Question XIII: What are the marks of the true Church, in which the authority of expounding faith resides

The Church was founded from the beginning of the world, as S. Bonaventure asserts on Psalm 61, which all follow. But that she began more from Abel than from Adam, he explains: because Abel was slain as a figure of Christ, whereas Adam did not slay others. Then too, Abel was a virgin, a Martyr, and a Pastor, or Doctor. Finally, because a truncated branch is not reckoned, as is evident in the tree of consanguinity. Add that Abel began the multiplication: for the Church is a union of many faithful. Indeed Cain was a heretic, and killed Abel out of hatred of the faith. This is clear from Genesis 4, where we read: Cain said to Abel: Let us go out into the open. The Chaldean reads: Cain said: There is no Law, no judge, nor retribution. When Abel detested that proposition, Cain was aroused.

This mark has always remained intact in some, as S. Bonaventure runs through in sermon 16 of the Hexaëmeron. The true Marks of the Church are chiefly those read in the Creed, when it is said: I believe One, Holy, Catholic, and Apostolic Church.

The FIRST Mark is that she be one. On this account (as S. Bonaventure observes on chapter 1 of Wisdom) it is said in Canticles 6: One is my dove, my perfect one.

On this account, she is said also to be compared to the world. Hence in Wisd. 1 it is said: The spirit of the Lord hath filled the whole world, both to signify that she is one; and her perfection in the world; and to show that she is Catholic, that is, universal, as the holy Doctor there remarks, describing from the parallel of the world the other perfections of the Church: stability in her seat, the gates of hell shall not prevail (Matt. 16), just as the earth standeth for ever (Eccl. 1); the spherical motion for communicating heavenly goods; the nobler ornaments of the virtues in the stars; the lower ones in herbs and plants, etc.

With similar parallels S. Bonaventure applies to the Church the name of the Dove, to those words of Psalm 67: If you sleep in the midst of lots, the wings of the dove overlaid with silver, and the hinder parts of her back in the paleness of gold, but he chiefly pursues the likeness from the fruitfulness by which she has brought forth all the faithful throughout the whole world, so that all may acknowledge one mother, the spouse of Christ, may confess one faith of Christ, united in the head, her Vicar, the Roman Pontiff. So teach Irenaeus, book 3, chap. 3; Cyprian, book 1, epist. 3, and book 4, epist. 8; Ambrose, on the death of Satyrus; Jerome, epistle to Damasus, who also, in the Epitaph on Marcella, writes that SS. Athanasius and his successor Peter of Alexandria, Bishops, fleeing the persecution of the Arians and their heresies, took refuge with the Roman See as with a Mother. The same doctrine is held by Optatus, book 1, contra Parmen.; Augustine, epist. 162; Leo, epist. 87.

From one birth through Baptism, and one rite, the holy Doctor gathers in 4 dist. 3, part 1, quest. 2, one mother with the Apostle, Ephes. 4: One spirit, one Lord, one faith, one baptism. The Roman Church, therefore, has always been united in her members, as the holy Doctor shows in the Hexaëmeron, sermon 22. This the holy Doctor shows admirably on chapter 10 of John, in those words of the Lord Jesus: and there shall be one fold and one shepherd. Hence Ephes. 2: He is our peace, who hath made both one: and Isa. 28: He is the corner stone made into the head of the corner, uniting two walls, and Job 38: Who laid the one corner stone? God surely wills this great work of uniting so many foreign peoples scattered through the whole world into one house, into one fold, to be ascribed to Himself. Magnificently therefore God promised this Shepherd in Ezechiel 34: I will raise up one shepherd over them. Thus the holy Doctor.

