor. V:12.

63

III, Q. 8, art. 3.

64

Luke V.

65

Tract. 122 in Ioannem.

66

John X:16.

67

Rom. XII:5.

68

Cant. VI:8.

69

De Unitate Ecclesiae.

70

24.q.1, can. Pudenda, et can. Schisma.

71

Catechism of the Council of Trent, Part I: The Creed, Article IX.

72

Lib. 4, cap. 62.

73

Lib. 4, epist. 9 ad Florentium Papianum.

74

Hom. 3 in 1 Cor.

75

Hom. 11 in epistolam ad Ephesios.

76

In Caput Primum Amos.

77

in cap. 3 ad Titum.

78

De Fide et Symbolo, cap. 10.

79

Contra Parmenianum, lib. 1.

80

De fide ad Petrum, cap. 38 et 39.

81

1 lib. 2, cap. 9 doctrinalis fidei antiquae.

82

Lib. 4 de Scripturis et dogmatibus Ecclesiasticis, cap. 2, part. 2.

83

John VI.

84

1 Cor. XII:4.

85

Ephesians I:22.

86

John XXI.

87

Romans XII:5.

88

De Consecrat., distinctione prima, can. Ecclesia.

89

cap. Firmiter, de Summa Trinitate et fide Catholica.

90

Luke X:16.

91

Lib. 4, ep. 9.

92

Part I, In explication of the Creed, Article IX.

93

Doctr. fid. antiquae, tom. 1, lib. 2, cap. 9.

94

Summae de Ecclesia, lib. 1, cap. 3.

95

De Script. et dogmatibus Ecclesiasticis, lib. 4, cap. 2, part. 2

96

1 Cor. V:2, 6, 13.

97

11, q. 3, can. Canonica.

98

Historiae, lib. 5, cap. 24.

99

Haeres. 42, which is of Marcion.

100

Lib. de unitate Ecclesiae, last chapter.

101

De Corrept. et Gratia, cap. 15.

102

11, quaest. 11, 3 can. Omnis.

103

In 1 Cor. V.

104

Apologeticus, cap. 39.

105

Quaest. 39 in Deuteron.

106

1 Cor. V:13.

107

De Correptione et Gratia, cap. 15.

108

De Vera Religione, cap. 6.

109

De Vera Religione, cap. 6.

110

Contra Donatistas, cap. 20.

111

2 Thess. III:14.

112

Matthew III:12.

113

Matthew XIII:47-50.

114

Matthew XXII:14.

115

Matthew XXV:1-12.

116

Matthew XXV:33.

117

1 Cor. V:1-3.

118

1 Cor. V:5.

119

Lib. 3, epist. 3; lib. 4, epist. 2.

120

Tract. 45 in Ioannem. He repeats the same thing in Contra Cresconium, lib. 2, cap. 34.

121

1 Timothy I; Galat. I; Cor. XV; Acts IX.

122

Serm 1, de conversione Sancti Pauli.

123

Hom. 6 in II Tim.

124

Acts I.

125

Psalm 108 (109).

126

in Psalm 3.

127

De Unitate Ecclesiae, cap. 13.

128

Romans VIII:9.

129

Gal. VI:8.

130

1 Cor. XII:13.

131

Gal. III:27.

132

Epist. ad Dardanum.

133

Contra Cresconium, lib. 2, cap. 21.

134

De Baptismo, lib. 5, cap. 27.

135

Matt. XXVII:39.

136

Luke XXIII:40.

137

Philippians II:21.

138

Canticle of Canticles VI:8.

139

cap.1.

140

cap.2.

141

Epist. 48.

142

de Baptismo, lib. 5, cap. ult.

143

1 Peter III:20.

144

Cyprian, De unitate Ecclesiae.; Jerome, epist. ad Damasum, de tribus Hypostatibus.

145

Ephes. V.

146

John X.

147

Augustine, Tractatu in Ioannem 45.

148

Psal. 73 (74).

149

John X:16.

