De ecclesia, chapter 17, part 6

Defective faith, and three ways of being of the church

Loserth pp. 407.1–410.29

¶1407.1–408.25

407Ulterius asseritur falsum esse quod defective et corrupte habet multitudo christianorum fidem Christi, eo quod multitudo christianorum habet in fide quidquid est ei necessarium ad salutem credere. Sed constat quod imprudenter ex causa particulari falsum inducitur, nam iuxta sic asserentem prescitus dum est in mortali habet habitum fidei sicut et quilibet falsus christianus. Et credo quod nullus dubitat quin defective et corrupte quilibet talis habet fidem Christi defective, quia peccabiliter, sicut et habuerunt apostoli qui rogaverunt ut Christus adaugeat eis fidem Luce XVII°, 5. Si enim Petro non deficeret gradus fidei, Christus exprobrando non ei diceret Matthei XIV°, 31: Modice fidei quare dubitasti? Et corrupte habent fidem qui irretiti peccatis mortalibus corrumpunt bonos mores et ex informitate fidei finaliter corrumpuntur, nam secundum Apostolum Iª. Cor. V°, 6, modicum fermentum totam massam corrumpit. Ideo oportet doctorem consequenter dicere quod aliqua multitudo christianorum habet fidem valde defective et corrupte sicut homines opinionis sue. Nec moveat evidencia doctoris: si eandem fidem habent boni christiani et mali singuli, sequitur quod mali christiani eque perfectam et integram fidem habeant ut boni. Nam pertinens est hic loqui limitate de fide qua creditur, quia de fide que creditur eque perfectam fidem habent demones et creature singule ut beate. Ideo Augustinus loquitur de genere fidei que est tota multitudo habituum fidei in corpore ecclesie. Illud autem genus fidei habet unam partem quantitativam, perfectam in uno et in alio imperfectam, sicut genus motus localis habet in celo 408unam partem quantitativam uniformem quoad subiectum et tempus, sed aliam partem quantitativam utrimque difformem. In patria autem sunt singuli fidei uniformis, cum ibi evacuabitur imperfectum. Si enim eundem habitum fidei in numero omnino simpliciter habet quilibet christianus, sequitur quod ille habitus eque perfecte denominaret subiectum suum credere ut alius quicunque. Omnis enim qualitas denominat subiectum suum primum secundum sui ultimum, quia variacio disposicionis variaret gradum habitus et sic ipsum habitum. Et ista est sentencia Augustini, non quod idem in numero scilicet actus vel habitus fidei sit formaliter in diversis personis, quia tunc quelibet illarum personarum foret fides quelibet. Fides enim non est nisi personam credere vel disponi ad credendum. Sed fides que creditur est veritas a credentibus aliena. Et sic quamvis infidelis eciam dyabolus credat veritatem fidei catholice, verumptamen secundum partem est infidelis et racione mortalis habet fidem corruptam et informem. Nec refert quoad illam informitatem, sive fides acquisita fuerit sive infusa, ut loquitur decretalis in Clementinis De Summa Trinitate et Fide Catholica, capitulo Firmiter, dicens quod regulariter fides infunditur in baptismo; quod ego credo de omni predestinato rite baptizato.

Further, it is asserted to be false that the multitude of Christians holds the faith of Christ defectively and corruptly, in that the multitude of Christians has in faith whatever it is necessary for it to believe for salvation.¹ But it is evident that the falsehood is imprudently induced from a particular case; for according to the one who so asserts, a foreknown man, while he is in mortal [sin], has the habit of faith, as does any false Christian. And I believe that no one doubts that every such man has the faith of Christ defectively and corruptly. Defectively, because in a way liable to sin, as the apostles too had it, who asked that Christ increase faith in them, Luke 17:5. For if Peter lacked no degree of faith, Christ would not say to him in reproach, Matthew 14:31: "O thou of little faith, why didst thou doubt?"² And they have faith corruptly who, ensnared in mortal sins, corrupt good morals, and from the unformedness of faith are finally corrupted; for according to the Apostle, 1 Corinthians 5:6, "a little leaven corrupteth the whole lump."³ Therefore the doctor must consistently say that some multitude of Christians has faith very defectively and corruptly, as [do] the men of his opinion. Nor let the doctor’s evidence move [anyone]: if good Christians and bad each have the same faith, it follows that bad Christians have as perfect and entire a faith as the good.⁴ For it is pertinent here to speak, with limitation, of the faith by which it is believed; because, as to the faith which is believed, demons and every single creature have as perfect a faith as the blessed. Therefore Augustine speaks of the genus of faith, which is the whole multitude of habits of faith in the body of the church. Now that genus of faith has one quantitative part perfect in one and in another imperfect, as the genus of local motion has in the heaven 408one quantitative part uniform as to subject and time, but another quantitative part difform in both.⁵ But in the homeland each is of uniform faith, since there the imperfect shall be done away.⁶ For if every Christian has altogether, without qualification, the same habit of faith in number, it follows that that habit would name its subject as believing equally perfectly as any other. For every quality names its first subject according to its utmost [degree], because a variation of the disposition would vary the degree of the habit, and so the habit itself.⁷ And this is the teaching of Augustine: not that the same in number, namely an act or habit of faith, is formally in diverse persons, because then each of those persons would be each faith. For faith is nothing but a person’s believing, or being disposed to believe. But the faith which is believed is a truth other than the believers.⁸ And so, although an unbeliever, even the devil, believes the truth of the catholic faith, nevertheless he is in part an unbeliever, and by reason of mortal [sin] has a faith corrupt and unformed. Nor does it matter, as to that unformedness, whether the faith was acquired or infused, as the decretal in the Clementines, De summa Trinitate et fide catholica, chapter Firmiter, speaks, saying that as a rule faith is infused in baptism; which I believe of every predestinate person duly baptized.⁹