HENCE he takes up at a deeper level the coherence of our Church and the ruin of so many sects, with an argument drawn from Christ, Luke 11: Every kingdom divided against itself shall be laid waste: For, as D. Jerome says in the Monastic Rule on charity and peace, from Sallust on the Jugurthine war: Concord makes small things grow; discord brings down the greatest. Three confederations of the Rhaeti, it seems, seized on that saying and ascribed it to their three coats of arms, on which are depicted the Ibex in one, in another the Satyr, in the third the Cross between the fasces; and these three, joined together by chains, with that inscription hanging, would prevail! But the wretched Rhaeti, having fallen into heresies, tearing one another to pieces, preserve only that kind of union which is among enemies, and are perpetually at variance with their Catholics. The Devil accomplishes in the sects of heretics what came about in the Academies of the Philosophers, which, divided into sects, fell most miserably, as S. Augustine remarks, book 18, de civitate, chap. 52. Run through the sects of heretics in Bellarmine, chap. 10. The sectaries, the heretics of our age, are torn into almost innumerable sects.

BUT the Roman Church has always remained whole under one head, and indeed unharmed through so many centuries. So observed S. Augustine, epist. 162, and on the Psalm against the party of Donatus; and Leo, epist. 87; and Cyprian, book 9, epist. 4, and book 1, epist. 3. This I shall show also in the Tractate on Religion, disputation 1, last question.

That which Calvin mutters in the preface to his devastations — not his Institutions — that we too are divided in the Schools of the Thomists and the Scotists: I answer with D. Augustine, book 1, contra Julianum, that our Schools are not divided as to the things that belong to the faith.

The SECOND Mark of the Church is that she be Holy. Now she is Holy for many reasons. First, because she teaches a holy doctrine, which contains nothing false, nothing iniquitous, as is said in Psalm 18: The law of the Lord is unspotted, converting souls. And he proves this, because it was efficacious for alluring, indeed for drawing after it, the souls of so many nations, because they saw the holiness of our Law, as the holy Doctor runs through on this Psalm.

HENCE she is called the Unica dove, one perfect one, as the holy Doctor expounds on chapter 1 of Wisdom. But he adds, on Psalm 118, cap. 8, vers. 6, and on Psalm 76, and in sermons 8, 9, 16, 22 of the Hexaëmeron, other reasons also for which the Church is called Holy.

FIRST, because she shines with almost countless holy members, because she is founded on the dignity of the person and merits of Christ. Therefore, on this unshaken foundation, so that the gates of hell and its phalanxes may not prevail, with this Leader she is most excellently established, like an army in battle array, that she yield to no weapons of Tartarus, to no forces of tyrants. Therefore S. Augustine teaches the saying: Thou hast founded her upon her own stability; she shall not be moved for ever and ever, Psalm 103; and Peter, epist. 1, chap. 2, calls Christians a holy nation, a purchased people.

Moreover, the holiness of our Catholics, or even of Bernard, Dominic, and Francis, Luther himself confessed in de captivitate Babyloniae, chap. 2, and Philip in the Apology, articles 5 and 27.

BUT we shall find the troops of the opposing sectaries, defiled by wicked and impious errors, springing from the most criminal of men. Read Bellarmine from chapter 11, Hosius in the Confession of Poland, Valencia in the Analysis, and others. Moreover, I showed the holiness of our Church with D. Bonaventure, p. p. Tractate 1, disputations 1 and 2.

The THIRD MARK of the Church is that she be Catholic, that is, universal. Now the holy Doctor observes in Psalm 47 and Psalm 114 that she is universal first of all in time, because beginning in Adam or Abel from the beginning, she is to last until the end of the world. Second, in such a way that she has been propagated through the whole world. Third, as to doctrines, because she hands on all the knowledge necessary to be had. Fourth, as to persons, because she has been diffused and propagated among every people.

FIRST, therefore, as to her duration through all times, she is Universal: For from the beginning of the world until Christ; and from Christ she has come down even to us, as the holy Doctor rightly shows in the sermons of the Hexaëmeron, especially sermon 16, where he observes that promise of Christ: Upon this rock I will build my Church, and the gates of hell shall not prevail against her: For she has endured perennially down to these times in the Pontiffs, as I showed in the place cited, in the arguments and dogmas. On the contrary, indeed, the Greeks, others of the Orientals, and the Africans, among whom Heroes, Councils, Fathers flourished, as soon as they departed from our Church, were torn, scattered, split asunder, consumed. For, failing from the unity of the universal Church, they vanished, torn into sects. See the holy Doctor there narrating these things.

