690. The third property of the Church, according to the Symbol, is Catholicity: for we say, “I believe… the Catholic Church.” The word Catholic, in Greek katholikos, means the same as universal. Although this appellation Catholic seems to be lacking in the older Latin formulas, nevertheless it is found in the most ancient Greek formulas already before the Council of Nicaea, and it is established that it was very well known. Thus St. Ignatius the Martyr (To the Smyrnaeans, no. 8) says: “Where the Bishop shall appear, there let the multitude be; just as where Christ Jesus shall be, there is the Catholic Church.” And in the Encyclical Letter of the Smyrnaeans, concerning the martyrdom of St. Polycarp, it is read: “The Church of God which sojourns at Smyrna, to the Church of God which sojourns at Philomelium, and to all the parishes everywhere on earth of the holy and Catholic Church, mercy and peace,” etc.
691. Moreover, the Church can be called Catholic in a manifold way, as is drawn from the words of Christ in Matthew 28. For it is said, “going into the whole world”: behold catholicity of place; “Teach all nations”: behold catholicity of persons; “Teaching them to observe all things whatsoever I have commanded you”: behold catholicity of doctrine; “Behold, I am with you even to the consummation of the age”: behold catholicity of time.
692. But - 1) catholicity of doctrine is clear from what has been said about unity of faith, and it will be confirmed more abundantly where the infallibility of the Church is treated. For, says Suarez (On Faith, disp. 3, sect. 7, no. 5), the doctrine of the Church is called catholic and universal, both because it does not rest upon the private judgment of each one, but is founded upon universal consent and upon the common and general rule of faith; and also because it has been received by perpetual and universal tradition; and finally because the doctrine of the Church is catholic because it fully and perfectly embraces all dogmas which ought to come to the knowledge of men concerning visible and invisible things, concerning heavenly and earthly things. Likewise, because in it every kind of virtue is contained, and a remedy is found against vices and against all sins. He pursues the same things more fully in Defense of the Faith, book 1, chapter 14. 2) Catholicity of time is easily reduced to indefectibility; for since universality of times is not simultaneous but successive, catholicity of time is the same as perpetuity. 3) Therefore here the question concerns only catholicity of place and of persons, which is properly called Catholicity of the Church. But this is nothing other than “a broad diffusion throughout the world with a great and conspicuous multitude of members.” Hence two concepts of catholicity lie beneath it: a) a great number of members; b) their broad dissemination throughout the world. For a society either consisting of many members but confined to one region, or widely diffused but consisting in individual regions only of a few, would not be called, nor would it be, catholic; especially it would not be eminently catholic, such as we profess the Church to be.
693. In order that this concept of catholicity may be better defined, it is useful to distinguish material and formal catholicity. The first is the mere diffusion of men through all places and among all nations, without attention to whether they belong to one society or to several societies, which do not otherwise make one thing except because they are called, rightly or wrongly, by the common name of Christian Church. The other, however, means the identity, as to faith and government, of the Church diffused throughout the world. Now since the true Church is one, and catholicity is a property of the true Church, there cannot be true catholicity unless it is also formal. It essentially prerequires and most clearly signifies unity; for it is a certain mode of unity, namely the amplitude of unity. Hence Suarez (Defense of the Faith, book 1, chapter 15, no. 7), speaking of the multitude which various sects form, says: “But that multitude is neither one political body, as is clear of itself, nor a mystical or ecclesiastical body, because they agree neither in the same faith, nor in one ecclesiastical government, nor in the same rule of believing; therefore neither can that whole multitude of peoples or sects be called the Catholic Church, since it is not one Church, nor can any particular sect of those be called catholic, since it is neither part of some Catholic Church nor sufficient by itself alone for constituting the Catholic Church.”
694. Moreover, formal catholicity is either of right or of fact. The former consists in the right, and therefore in the aptitude, power, and efficacy which the Church has of propagating herself throughout the whole world; the latter is the actual broad diffusion itself throughout the world. Concerning catholicity of right there can be no controversy, as is clear from what has been said concerning the end of the Church, the necessity of entering her, and so forth. The Church enjoys catholicity of right, says Suarez (Defense of the Faith, book 1, chapter 16, no. 4), “both because she was instituted for the whole world, and not, like the synagogue, for a certain nation; and also because from that time she received the right of preaching the faith of Christ throughout the whole world; and finally because she has power on earth to govern the whole world in those things which regard the salvation of the soul or are referred to it.” Therefore there remains the question concerning formal catholicity of fact.