¶2408.26–409.1

408Et si queratur quando regulariter incidit quis in infidelitatem et quando remanet fidelis filius ecclesie, dicitur quod tripliciter dicitur quis esse de ecclesia, sicut tripliciter dicitur esse ecclesia preter ecclesiam nuncupativam. Aliqua enim est convocacio fidelium secundum quid vel ad tempus vel nude secundum 409presentem iusticiam, et taliter sunt presciti de ecclesia

And if it is asked when, as a rule, someone falls into unbelief and when he remains a faithful son of the church, the answer is that someone is said in three ways to be of the church, as the church is said in three ways to be, besides the church in name only. For there is a convocation of the faithful in a certain respect, either for a time or barely according to 409present justice; and in this way the foreknown are of the church¹⁰

¶3409.2–410.2

409pro tempore quo sunt in gracia. Illa autem ecclesia non est corpus Christi nec ecclesia sancta catholica nec pars eius. Secundo modo sumitur ecclesia mixtim pro predestinatis et prescitis dum sunt in gracia secundum presentem iusticiam; et ista ecclesia communicat in parte sed non in toto cum ecclesia sancta Dei. Et ista ecclesia vocatur mixtim granum et palea, frumentum et zizannia, nec non et regnum celorum de quinque fatuis virginibus et quinque prudentibus (ut patet in parabolis evangelicis); et istam ecclesiam vocavit Tyconius erronee corpus domini bipartitum (ut patet III° De Doctrina Christiana XXXII°); non enim sunt presciti corpus domini vel pars eius. Sed tercio modo sumitur ecclesia pro convocacione predestinatorum, sive sint in gracia secundum presentem iusticiam sive non. Et isto modo ecclesia est articulus fidei, de quo loquitur Apostolus Ephes. VI°. Et sic nullus prescitus est de sancta ecclesia, licet sit in illa. Correspondenter potest intelligi tripliciter personam esse de ecclesia. Primo modo nude secundum presentem iusticiam, ut presciti sunt de ecclesia primo modo dicta; secundo modo predestinati sive presciti dum sunt ad tempus in gracia sunt de ecclesia secundo modo dicta, differenter tamen et equivoce presciti et predestinati, ut patet ex varietate tituli predestinacionis et presciencie et ex diversitate corporis Christi et corporis dyaboli. Sed tercio modo omnes predestinati, et solum tales sunt de sancta matre ecclesia, differenter tamen quando sunt in mortali cum sola predestinacionis gracia et quando cum illa sunt in gracia secundum presentem iusticiam; tunc 410enim sunt continuati corpori Christi secundum humidum fluens et secundum humidum naturale.

for the time in which they are in grace. And that church is not the body of Christ, nor the holy catholic church, nor a part of it.¹¹ In the second way the church is taken for the predestinate and the foreknown mixedly, while they are in grace according to present justice; and this church shares in part but not in whole with the holy church of God. And this church is called, mixedly, grain and chaff, wheat and cockle, and also the kingdom of heaven, of the five foolish virgins and five wise (as is clear in the gospel parables); and this church Tyconius erroneously called the bipartite body of the Lord (as is clear, On Christian Doctrine 3, [chapter] 32); for the foreknown are not the body of the Lord, or part of it.¹² But in the third way the church is taken for the convocation of the predestinate, whether they be in grace according to present justice or not. And in this way the church is an article of faith, of which the Apostle speaks, Ephesians 6. And so no foreknown man is of the holy church, though he be in it.¹³ Correspondingly, it can be understood in three ways that a person is of the church. In the first way, barely according to present justice, as the foreknown are of the church said in the first way. In the second way, the predestinate or the foreknown, while for a time they are in grace, are of the church said in the second way; yet differently and equivocally, the foreknown and the predestinate, as is clear from the variety of the title of predestination and of foreknowledge, and from the diversity of the body of Christ and the body of the devil.¹⁴ But in the third way all the predestinate, and only such, are of holy mother church; differently, however, when they are in mortal [sin] with the grace of predestination alone, and when with it they are in grace according to present justice; for then 410they are joined continuously to the body of Christ according to the flowing moisture and according to the natural moisture.¹⁵

