When the Cardinals Are the True Successors of the Apostles
The second point is this: the college of cardinals is the body of the holy Roman church. This being so, then the college of the cardinals is the holy Roman church. The conclusion follows from Eph. i : 22: “He gave him to be head over the whole church, which is his body.” And as the church, which is Christ’s mystical body, cannot be damned, as when Christ said, “on this rock I will build my church and the gates of hell shall not prevail against it” — it follows, that the college of cardinals cannot be damned; and since this conclusion is false or, at least, for the doctors doubtful, it follows that in this particular point they have laid down as truth what is doctrinally false or doubtful. What is the fruit of teaching the worshippers of Christ in this way?
Likewise, the college of cardinals is either the true body of the holy Roman church or the pretended body. Not the second, according to the doctors. Therefore they must be the true body, and consequently that college is predestinated unto glory, and, as the doctors have not the revelation of predestination with reference to that college, it follows, that they ought not to have affirmed that the college is the body of the Roman church.
Again, the body of the holy Roman church is made up of all the predestinate, and the college by itself does not include all these. The fixst part of this statement appears from the words of the apostle, who spoke as the representative of the predestinate: “We being many are one body in Christ,” Romans 12:5. And, showing the unity of the body, he does not make the college of the apostles the body of the church, I Cor. 12 : 28, but he says: “God hath set some in the church, first apostles, second prophets, thirdly teachers, then miracles, then gifts of healings,” etc. And making a comparison of the body of the church with a man’s natural body, he says, “For as there is one body and it has many members but all the members of the body being many are one body: so also is Christ,” namely, he is one, because he is one person with his holy church, which is his body.
The second part of this statement, that all the predestinate are not that college, is evident of itself. Therefore, better would the doctors have said that Christ is the head of the holy Roman church, and each of the predestinate a member and that all together are the body, which is the church, than to have said that the pope is the head of the Roman church and the college of cardinals the body, for in this case they would have agreed with the apostles and with the saints quoted in Chapter I, especially with St. Augustine, de doct. christ. III [Nic. Fathers, 2 : 569], who says: “For, in truth, that is not the Lord’s body which will not remain with him through eternity.” 1 If, therefore, the college of cardinals will not remain through eternity, a thing which is hidden from me, how is it the body of the holy Roman church or of Christ ? In a similar way, how is the pope with the af oresaid college the holy Roman church against which the gates of hell cannot prevail?
Therefore, we will speak more safely with St. Augustine who, Commentary on Psalms, 80 : 1 [Nic. Fathers, 7 : 386], says: “Finally by this testimony, the confession is made both of Christ and the vine that is the head and the body, king and people, shepherd and flock, and the whole mystery
1 Augustine here, in reply to Tychonius, the Donatist, denies that the “body of the Lord” can be properly said to be “twofold.” The full quotation is: “Twofold is not ‘a suitable word, for that is really no part of the body of Christ which will not be with him in eternity.’” Hypocrites may be said to belong to the mixed church, but not to be of “the body of Christ.”
THE CARDIXALS of all Christians, Christ and the church.” See, how the doctor of holy church shows us another holy church with its head than the one defined of the [eight] doctors who, without support of Scripture, say that the body of the holy Roman church is the college of cardinals, for which college it were well if its parts were members of the holy church of Jesus Christ. And we ought to think how St. Augustine himself feared to call Christ Lord-man, for the reason that this sense does not appear in Scripture; therefore much more ought we to fear to call any Christian head of the holy church militant, lest Christ perhaps be blasphemed, to whom this name is reserved by the Nicene council, Trinitatis concilio, as proper to him. How, then, do the doctors, without any Scripture proof, teach that the pope is head of holy church and the college its body? Since it is enough for the faithful Christian with inwrought faith and perseverance to believe the article of faith concerning the catholic church that it is the one totality of all the predestinate faithful who are to be saved by virtue of the merit of Christ — who is the head of the catholic church — it is not permissible for us expressly to descend to any particular vicar whom the Christian might recognize as the chief — capitalis. For many have been saved in Judea, Asia and Ethiopia who have believed in Christ, following the teaching of the apostles, and who did not expressly recognize Peter, nay, or expressly believe what concerns Peter, just as they did not hear anything about him.