Objections answered: many heads, virgin and bride, the church as nothing

But it is still objectedinstatur; obicitur: it is objected, finally, by leading [us] to absurditiesinconveniencia; inconveniens: CONTEXTUAL: an absurdity (in argument) · troubles, ill consequences (in affairs) of the same form as those to which [our] adversaries are led.¹ For first it seems that the churchecclesia: church, like a monster, would have a thousand heads, and so of the other members monstrously fashioned; and so she would be at once a virgin and a most corrupt synagogue and the church of Christ. Here the answer isdicitur multipliciter: is said in many ways (as often) by denying the assumptionassumptum: the assumption; for it does not follow: "These heads are this one’s" (pointing to holy mother church), "therefore they are heads of this one"; nor does it follow: "These are the heads of those who are this church, therefore they are heads of this church"; for they are heads of these severally. And yet none of them is head of these [together].² For them to be heads of the church, therefore, the church must have them all and each as its heads. For since "head", according to Aristotle, is said relatively, it is clear to sophists that it does not follow: "This head, this father or this member is such a one’s, therefore it is the head, father or member of that one"; nor does it follow: "This is the natural head of this captaincapitaneus: captain, who is head of a given church, therefore this is the head of that church."³ For it is not necessary, equivocating on "head", that if this is the head of a head, then this is the head of whatever is headedcapitari / capitatus: to be headed / headed by that head; and correspondingly of the other members. For any part of a predestinatepredestinatus, -i: the predestinate (sg. "a predestinate [person]") [person] can be called a part of the body of the church; yet nothing is a member of the church except a predestinate person, and every such [person] is a member of the church, as is to be said proportionally in the human body.⁴ And it is clear that for knowledge of this matter of holy mother church one must know not only theology and the canon laws but altogether logic, physics and ethics, which all serve 117our mothermater nostra: our mother. For just as it does not follow: "The Father in divine things generates, and he is the divine nature, therefore it generates", so it does not follow: "This person is headed by these heads, and this person is this church, therefore this church is so headed."⁵ For "church" signifies abstractly the multitude of the faithful in the respect in which they are united in the headcaput: head; in which sense the church cannot be not-church or be damned. The church therefore is not monstrously composed. But as to the second [point], it is granted that the church is a virgin, since she is the bridesponsa / sponsus: bride / bridegroom of the virgin Jesus Christ, and from her, as from a true mother, we are spiritually begotten; and so she is most chaste as a whole in the homelandvia / patria: the way / the homeland; here, however, committing fornication with the adulterous devil, and so with his members, she is partly corrupted by many crimes (as is clear from the faith of scriptureex fide: as faith teaches; with a genitive, from the faith of [scripture], Ezekiel 18).⁶ Nevertheless she is never received as bride, to be embraced in blessedness at the right hand in the bridegroom’s bed, before she is a pure virgin in every way, without wrinkle; for Christ is the bridegroom of virginity.⁷ And as to the third point, the answer is that every synagogue that is part of holy mother church is church, not conversely. And therefore a synagogue is so often called church in the old testament; but I do not remember that in the new testament any particular church is called a synagogue (the reason for which has been given elsewhere).⁸ Secondly, it is objected, by appeal toobicitur per: it is objected, by appeal to this: that according to what has been said it follows that the same person of the Word is son, father and bridegroom of the church; which is against the laws both of nature and of the church, since no one ever lawfully espoused his own mother. Here the answer is by granting the conclusionconclusio: conclusion assumed, since Christ espouses not only the universal church but, with a perpetual espousal, each member of it. And as to the laws to be alleged to the contrary, it is clear that 118they speak of contract, of kinship and of espousal that is carnal, but not of spiritual, as we must speak in the present matter; and we must attend to it the more, the more precious, the more proper and the more explicit in holy scripture it is.⁹