The PERPETUITY of the Church was shown in Luke 1: Of his kingdom there shall be no end, as the holy Doctor there discusses in his commentary, and confirms with that of Daniel 7: His power is an everlasting power, which shall not be taken away, and his kingdom that shall not be destroyed. The same the holy Doctor shows in 4 dist. 4, part 2, dub. 2, from the end of Matthew: Behold I am with you all days, even to the consummation of the world. Where he remarks that it is not necessary for the Church, in order to be Catholic, that she remain among all men at all times. With this argument from the antiquity of the Church the Fathers gladly made use: Tertullian, de praescriptionibus; Optatus, book 2, contra Parmen.; Hilary, book 6, de Trinitate; Jerome, to Pammachius and contra Luciferianos; Augustine, contra epistulam fundamenti, chap. 4. Therefore, since our Church has lasted from Christ even to this day, she will surely be the true Church. Let the Lutherans find their Church before the year 1517. I showed ours p. p. Tractate 1, disputation 2.

NEXT the holy Doctor, with Lyranus, names the Catholic Church from the universality of places and nations, for so it had been foretold in Psalm 2: I will give thee the Gentiles for thy inheritance, and the uttermost parts of the earth for thy possession, and Psalm 71: He shall rule from sea to sea. And the Lord in Luke, last chapter, says the Gospel is to be preached in the whole world, where the holy Doctor learnedly, in his commentary, adds other testimonies to confirm it. Gen. 49: He shall be the expectation of nations. Isa. 49: It is a small thing that thou shouldst be my servant to raise up the tribes of Jacob, and to convert the dregs of Israel. I have given thee to be the light of the Gentiles, that thou mayst be my salvation even to the farthest part of the earth. And Psalm 109: The Lord will send forth the sceptre of thy power out of Sion: rule thou in the midst of thy enemies. Therefore he observes that there it is said one must begin from Jerusalem, and Psalm 18: Their sound hath gone forth into all the earth: and their words unto the ends of the world.

HE HIMSELF confirms this on chapter 1 of John, with that: He enlighteneth every man that cometh into this world. Of which he there discusses admirably with the Fathers.

He remarks, moreover, in 4 dist. 4, part 1, dub. 2, litt., with D. Augustine, epist. 80, that for the Church to be Catholic it is not necessary that she be in all the men of the whole world, but that she become known in all Provinces. Nor is it required that this come about at once, as Driedo also remarks, book 4, chap. 2, part 2, de Ecclesiae Dogmatibus.

NOW indeed the holy Doctor shows our Church scattered through the whole world, S. Bonaventure, serm. 16 of the Hexaëmeron; and indeed in the times of Irenaeus he himself testifies to it, book 1, chap. 3; Tertullian in his time, book contra Iudaeos, chap. 3; Cyprian, de unitate Ecclesiae; Athanasius, book de humanitate verbi; Jerome and Chrysostom, on Matt. 24; Augustine, epist. 78 and 80; Theodoret, book de legibus; Leo the Great, sermon on SS. Peter and Paul; Prosper, book de ingratis. But because down to the times of Gregory the adversaries concede this, and confess that even from the time of Leo to Gregory the Canonical Laws had been spread through the whole world, as the holy Doctor expounds — now he goes on to show it from the time of Gregory, who died in the year 604, down to Adrian, who died in the year 795, which time the holy Doctor calls the lofty Chair; and indeed from the epistles of D. Gregory to the Bishops of the East, of Africa, of Spain, of Gaul, of England, of Sicily — this is gathered from Bede, who lived about the year 662, on chap. 6 of the Canticles; from Bernard, who died about the year 1153. For he, disputing before Roger, King of Sicily, asserts this, as is had in his life, book 2, chap. 7.

IN OUR own times also Catholics are everywhere not only in this world, but in the new world: to the East in the Indies and China; to the West in America; to the North in Japan; to the South in Brazil, in Manicongo. But neither has the sect of the Mahometans, nor the fables of the sectaries, flown through the whole universe; indeed now they are much restricted. Let our Church live, therefore, rightly and deservedly acclaimed Catholic, on account of the perseverance of the faith in all times, on account of the union of the faithful converging into one flock in charity, and communication, and communion with all nations, as the holy Doctor wisely expounds on Psalm 114, where the Seraphic Doctor concludes one faith, just as there is one Lord, and one Baptism, as the one faith of the Church spread through the universe, according to the saying of the Apostle, Ephes. 4; and on Psalm 47: As we have heard, so have we seen in the city of our God, etc. According to thy name, O God, so also is thy praise unto the ends of the earth.