150

John XI:52.

151

2 Timothy II:19.

152

1 John II.:19.

153

De Corrept. et Gratia, cap. 9.

154

loc. cit., lib. 3, ca. 32.

155

Romans VIII.

156

2 Timoth. II.

157

Tract. 45 in Ioan.; he says similar things in de bono persever., cap. 8; de corrept. et gratia, cap. 9.

158

Tract. 45 in Ioan.

159

1 John IV:7.

160

1 Cor. XII:13.

161

Galat. IV:7.

162

1 John II:5.

163

John VIII:31.

164

De Corrept. et Gratia, cap. 9.

165

lib. 3 cap. 32.

166

Ps. 31(32).

167

3 Kings (1 Kings) VIII:46.

168

Proverbs XXIV:16.

169

Eccles. VII:21.

170

James III:2.

171

1 John I:6.

172

de Eleemosyna.

173

Orat. 2, in Iulian.

174

Serm. 16 in Psal. 16.

175

in Psal. 39.

176

Contra Pelagionaos, lib. 2.

177

De Spiritu et litera, cap. ult.

178

Moral., lib. 21, cap. 9.

179

Cantic. IV:7.

180

Ephes. V:27.

181

Gen. V9.

182

Philipp. III:15.

183

Psal. 17(18).

184

Psal. 118 (119).

185

Ephesians I:4.

186

in Hieremiae, cap. 31.

187

de Perfect. Iustit., et other places.

188

Serm. 3, de festo omnium Sanctorum.

189

Matthew XVIII:17.

190

Matthew XXIII.

191

Matthew XXIV:50.

192

1 Cor. I:11.

193

1 Cor. V:1.

194

Apocalypse II et III.

195

lib. 2, contra Parmenianum, cap. 10.

196

Breviculo, loc. cit.

197

lib. 3, epist. 3 ad Maximum.

198

Orat. 1, Apologetica.

199

lib. 3 de sacerdotio.

200

Dialogus contra Luciferianos.

201

Tract. 6 in Ioannem. cf. Retract., lib. 2, cap. 18; liber post collationem, cap. 7 et 20; de Unitate Ecclesiae, cap. 13; De Civitate Dei,
lib. 18, cap. 4, 9, and other places.

202

de fide ad Petrum, cap. 43.

203

Hom. 11 et 38 in Evangelia.

204

Isaiah LII:11.

205

2 Cor. VI:18.

206

1 Cor. X:17.

207

Romans VIII:9.

208

1 Cor. XII.

209

lib. contra Donatistas post collationem, cap. 8 et 20, et in Breviculo Collationis tertia diei.

210

epist. 6, lib. 1 ad Magnum, Irenaeus, lib. 3 cap. 19.

211

Ezechiel XXXVI.

212

1 Cor. 11:27.

213

lib. 1, cap. 57.

214

In quo sess. 15 damnatur error XXII; XXX error.

215

Romans VIII.

216

John VIII.

217

contra Adimantum, cap. 5.

218

Deut. XXXII.

219

Gal. IV; Rom. IV.

220

Matthew V.

221

1 Cor. IV.

222

Galatians IV.

223

Isaiah I.

224

John VIII.

225

lib. 1, epist. 6 ad Magnum.

226

Epist. 3 ad Sympronianum.

227

Contra Cresconium, lib.2, cap. 21.

228

Contra Petilianum, lib. 2, cap. ult.; de Baptismo, lib. 4, cap. 3, lib. 6, cap. 3, lib. 7, cap. 49, 50, 51; de Unitate Ecclesiae, cap. ult.;
doctrinae Christianae, lib. 3, cap. 32.

229

Contra Donatistas, lib. 7, cap. 51.

230

lib. 3, cap. 32.

231

de Baptismo, lib. 3, cap. 18, lib. 1, cap. 21 et 22, lib. 6, cap. 3, lib. 7 cap. 51.

232

tract. 5 in Ioannem.

