Ten arguments against a doctor’s definition of the church

But on this matter there is a certain doctor who defines the churchecclesia: church in this form: "The church," he says, "is the universal multitude of all Christians, who hold wholly the right and same faith spread abroad by Christ and the apostles and declared by the holy fathers and the general councils."¹ And it is clear that he speaks of the one holy catholic church, for otherwise he would not take for genus that the church itself is the multitude of all Christians. First, I say, it seems that no fathers of the old testament were of that church, because that [church] did not exist before Christ begot it by the outflow of blood and water from his side as he slept on the cross (as is said in John 19:34); now this was not in the time of the fathers of the old testament; therefore neither was that church.² From which it followssequitur: it follows that, since "outside that church there is no salvation" (as is clear in the extravagant of Boniface VIII, Unam sanctam), none of the fathers of the old testament will be saved. For it would not be pertinent for the decree to say that outside the one holy and catholic church there is no salvation, unless it meant that no one will be saved unless he was of it.³ Secondly it follows that Christ is not of that church, because he is not of the universal multitude of all Christians, in that he is not 113a Christian, but Christ himself, from whom every Christian is so called; and consequently he is neither of the number of those to be saved, nor headcaput: head, nor any part of the catholic church. For it is from Christ as head that the faithful servants of Christ are named Christians (as is clear from Acts 11:26). Therefore, just as a Roman is not Rome, nor an Israelite Israel himself, and in short no passive generation is the generating principle itself, so no Christian is Christ, but Christ’s; and the faith of scripture concerning the head and the members of the church would perish; and much more evidently it follows that the blessed Virgin was not a member of that church, because in the holy three days that church did not exist, nor was she afterwards incorporated into it.⁴ Thirdly it follows that there is no such church, because no multitude of all Christians has wholly the same right faith: both because the multitude of all Christians has the faith of Christ defectively and corruptly, and also because all those Christians have no one faith, neither as a species nor as an aggregate. Nor does this sophismsophisma: sophism avail: "These have faith, but they have no faith." Nor does it avail to feign the faith which is believed, because such things are denied by the one who defines thus, and, if they are posited, they are crudely heaped together in a definitiondescripcio: definition so anxiously worked out.⁵ For many Christians, the foreknownprescitus, -i: the foreknown as well as the predestinatepredestinatus, -i: the predestinate (sg. "a predestinate [person]"), have a faith much bent by sins, and many who are unbelieversinfidelis: unbeliever; with a dative, faithless (to) without qualificationsimpliciter / secundum quid: without qualification / in a certain respect have a believed faith that is very right.⁶ Fourthly it follows that neither the apostles nor other faithful were of the church before the faith was spread abroad by Christ and the apostles and declared by the holy fathers in the general councils; which was long after the ascension of the Lord and the death of the apostles. For no one was of the catholic church before it existed; now it did not exist before it was the case that it is; now since it was not the case that it 114is before the said written [definition] applied to it, it follows that it was then first the church.⁷ This would be very absurdinconveniencia; inconveniens: CONTEXTUAL: an absurdity (in argument) · troubles, ill consequences (in affairs): first, because Christ would not have formed the church from his side; secondly, because no faithful would have been of the church before the said general councils, and so blessed Stephen and many other Christians would have died outside the faith of the church; thirdly, because those who held the first councils after the ascension would first have made the catholic church; for supposing that we were [living] a day before the first councils after the ascension, it would be true for us that there is not yet a catholic church, because the definition has not yet been verified.⁸

Fifthly it follows that, as the faithful are born and die, there will be a new and ever new catholic church, and consequently there would be more than a thousand catholic churches; which is against Boniface’s decretal Unam sanctam. And the inferenceconsequencia: inference appears from this: that in this way there will be new and ever new multitudes of Christians, and consequently the same church in number will not remain through so many and so great changes, as is clear to one who asks diligently what that church would be which would thus continuously remain.⁹

Sixthly it follows that all the foreknown in grace would be members of the catholic church, and no predestinate, while they erred in the faith, would be parts of holy mother church; of which the first seems false of Iscariot and other heretics, and the second seems to have been false of David, Peter, Paul and those like them for the time in which they were unbelievers. Each of these is against the teachingssentencia: CONTEXTUAL: teaching / sentence of the saints and the reasons given above.¹⁰

Seventhly it seems that there is no church triumphant, in that in the homelandvia / patria: the way / the homeland it has not had faith, as is said. And so no multitude will perpetually be the church, the bridesponsa / sponsus: bride / bridegroom of Christ; or else the church at its perfection will become not-church, which is against scripture and reason.¹¹ 115Eighthly it seems that the catholic church is nowhere, nor has any part, since it is nothing; and so the Roman church would be neither worthier nor less worthy than the catholic church. I set out these evidencesevidencia: evidence so that the answer may be made seriously to the matter and form of the arguments, nowhere turning aside from the truth in the proper sense of the wordsde virtute sermonis: in the proper sense of the words; for the teaching which I have expounded concerning the church I am willing to defend in the proper sense of the words, sharing it with the most captious sophist and with anyone, believer or unbeliever, who wishes to be as wanton as he likes.¹² But if this definition is not valid, to what purpose is it set down for knowing holy mother church? Ninthly it seems, supposing the common logic now current, that the universal church is not anything, because [it is] neither substance nor accident; and consequently, since there is no part of the universal church, it would be indivisible both quantitatively and qualitatively; and consequently neither the lord popepapa: pope nor the Roman church would be head of the universal church, since it does not follow: "If he exercises the office of head over some of these, therefore over these"; for by equal evidence the devil would be head of the same church, and it would have any number of heads, good as well as bad.¹³ Tenth and last, it seems, as to the properties and accidents of the church, that it does not have distinction of sex, virginity, age or the other accidents that the faith of scripture attributes to it; and by the same token it does not have privilege or sin, temporal goodstemporalia: temporal goods or a rule of living, since it tends no more to unity than the members of the devil, since in them is the peace which Christ, Matthew 10:34, says he came to dissolve.¹⁴ These childish objectionsinstancia; objectum: objection against the rudiments of the faith the faithful man must clearly dissolve, because one must diligently resist errors at their beginnings, since admitting them leads astray.¹⁵