¶4410.3–410.29

410Istis premissis dicitur quod omnis prescitus nunquam est de ecclesia tercio modo dicta; est autem de ecclesia primo et secundo modo dicta, quando splendet in eo lumen gracie et pro quocunque mortali veniente est extra triplicem ecclesiam, licet habuerit tantam fidem infusam, ut montes transferat; nam fides omnino informis, sive infusa sive adquisita, non sufficit constituere personam, ut sit de ecclesia, quia cum illa fide stat hominem dampnari perpetuo; fides autem cum gracia predestinacionis constituit hominem membrum ecclesie sive sit in gracia secundum presentem iusticiam, sive ad tempus iniustus fuerit vel eciam infidelis. Generacio enim qua talis fit filius salvat eum, ne possit cum datis paribus peccare peccato finalis impenitencie ut prescitus, et sic nemo potest desinere esse membrum sancte ecclesie tercio modo dicte quia tunc desineret esse predestinatus; incipit autem esse membrum illius ecclesie secundum disparem racionem, nunc quando incipit esse et nunc quando incipit esse iustus (ut notat Augustinus super Johannis Omelia XLIXª). De prima autem ecclesia nunc cadunt et nunc incorporantur presciti, secundum quod accenditur vel extinguitur in eis scintilla gracie; de secunda vero ecclesia cadunt predestinati casu secundum quid, sed presciti quandoque cadunt simpliciter, illa autem ecclesia desinet esse ad diem iudicii, cum tunc desinet esse commixtio grani cum palea.

These things premised, the answer is that every foreknown man is never of the church said in the third way; but he is of the church said in the first and second way when the light of grace shines in him; and for whatever mortal [sin] comes upon him he is outside the threefold church, although he had so much infused faith that he could remove mountains.¹⁶ For faith altogether unformed, whether infused or acquired, does not suffice to constitute a person so that he be of the church, because with that faith it stands that a man be damned perpetually; but faith with the grace of predestination constitutes a man a member of the church, whether he be in grace according to present justice, or be for a time unjust, or even an unbeliever.¹⁷ For the generation by which such a one becomes a son saves him, so that he cannot, all else being equal, sin with the sin of final impenitence as the foreknown man does; and so no one can cease to be a member of holy church said in the third way, because then he would cease to be predestinate. But he begins to be a member of that church on a different ground, at one time when he begins to be and at another when he begins to be just (as Augustine notes on John, Homily 49).¹⁸ And from the first church the foreknown now fall away and now are incorporated, according as the spark of grace is kindled or quenched in them; but from the second church the predestinate fall with a fall in a certain respect, whereas the foreknown sometimes fall without qualification; and that church will cease to be at the day of judgement, since then the commingling of grain with chaff will cease to be.¹⁹