233

C.f. Contra Parmenianum, lib. 2, cap. 10 et 11.

234

Centur. 1, lib. 1, cap. 4, col. 171.

235

In Psal. 47(48).

236

lib. 4, de Ecclesia, par. 2, cap. 20.

237

Thomas Waldens, tomus I, lib. 2 cap. 9, nu. 10, et cap. 11, num. 5; John Driedo, de Ecclesiasticis Scripturis et dogmatibus, lib. 4,
cap. 2, par. 2; Pedro de Soto Confessio Catholica, (which was opposed to the Augsburg Confession), cap. de Ecclesia, et cap. de
Conciliis, et in Apologia pro eadem Confessione par. 1, cap. 11; Cardinal Hosius, contra Prolegomena Brentii, lib. 3; Melchior Cano,
lib. 4 de Locis Theologicis, cap. ult. ad argumentum XII.

238

1 John II:19.

239

Tract. 3, in epistolam Ioannis.

240

De Baptismo lib. 3, cap. 18, Tract. 61 in Ioannem.

241

Cyprian, lib. 1, epist. 6, lib. 2 epist. 1; Optatus, contra Parmenianum, lib. 1; Ambrose de poenitentia, lib. 1, cap. 2; Jerome dioalogus
contra Luciferianos; Augustine, in Enchiridio, cap. 65; Pope Celestine epistola ad Clerum Constantinopolitanum, epistola ad Ioannem
Antiochenum, c.f. 1 Tomo Concilii Ephesini, cap. 18 et 19, cited by Nicholas I in his epistle to the Emperor Michael.

242

homil. 21 in Iosue.

243

de Baptismo, lib. 3, cap. 18.

244

lib.4, cap.16

245

lib. 4, cap. 10.

246

De Civitate Dei, lib. 1, cap. 35.

247

Tract. 61 in Ioan.

248

de gestis cum Emerito, cap.1.

249

de Catechizandis Rudibus, cap. 17.

250

Job XVI:9

251

On the Roman Pontiff, book IV, ch. 6.

252

1 Corinth. III.

253

Ephes. II.

254

Ephesians IV.

255

contra Faustum, lib. 19, cap. 11.

256

lib. de Pudicitia.

257

lib. 4, epist. 2.

258

serm. 2 contra Arianos.

259

lib. de gratia Christi, cap. 11.

260

Contra Luciferianos.

261

cap. Apostolicam, de Presbytero non Baptizato.

262

Hist. Eccles., lib. 7, cap. 8.

263

Prima Apologia, part. 3.

264

lib. contra Catharinum.

265

De abroganda Missa privata, pars 1.

266

Cent. 1, lib. 1, ca. 4, col. 170.

267

Ibid., col. 178.

268

Ibid, col. 181.

269

in locis, locus 12.

270

cap. de Conciliis.

271

Institut. lib. 4, cap. 1, §7.

272

Ibid., §3.

273

Instit. lib. 4, cap. 8, §13, and other places.

274

Numbers XX.

275

3 Kings (1 Kings) VIII.

276

Matth. XVIII.

277

Acts XX.

278

Acts XV.

279

Acts XVIII.

280

1 Corin. XV, Galat. I, Philip. III.

281

1 Tim. III.

282

Psalm 18.

283

tract. 2 in epistola Ioannis.

284

Tract 1 in epist. Ioannis.

285

Matt. 5.

286

de Unitate Ecclesiae, cap. 14, and other places.

287

Acts I-IV.

288

Contra Faustum, lib. 19, cap. 11.

289

de Simplicitate Praelatorum.

290

in epist. 1 ad Damasum de nomine Hypostasis.

291

de Baptismo, lib. 4, cap. 1.

292

Homil. 30 in Matthaeum.

293

de Unitate Ecclesiae.

294

Homil. IV, in cap. 6 Isaiae.

295

Contra epist. Parmeniani, lib. 3, cap. 5.

296

Tract. 1 epistola Ioannis.

297

Ibid., Tract. 2.

