The Roman church is the whole church militant, not the pope and his college

It is not, therefore, a new fiction to speak thus of the unity of the churchecclesia: church, nor is there doubt that it is that [church] which after the day of judgement will be the kingdomregnum: kingdom of heaven, the heavenly Jerusalem and the bridesponsa / sponsus: bride / bridegroom of Christ (as Augustine mentioned above). From these it followssequitur: it follows (as I have often repeated) that it would be too great a presumption for anyone to assert without misgivingformido (sine / cum formidine): misgiving or revelation that he is a member of that church. For no one except one predestinatepredestinatus, -i: the predestinate (sg. "a predestinate [person]") and holy in his time, without spot or wrinkle, is 85a member of that church. Now no one would assert without misgiving or revelation that he is predestinate and holy without spot or wrinkle: therefore the conclusion.¹ Hence I wonder with what face those who contend the more for the ownership of the goods of the church, living the more worldly, removed far from Christ’s manner of lifeconversacio: manner of life and the more barren of the carrying out of Christ’s counsel and precept, claim the more, by titletitulus: title of participation in that church, the goods of fortune that by accident lie next to that church, than the apostles or the earlier holy fathers did.² Do we believe that those who plead [at law] in this way are saints without the spot of mortal [sin] or the wrinkle of venial? If they say so, the desertion of Christ’s counsel, with idleness in the holy office, condemns them. For human lawius: right / law does not give them a title to claim in such a way, and divine law teaches that they should take the plundering of their goods with joy, and not so ask back what is theirs (as is clear in chapter 3 from the testimony of blessed Gregory).³ By what right, then, do they so claim, since by striving thus for that title they deprive themselves of it? Let them consider, then, the conditions of holy mother church, before, refutedredarguere: to refute by their own work, they press [their case] thus against Christ’s counsels. And as to what was said of the Roman church, I suppose that it is called holy mother catholic church, the bride of Christ.⁴ And it is clear that it is spread abroad wherever the predestinate faithful are; hence (as I touched on above) Augustine, in the letter to Dardanus, chapter 11, expounding that [text] of John 18:14, "It is expedient that one man should die for the people," etc.: "Caiaphas," he says, "prophesied that God would gather his sons into one. Not," he says, "into some one bodily place, but he gathered [them] into one spirit and one body, whose one headcaput: head is Christ."⁵ From which it is clear that the unity of holy mother church stands in 86the unity of faith and of the virtues, although the faithful are spread abroad in place, however variously.

Hence blessed Isidore, in the first book On the Highest Good, chapter 19, writes thus: "The holy church is called catholic for this reason, that it is spread universally through the whole world." And Hugh, in book 2 On the Sacraments, part 2, chapter 2: "The holy church, that is, the whole body of the faithfuluniversitas fidelium: the whole body of the faithful, is called the body of Christ."⁶ And the decrees intimate this teachingsentencia: CONTEXTUAL: teaching / sentence, distinction 21: "Although all the catholic churches throughout the world are the one bridal chamber of Christ, yet the holy Roman church, catholic and apostolic, has been set over the other churches by many synodal decrees." Which it proves from that [text] of Matthew 16: "Thou art Peter; and upon this rock I will build my church." And afterwards it calls that church the Roman church, the first see of the apostle Peter, "not having spot or wrinkle."⁷ This church cannot be understood as only this popepapa: pope with these cardinals and his householdfamilia: household, since they daily depart and come, and are wrinkled more often than the rest of the faithful people. Hence on this text the glossglosa: gloss says thus: "It is an argument," it says, "that wherever the good are, there is the Roman church." And this argument would give full faith to the faithful.⁸ And so I understand the decree 24 q. 1, A recta, where the canon speaks thus of the Roman church: "This is the holy and apostolic church, mother of all the churches of Christ, which by the grace of almighty God is proved never to have erred from the path of apostolic tradition, nor has it succumbed to heretics." Where it is known that this 87cannot be understood of any pope whatever and his domestics.⁹ Therefore the gloss speaks thus: "I ask," it says, "of which church it speaks here; because it cannot be understood of the pope, who is called the church (as above in the same [question], Quodcunque, and 7 q. 1, Scire debes). But it is certain that the pope can err (as dist. 19, Anastasius, and dist. 40, Si papa). Therefore neither he nor his household is that church of which it is said here that it cannot err. Hence the congregation of the faithful itself is called this church (as De consecratione, dist. 1, Ecclesia)."¹⁰ And so is understood the saying of blessed Jerome placed at 24 q. 1, Hec est fides: "Holy," he says, "is the Roman church, which has always remained unspotted, and, the Lord providing and blessed Peter the apostle bringing help, will remain in the future without any assault of heretics, and will persist firm and immovable for all time."¹¹ Here cannot be understood any pope whatever with his college. For they are rather often spotted, and shaken by the assault of heretics from within as well as from without, as a frail wayfarerviator: wayfarer [is], as is clear to eyewitness faith in our days, since two parts of the cardinals impute heretical depravityheretica pravitas: heretical depravity to our pope and to the brethren who support him, since (as they say) they strive not only to take away the privileges of the Roman church but, as far as in them lies, to destroy it.¹² And every such [man] is a heretic (as is clear from dist. 22, Omnes; as is clear in the Sixth Book, in the title on heresy).¹³ Since, therefore, according to the decrees the Roman church has the primacy and dignity with respect to God over all others, it is clear that it is the total church militantecclesia militans / triumphans / dormiens: the church militant / triumphant / sleeping, which God loves more than any other part of it. And so it follows manifestly from faith that not that college but the whole mother, dispersed in every nation and tongue, 88is that holy Roman church of which the laws speak, with the holy doctors.¹⁴ Hence, to imprint this teaching in us, in the church’s chant composed by blessed Ambrose and Augustine, our mothermater nostra: our mother thus addresses God: "Thee the holy church throughout the world doth acknowledge." And in the canon of the mass we offer first and chiefly for the holy catholic church, that God may vouchsafe to give it peace, to guard and to help it throughout the whole world.¹⁵ Hence without doubt prayer is made for the most principal church militant, which I suppose to be the Roman church; nevertheless, among its parts, in comparison with respect to quantity, the pope and his college are the chief part in dignity, provided however that they follow Christ more closely and, deserting pride and primacy, serve their mother more effectively and more humbly. For, doing the opposite, they are a nest of heretics, a putrid abscessapostema: abscess and the idol of desolation, with other monstrous names prophesied in the sacred page.¹⁶

And lest I feign this teaching, behold the decree of the church, De penitencia, dist. 1: "The church of Christ," it says, "has not spot or wrinkle or any such thing; he therefore who is spotted with any filth of sins cannot be called of the church of Christ." "Spot," says the gloss, "that is, heresy or mortal sin; nor wrinkle, that is, schism or venial [sin]."¹⁷ But this, I believe with St Thomas, ought to be modified to the state of the homelandvia / patria: the way / the homeland; and here whoever is in the spot of mortal sin is, for that time, lacking in the continuing flowing moisture, that is, grace according to present justice.¹⁸