Wherefore he goes on in the following Psalm 115 to show that there is one faith among us, of which Athanasius in the Symbol says: firm, persevering, faithfully whole and inviolate.

HENCE he draws the fourth Mark of the Church, that she be Apostolic, which he expounds at length in sermons 16 and 22 of the Hexaëmeron. With which argument the marks of the true Church have been argued by Irenaeus, book 3, chap. 3; Tertullian, book de praescriptionibus; Eusebius, in the history and Chronicle; Jerome and Prosper, who continued the Chronicle of Eusebius; Epiphanius, heresy 27, who, having enumerated the Roman Pontiffs, concludes at last: And let no one wonder that we enumerate each item so exactly. For through these things the splendour is ever shown.

Optatus, book II, contra Parmen., enumerates the Roman Pontiffs from Peter down to Siricius, to show that the Church is not among the Donatists, who do not enjoy such a succession. Therefore he concludes: Show the origin of your own Chair, you who wish to claim for yourselves the holy Church.

The same thing D. Augustine does in epist. 165, and in the psalm against the party of Donatus, and contra epistulam fundamenti, chap. 4, and contra epistulam Manichaei, chap. 4, testifying: There are many things that most justly keep me in the bosom of the Church. The consent of peoples and nations keeps me: the authority begun in miracles, nourished in hope, increased in charity, confirmed in antiquity keeps me. The succession of priests from the very Seat of the Apostle Peter, to whom the Lord after his Resurrection committed the feeding of his sheep, even to the present Episcopate, keeps me.

BUT to press this argument further: I observe from D. Bonaventure, in the sermons cited, that the Church can in no way stand without Pastors, as S. Cyprian teaches, epist. 9, book 4, and Jerome contra Luciferianos, as is said in Ephes. 4, Acts 20. The holy Doctor proves this on chapter 10 of John, with those words: I am the good shepherd, and I know my sheep: and other sheep I have, that are not of this fold; them also must I bring, that is, through the Apostles and other Pastors: and there shall be one fold and one shepherd. For he is our peace, who hath made both one, Eph. 2. He is the corner stone. Isa. 28. See the Seraphic Doctor.

Of the stable Monarchy of his religion Daniel, chap. 2, foretells: In the days of those kingdoms the God of heaven will set up a kingdom that shall never be destroyed, and his kingdom shall not be delivered up to another people: and it shall break in pieces, and shall consume all these kingdoms: and itself shall stand for ever. I ponder that the Hebrew reads thus in Pagninus: וביומיהון די מלכיא אנן: And in the days of those kings of theirs; where note that the kingdom of the Messias was not foretold for the times of the four kingdoms already foreseen reigning at once, but of the Roman monarchies, with which, once subjected, while in the temporal Empire successors followed, parallel successors would reign conjointly in the Roman See, in the place of Christ, the Pontiff Monarchs: In the days of those kings of theirs. Now the phrase is emphatic. He adds: It shall not be destroyed, and his kingdom shall not be delivered up to another people. If these things fell to the person of Christ; who does not know that his divine sceptre is not to be transferred to others; but that it is promised that in the Church a Monarch shall succeed perpetually in the seat of Christ, not an outsider but a Catholic, the Pontiff in the Roman See. This is the genuine sense. Therefore the Fathers expound this prophecy of the Church of Christ with common applause. Origen, hom. 30 in Luc.; Jerome, on chap. 1 of Ecclesiastes, and 21 of Ezechiel, and 27 of Matthew; Augustine, tract. 51 and 117 in Ioannem, and book 83 qq.; Gregory of Nyssa, de oratione; Epiphanius, book 1, contra haereses. Fin. Adrian, chap. 10 of book 5 of the scourge of the Jews, and others among the Expositors. Accursius on Isa. 9: His empire shall be multiplied. It is one without multiplication, nor is it multiplied by multiplied seats, but the same is increased and extended. Therefore it perseveres in the succession of Monarchs in the Roman See, never interrupted, but sworn perpetual for ever, or לעולמים, for ages. So Psalm 80: I will set his throne as the days of heaven, truly, since days succeed continually until the end of the world.