For according to that [spiritual kinship] all who are to be saved are sons of God and true brothers on both parents’ side; indeed, according to Christ’s most correct logic, Matthew 12:50: "Whatever son of the kingdom shall do the will of his Father who is in heaven, he is his brother, sister and mother."¹⁰ And so, without distinction of spiritual sex, every predestinate Christian, whether male or female, is brother, sister, mother and bride of Christ. Therefore in Canticles 5:1 it is said to the church: "I am come into my garden, O my sister, my spouse." Indeed the church is truly the house of God, the city of the king of justice, the kingdom of heaven, a garden enclosed, a fountain sealed up, and the other things that scripture attributes to her in the mystical sense.¹¹ For in spiritual things the same substance has in itself without repugnance any number of aspectsracio (against substancia): aspect, truly their namings, as by way of example we can see how the species and intentions of contraries are together in the medium and in the mind. And he who is ignorant ofignorare: to be ignorant of this is very unfitindispositus; (se) indisponere: unfit; to make (oneself) unfit to know in a catholic way that heavenly marriage.¹² For Isaiah 26:1 says of Christ and holy church: "A saviour, a wall and a bulwark shall be set therein." For Christ according to his divinity embraces his bride immediately, and according to his humanity, by which he was made a little less than the angels, he is the bulwark, because as leader in war he overcomes the enemies of the church in dire combat; and so of any number of aspects, all of which the apostle, 1 Corinthians 15:28, comprehends in brief, saying that "Christ is all in all".¹³

Hence those ignorant of scripture turn aside to such childish objectionsinstancia; objectum: objection when arguments fail them from elsewhere, and they say that our scripture is impossible, so much 119that some say there is no catholic church, because one cannot grant universalsuniversale; ydea: universal; idea on the side of the thing. But others say that the church is the church, but is not something but some things, nor is anything a member of the church; and so holy scripture concerning the head of the church, its soul and its other members is manifestly impossible.¹⁴ And so it seems they have to say commonly that, as the church is nothing, so it is worth nothing; and so Christ would be a most foolish merchant, who delivered himself up for the said church, and he would mock Christians too much with the espousals, the privileges and the attributes of the church.¹⁵

For if the church is not a beingens / esse / essencia: a being / being (existence) / essence or something, then it is not true nor good; and since nothing is worth anything except in proportion as it is good, it followssequitur: it follows that the church is worth nothing. For it follows according to the rudiments of the discipline: "Each of these is good" (adducing two particular churches), "therefore each of these is some thing"; and so a thousand things would be one thing which, although it reasons, lives well [or] ill, performs human acts [and] underlies accidents as a substance does, yet is nothing.¹⁶ Hence it has parts and is quite perceptiblesensibilis: perceptible, divisible, and so of the other namings; but nothing is its head or member, nor is anything within, outside, or a part of the church, since it never began, begins, or will cease. And so not only will material houses not remain after the removal of the least material part by the wind or a bird, so that churches would have to be consecrated anew daily, but communities too, such as convents, abbeys and a religious order, would continually fail and be renewed as any person of them fails or is in any way renewed; and the appropriationappropriare; appropriacio: to appropriate; appropriation of temporal goodstemporalia: temporal goods would perish, in that the college to which the temporal goods were given would not survive.¹⁷ For not by rightius: right / law of fleshly inheritance but by spiritual 120imitation, from which perhaps they degenerate, ought such [men] to claim almselemosina: alms.¹⁸

Again, according to what has been said, the whole human race is one man, divided into two men, and each of them has God and the Lord Jesus Christ for head; therefore each of them is the body of the Lord, and consequently that whole man would be the body of the Lord; and so Augustine would without reason reprove Tyconius concerning the bipartite body of the Lord.¹⁹ Nor is there evidenceevidencia: evidence that an army or a people does whatever a part of it does, without that great man, by the same token, being at once the body of Christ and the body of the devil, saved and damned, since [he is so] according to [his] parts; therefore etc.²⁰