Notes

1 B in the margin at 407.1: Nota quomodo quidam habent fidem defective et corrupte; A: Nota qui sunt qui habent fidem corruptam et qui defectivam. C. The doctor denies Wyclif’s claim that the multitude of Christians holds the faith defectively and corruptly; the multitude, he says, holds all that is necessary to salvation.
2 Prescitus: one whom God foreknows will be damned (the glossary). C. Ex causa particulari: from a particular case, what holds of some Christians being induced of the whole multitude. Defective, quia peccabiliter opens the first of two explanations (the second at Et corrupte): faith is held defectively in that it can fail through sin, as the apostles’ did. S. Luke 17:5, paraphrased (DR "Increase our faith"); Matthew 14:31.
3 1 Corinthians 5:6. Corrumpunt bonos mores echoes 1 Corinthians 15:33 (corrumpunt mores bonos colloquia mala). C. Informitas fidei: the state of faith not formed by charity (glossary: fides formata / informis).
4 At 407.22 A and A₁ read homines opitus (sic), and B omits sue. C. Sicut homines opinionis sue is taken as "as [do] the men of his opinion", the multitude of whom has faith defectively. The doctor’s evidence follows in the conditional: if good and bad have the same faith, the bad have as perfect a faith as the good.
5 A in the margin at 407.27: Nota. T. At 407.32 A and A₁ read habet in celo habet partem. C. Pars quantitativa: a part by extent, not by kind. The motion of the heavens is uniform in one part, as to its moving body and its time, and difform (utrimque, in both respects) in another; so the one genus of faith is perfect in some believers and imperfect in others.
6 1 Corinthians 13:10 (DR "that which is in part shall be done away"); Wyclif has imperfectum for the Vulgate’s quod ex parte est. R. B in the margin at 407.11: Inferius nota quod in patria sunt singuli fidei uniformis; ergo sequitur ut videtur quod fides manebit in patria: an early reader draws the consequence that faith remains in the homeland.
7 Denominat subiectum suum primum secundum sui ultimum: a quality names its subject by its utmost degree, so one habit in all would make all believe equally. Variaret (variation of disposition varies the degree, and so the habit) is why the habit cannot be one in number in many.
8 Sentencia here is the teaching Augustine holds, not a judicial sentence (the glossary, CONTEXTUAL). Quelibet illarum personarum foret fides quelibet: since faith is a person’s believing, one faith in number in many persons would make each person every faith. T. At 408.15 A and A₁ read foret quelibet, without fides. R. B in the margin at 408.13: Nota; A and B: Quid est fides. A credentibus aliena: other than the believers, outside them.
9 Loserth: "Not in Clementinis, but in Decr. Greg. IX, lib. I, tit. I, cap. I", that is, Firmiter credimus, X 1.1.1 (modern form ours). The teaching that faith and the virtues are infused in baptism stands in the Clementine Fidei catholicae, Clem. 1.1.un. (Friedberg: virtutes ac informans gratia infunduntur quoad habitum), which bears the same title De summa Trinitate et fide catholica; Firmiter itself says only that baptism duly given profits to salvation. C. Regulariter: as a rule, in the ordinary course.
10 A in the margin at 408.26: Questio; B at 408.29: Solucio; A and B: Nota quod tripliciter dicitur quis de ecclesia sicut tripliciter dicitur (A: capitur) ecclesia. S. Loserth compares De civili dominio, p. 288. C. Ecclesia nuncupativa: the church in name only, set aside before the three senses. The sentence runs on into ¶3 (pro tempore quo sunt in gracia).
11 At 409.4 A and A₁ omit modo (Secundo modo). C. The first church is the convocation of the faithful in a certain respect, the foreknown counted in it only while they are in grace.
12 Grain and chaff: Matthew 3:12; wheat and cockle: Matthew 13:24–30; the ten virgins: Matthew 25:1–13. Tyconius’s second rule, de Domini corpore bipartito, in Augustine, De doctrina christiana 3.32.45, where Augustine prefers to call the body "true and mixed" (PL 34): non ita debuit appellari, which answers Wyclif’s erronee.
13 Wyclif cites Ephesians 6; Loserth refers to Ephesians 5:30–32. C. De ecclesia / in illa: the foreknown may be in the church without being of it. R. A and B in the margin at 409.20: Tripliciter aliquis est de ecclesia.
14 Equivoce: the foreknown and the predestinate belong to the second church in different senses, because their titles differ (predestination, foreknowledge) and they are members of different bodies, of Christ and of the devil.
15 Humidum fluens and humidum naturale: the physicians’ flowing and radical moisture (glossary: humidum radicale / fluens); naturale here stands for the radical moisture. C. In grace the predestinate are joined to Christ’s body by both moistures; in mortal sin, by predestination alone.
16 1 Corinthians 13:2 (DR "so that I could remove mountains"). R. A in the margin at 410.3: Nota. C. Omnis prescitus nunquam est: the quantifier order is kept; no foreknown man is ever of the third church. Pro quocunque mortali veniente: at the coming of any mortal sin.
17 At 410.10 B omits sufficit ... dampnari; at 410.13 B omits sit. R. A in the margin at 410.11: Fides cum gracia predestinacionis constituunt hominem membrum ecclesie. C. Cum illa fide stat: it is consistent with that faith that a man be damned.
18 Generacio ... salvat eum: 1 John 5:18 (DR "the generation of God preserveth him"). Augustine "on John, Homily 49": Tract. in Ioh. 49.27 on John 11:51–52, nam neque oves ejus, nec filii Dei adhuc erant, qui nondum crediderant (PL 35:1758; Loserth gives no reference), paraphrased. C. Cum datis paribus: all else being equal. Secundum disparem racionem: on a different ground, once by being (predestination, which makes him a member before he is just) and again by becoming just.
19 A in the margin at 410.13: Nota quod diversimode aliqui cadunt de ecclesia. C. Casu secundum quid: the predestinate fall from the mixed church only in a certain respect, for a time; the foreknown may fall from it without qualification, finally.

How the Latin of this chapter was established

Plate readings; page · reading · note):
- 407: Christi (10 is the line number)
- 407: Christus
- 407: Iª
- 409: presentem (alinea O and 185c folio mark glued)
- 409: esse (1 is a margin argument numeral)
- 410: iniustus (clear ni) [NW]
- 410: XLIXª
- 409: secundo (se-/cundo; output holds both halves) [-MARK]