298

Matt. XVI.

299

I Tim. III.

300

in epist. 31 ad Pulcheriam Augustam.

301

in epistola ad Constantinum Augustum.

302

Eph. IV.

303

See Augustine, de Civitate Dei, lib. 22, cap. 15, 17 et 18 where he touches on each explanation.

304

Psalm 47.

305

Isaiah LXI.

306

Matt. III.

307

Matt. XIII.

308

Psal. 88.

309

Daniel II.

310

Luke I.

311

~Oti e;stai evn tai/j evsca,tais h`me,raij evmfane.j to. o;roj Kuri,ou( kai. o` oi=koj tou/ Qeou/ evp va;krou tw/n ovrewn( kai. u`ywqh,setai
u`pera,nw tw/n Bounw/n( kai. h[xousin evp v auvto. pa,nta ta, e;qnh) Isaiah II:2

312

Micah IV.

313

In Psal. 101, sermon 2.

314

Serm. 79 in Cant.

315

Commonitorium.

316

Romans X.

317

Matthew X.

318

Instit. lib. 4, cap. 8, §11, 12, 14, 15.

319

ibid., cap.8, §146, 148, 149 et 150.

320

Ephes. I.

321

Ephes. IV.

322

Ephes.V.

323

John XVI.

324

Enchridium, cap. 3.

325

Matt. XVIII.

326

lib. 3, cap. 4.

327

de Praescript.

328

Contra Cresconium, lib. 1, cap. 33.

329

Epist. 118.

330

Luke X.

331

Matth. XXIII.

332

de Baptismo, lib. 1, cap. 18.

333

3 Kings VIII.

334

Jeremiah XXXI.

335

Luke XVII.

336

John IV.

337

Hebrews XII.

338

1 Peter II.

339

Acts III.

340

Ephes. VI.

341

Ambrose, lib. de Paradiso, cap. 6; Augustine, Echirid., cap. 45 and Prosper, lib. de gratia Dei, contra collatorem.

342

Exodus XXXII.

343

3 Kings XIX.

344

Isaiah I.

345

Jeremiah II.

346

Paral. XV.

347

Daniel II.

348

Luke XVIII.

349

2 Thess. II.

350

Jeremiah VII.

351

Contra Auxentium.

352

Contra Luciferianos.

353

epist. 69 et 70.

354

Serm.33 in Cantica.

355

Hom. 49.

356

Exodus XXXII.

357

in Locis communibus, cap. de Ecclesia.

358

Ezek. III.

359

ibid., IX.

360

Galat. III:1.

361

Galat. VI:1.

362

in cap. 9 Danielis.

363

in cap. 24, Matth.

364

epist. 80 ad Esichium

365

lib. 8 Evangel. demonstr. cap. 2.

366

Stromata, lib. 2.

367

Contra Judaeos, cap. 5.

368

Matt. XXIV.

369

Luke XXI.

370

Luke XXVIII.

371

contra Luciferianos

372

de Unitate Ecclesiae, cap. 13.

373

de Civitate Dei, lib. 20, cap. 19.

374

with Augustine, de Civitate Dei, lib. 20, cap. 19.

375

Epist. 48.

376

Ruffinus, hist. Ecclesiast. cap. 6.

377

Serm. 66.

378

3 Kings XXII.

379

Isaiah LVI:10.

380

Mark XVI:14.

381

Matthew XXVI:31.

382

This refers to Tenebrae, which was celebrated with mostly the same ceremonies from ancient times until 1962, and today in all
Churches attached to the liturgical books of that year. In that office there are 15 candles, which are extinguished as the Psalms
are changed until there is one left. –Translator’s note.

383

3 parte q. ult. artic. 2.

384

lib. 1 de Ecclesia, cap. 30, et lib. 3, cap. 61.

385

Jeremiah XVIII.

386

Luke XVIII.

387

Luke XXII.

388

lib. 5 de divin. offic., cap. 26.

389

quest. 14 prologi in Matthaeum.