I ASSUME Christ's promise, Matt. 16: And I say to thee, that thou art Peter, and upon this rock I will build my Church, and the gates of hell shall not prevail against her, and soon he foretells that he must be killed and rise again the third day. The Greek has ἐγερθῆναι, to be raised up. The building is not completed in the supreme Pontificate of Peter, but he promises it, to found along this line a perpetual one, so that such a regimen, beginning in Peter, may rise up in his successors. And the Empire is raised up with Christ, Ioan. 21: Feed my sheep, as the Fathers cited note, p. p. tract. 1, disput. prima, quest. 4, especially Bernard, book 3, de consideratione, chap. 8.

THEREFORE the Church remained a virgin not for the first five hundred years only, as Calvin fancies, book 1, Inst. chap. 1, §. 13, and book 4, chap. 2, §. 3, but even to this day: Much less true is what Faius says, Ench. disp. 65, conc. 83 and seq., with Calvin, book 4, c. 2, §. 1, that she was destroyed in the first century. For I ask this Proteus what he means in turn, book 4, Inst. chap. 9, §. 8, saying: So those ancient Synods, such as the Nicene, the Constantinopolitan, the first Ephesine, the Chalcedonian, and the like, which were held for the refutation of errors, we gladly embrace, and reverence as most sacred, as far as concerns the dogmas of the faith; for they contain nothing but the pure and native interpretation of Scripture, which the holy Fathers, with spiritual prudence, adapted to breaking the enemies of religion, who had then emerged.

BUT what Faius barks from D. Augustine, epist. 159, chap. 19, as though complaining of the ruin of the Church, are fabrications, as is plain to the reader, and as Bouerse shows, dem. 8, art. 2. Indeed the promises, Matt. 16 as cited, and the last chapter: Behold I am with you all days, even to the consummation of the world. Luke 22: I have prayed for thee, Peter, that thy faith fail not. Ioan. 14: I will ask the Father, and he shall give you another Paraclete, that he may abide with you for ever, these are certain from the mouth of Christ.

The eternal stability of the Church the holy Fathers proclaim aloud, with whom Calvin himself above confesses the same. So D. Chrysostom, on chap. 2 of Isaiah; Basil, on chap. 8 of Isaiah; Gregory, book 9 in Iob, chap. 6; Ambrose, book on Solomon, chap. 4; Augustine, on Psalm 47; Leo the Great, serm. 1 on SS. Peter and Paul.

GREAT is the reason which the holy Doctor brings, in the Diaeta, tit. 5, chap. 3, and the Hexaëmeron. For the Church is the wife of Christ, Osee 2, Apoc. 21, Ephes. 5. And this bond is indissoluble.

Hence D. Cyprian, on the unity of the Church, says: The spouse of Christ cannot be adulterous; she is incorrupt and chaste; she knows one home; with chaste modesty she guards the sanctity of one bedchamber. Why then do these disfigurers, not reformers, give a bill of divorce? Surely the Catholic Church is called such on account of the perpetual constancy of the faith, on account of marital love, and the communion of the Sacraments, as the holy Doctor says, on Psalm 114.

WELL does this spouse say, can. 3: I held him, and I will not let him go, as the holy Doctor says, on Psalm 118, cap. 8, vers. 7. He pursues this at length from sermon 8 of the Hexaëmeron, and on Luke 9, where he brings various reasons for the indefectibility of the Church, which for that reason he compares to the firmament; namely, because she leans on the firmness of the divine promises. So also D. Gregory, on Psalm 5 of Penance; Damascene, oration on the Transfiguration. For Christ promised, Luke 22: I have prayed for thee, Peter, that thy faith fail not. Nor does he speak of him as a private man, as Calvin prattles, but as a Prelate, as the holy Doctor warns, on Luke 9. Therefore he adds, that thou being converted, confirm thy brethren, as D. Augustine notes, qq. testamenti, quest. 75.

