A multitude has parts; the church from the beginning of the world

neither it nor any part of it would properly have possessions, since it is not properly one whole or something; nor would anyone be in the churchecclesia: church or of the church. For [he would] not [be] "in the church", since so he would be a part of the given faithful, and so all would compose some one body;¹ for if, for a man or any other thing to be of certain [things], it suffices that he be of their number, then anything whatever would be of the world, and every foreknownprescitus, -i: the foreknown or predestinatepredestinatus, -i: the predestinate (sg. "a predestinate [person]") [man] would be as much of the foreknown as of the predestinate, and any 436multitude of any other; and so (as the sophists argue) some number would not have a part or parts, as a number of indivisibles; and some number has parts and not a part, as a number of divisible things that do not overlap; and some number has parts and a part, as Peter and his head.² These sophismssophisma: sophism are ravings, and contrary to the philosophers’ manner of speaking of a people, an army and other artificial things; but above all they are contrary to scripture and the holy doctors. Every such multitude must therefore have parts (as is clear to sense). For in seeing a wood, a people or sand, something is seen distinctly according to the radiant pyramid whose base is bounded at the multitude; and it is evident that in that case one simple part of such a multitude is not so seen, just as neither a point nor a line is seen. Therefore it remains that such a multitude is seen divisibly, as it has operations of its own and is the object of many acts.³

And the confirmation of this is that continuity is nothing but an accident, not making a substance be something; and by the same token it follows that a so-calledvocatus (vocata bona, vocata ecclesia): so-called religion or human ritesritus: rite do not make persons be a substance after they were not a substance; nor does a well-disposed sense grasp that a convent so perceptiblesensibilis: perceptible, so given to eating and so manifoldly active is indivisibly multiplied, like the quiddityquiditas: quiddity of man; nor will it be denied that such a convent is a particular church; and if it is nothing, then it can be changed by a man from something into not-something, and conversely.⁴ And it is the object of sense and the subject of an accident, and yet it is not a thing objected or subjected, which is against grammar. It would also be altogether without sin or grace, because no such thing or accident would be in it, and by parity no part or namingdenominacio; denominare: naming; to name would be in it;⁵ and then a church of three men and three angels would stand in no proportion 437to any part of itself, because so one half would be indivisible, and the other, quantitative half would be equal to its whole, if it ought to be called a whole; and so that whole would have four unequal halves, as a church of four unequal men would have the two lesser men and the four quantitative halves of those four men for its halves; and so, in whatever proportion you please, one half is greater than the other. And it seems a wonder that a part, a half, the world and the greater part of artificial things should be nothing; for scripture says thus, in 1 John 5, that the spirit, the water and the blood are one; and commonly the same is clear of other aggregates which are called one. For when the lower is predicated per se, the higher is predicated per se: as, if the church is a person, then it is an individual substance of a rational nature.⁶ Returning therefore to the matter in hand, the faithful [man] must note that he should diligently beware of that recent heresy by which it is said that before the death of Christ there was no holy mothermater nostra: our mother church, nor that one total church is constituted of the militant and the triumphant, but that the foreknown and membersmembrum: member of the devil are parts of holy mother church, the house of God and special dwelling of the Trinity;⁷ for (as I have often assumed) Augustine in the Enchiridion 56, expounding the faith of the church on this clause, "the holy catholic church", writes thus: "The right order of the confession therefore required that the church should be joined to the Trinity, as his house to the dweller, and his temple to God, and his city to the founder; which is here to be taken whole, not only in the part which is a pilgrimpars peregrinans; peregrinari: the pilgrim part; to be a pilgrim on earth, from the rising of the sun to its going down praising the name of the Lord, and after the captivity of oldness singing a new 438song, but also in that which in heaven has always, since it was founded, cleaved to the Lord, and has experienced no evil of its own fall. This church in the holy angels persists blessed, and helps its pilgrim part as it ought; for both will be one in the fellowship of eternity, and now are one in the bond of charitycaritas: charity."⁸ This holy bishop composed for the church a little book which he called the Manual, to the end that the faithful should rightly understand their faith; where, as regards the first articlearticulus fidei: article of faith, he notes how, immediately after the eternity of the uncreated Trinity, that is, in the beginning of the world, holy mother church followed, in which the Trinity should have its dwelling; and he expressly mentions two parts of that total church, namely the heavenly and the earthly.⁹ Whence, so that our hope may be confirmed in this catholic faith, it is set down in a hymn of the church (after our nature in Christ received [a seat] in heaven, and the angel, the fellow servant of men, forbade John to adore him, in the penultimate [chapter] of the Apocalypse), so that the faithful who are absent from the Lord may in this way beware:¹⁰

"He triumphs splendidly,¹¹

and, worthy of the amplitude,

of earth and sky the homelandvia / patria: the way / the homeland

makes one commonwealth"; as if he said: the headcaput: head of the church, Christ, our God, is worthy from the merit of his passion to have a city so ample, which is the total church made of the church militant on earth and triumphant in heaven.¹²