Another reason is taken from the immovable Doctrine of Christ, whose words shall not fail. On this Eusebius of Caesarea leans, book 4, demonstr. Evangelii, chap. 19: For heaven and earth shall pass away first, etc.

A THIRD reason, because she is the Ark, the Column, and the firmament of Truth, for nothing is firmer, more stable, or more certain than Truth. This is the reason of D. Hilary, book 7, de Trinitate, and of Jeremiah of Constantinople, resp. 1 to Crusius. Surely it is said of Christ, Ioan. 17: thy word is truth.

The Church is compared to the Moon, because she is ever illumined by the Sun, and when her light does not appear to us, she is illumined more highly from above, as he argues everywhere in the sermons of the Hexaëmeron, and with him Philo Carpathius, on Canticles, and Rabanus Maurus, on Ecclesiastes, book 9, chap. 7.

Another reason is taken from D. Bonaventure in the Hexaëmeron, and from S. Leo, sermon 1 on the holy Apostles Peter and Paul. From the merits of Christ, and his death on the Cross, by which he conquered the devil.

Many other reasons you will see there with the holy Doctor.

GREAT indeed is the argument for the true Church this perpetuity of the Pontificate and of the religion, as Tertullian discussed, de praescriptionibus, chap. 32; Optatus against the Donatists, book 2; Irenaeus, book 4.

With this argument the Jews won their case at Jerusalem against the Samaritans, before Alexander the Great and the wise men; and the Samaritans were condemned, as Josephus relates, book 13, antiquities, chap. 6.

AND since we have this succession from Matt. 16, as I said, as Sergius Cyprius notes, who flourished in the year 650, epist. to Theodorus P.; Ignatius of Constantinople, epist. to Nicholas, which is had in act. 3 of the eighth Synod; Gabriel, Patriarch of Alexandria, epist. to Clement VIII, with D. Bernard, book 3, chap. 8, de consideratione; and from the things said above, and p. p. Tractate 1, in the Prooemial questions — I do not see what those Tartarean drones dare to buzz against these things.

Now, therefore, we have the order of Pontiffs from Peter even to Clement X, and the ordination of the other lesser Pastors from them consequently legitimate, as I showed, p. p. Tractate 1, disp. 2.

INDEED let the sectarian enemies show where their Church was before the year 1517. With which argument, with which interrogation, the heretics were hard pressed by Gregory Nazianzen, epist. 2, to Chelidonius; Jerome, to Pammachius; Tertullian, in the Praescription; Irenaeus, book 4, chap. 4 and chap. 45.

BUT they claim to be ordained in an extraordinary manner. Here, then, must those most wicked usurpers of an Apostolate — Luther of course, Calvin, Beza, and others worthy of an extraordinary apostolate — be accounted such? Surely since they were not sent by the true Shepherd, from elsewhere they climbed up, thieves and robbers, as Christ argues, Ioan. 10, and as S. Bonaventure expounds there of heretics, and Valencia, p. 7, §. 25. Bouterius shows them to be such in his Demonstrationes.

Luther boasts in the preface of the doctrine published at Leipzig in the year 60 that Christ was first published by him, and that the articles of the faith were not known from the times of the Apostles down to his own day. O madness! Therefore there was no Church from the time of the Apostles; or if there was, surely that was fulfilled which is in Matt. 16: The gates of hell shall not prevail against her, as S. Bonaventure shows, sermon 16 of the Hexaëmeron. Or the flock of Christ, abandoned, was first devoured by wolves; but it arose from the sacrilegious prating of Luther, who, an apostate monk, espoused to himself Catherine of Bora, a nun. O sacrilegious offspring that has issued forth! But Calvin says the Church was invisible. Indeed the Church is a union of believers professing the same faith, to be governed by a visible regimen, as is had in Num. 20, Act. 10; otherwise, how could these Gypsies institute their churches?

The remaining things, which pertain to the authority of the Pontiff, of Councils, etc., and what the authority of the Scriptures, of Traditions, etc. is, I discussed in the preceding Tractate the first, disputation 2.