695. This catholicity is either physical or moral. The Church would have physical catholicity if she occupied the whole world in such a way that there would be no region in which she did not have a great multitude of members; and a fortiori if there were no person who did not belong to the Church. But the Church would have moral catholicity if she were so diffused, says Suarez (op. cit., chapter 16, no. 10), that she had “in the world a certain universal splendor, by which her dignity and majesty could be known and could be distinguished from the crowds of heretics.” He notes, however (ibid., no. 8), that “how great an extension or how great a number of members is required for this cannot be stated mathematically.” Each catholicity, moreover, can be simultaneous and successive. Simultaneous is the diffusion of the Church embracing the whole earth, physically or morally, at the same time; successive would be had if the Church were propagated into all parts or regions of the world, physically and morally, that is, into one after another, in such a way that, withdrawing from one, she occupied another. These things being posited, it is asked whether the catholicity of the Church ought to be physical or moral, simultaneous or successive.
696. In this matter it seems that it must first be said that physical catholicity is not to be ascribed to the Church. For 1) it is read (Matt. 24.14): “And this gospel of the kingdom shall be preached in the whole world, for a testimony to all nations; and then the consummation shall come.” Therefore the Gospel is to be preached to all nations, but not before the consummation arrives, or when the end of the world is at hand. 2) Likewise the Apostle writes (Rom. 11.25): “For I would not have you ignorant, brethren, of this mystery… that blindness in part has happened in Israel, until the fullness of the Gentiles should enter”: that is, he says that the Jews are not to be converted unless first access to the Gospel has been opened to all the nations. But we know that the Jews are not to be brought to the faith except at the end of the world. 3) The same Apostle universally pronounces (1 Cor. 11.19): “There must also be heresies, that those who are approved may be made manifest among you”; and (2 Tim. 4.3) the Apostle prophesies, saying: “There will be a time when they will not endure sound doctrine, but according to their own desires they will heap up teachers for themselves, itching in their ears, and from the truth indeed they will turn away their hearing, but they will be turned to fables.” But if heresies are to exist in the world, the catholicity of the Church cannot be physical. 4) Whence St. Augustine (letter 199, On the End of the Age, no. 48) writes: “If therefore, because the prophecy of truth cannot lie, it is necessary that all nations, as many as God has made, adore him, how will they adore him unless they invoke him? But how will they invoke him in whom they have not believed? Or how will they believe him whom they have not heard? But how will they hear without one preaching? Or how will they preach unless they are sent? For he sends his angels and gathers his elect from the four winds, that is, from the whole world. In those nations, therefore, in which the Church is not yet, it is necessary that she be there, not that all who shall be there should believe; for all nations have been promised, not all men of all nations. For faith is not of all. Therefore every nation believes in all those who were elected before the foundation of the world; in the rest it does not believe, and it hates those who believe. For how also will that be fulfilled, ‘You shall be hated by all nations for my name’s sake’ (Matt. 24.9), unless in all nations there are both those who hate and those whom they hate?” But concerning these things compare Bellarmine (book 4, chapter 7), and especially Suarez (On the Mysteries of the Life of Christ, disp. 56, sect. 1), where you will find many testimonies of the Fathers.
697. Since, therefore, physical catholicity does not belong to the Church, it remains that moral catholicity be attributed to her. But ought this moral catholicity to be successive or simultaneous? First of all, it is certain that, if the beginning of the Church is considered, her catholicity must be called successive; or actual catholicity did not have to exist together with the beginnings of the Church. For 1) from divine ordination the Gospel had to be preached first to the Jews before the Gentiles; for (Acts 13.46) it is said: “Then Paul and Barnabas said with constancy: To you [Jews] it was necessary first to speak the word of God; but since you reject it, and judge yourselves unworthy of eternal life, behold, we turn to the Gentiles.” But it was necessary that the Apostles devote themselves for some years to the conversion of the Jews before they announced the Gospel to the Gentiles. Therefore the Church, which always had catholicity of right, could not at once have catholicity of fact. 2) Indeed a society which had to be propagated everywhere by the preaching and persuasion of a few could not from its beginning be actually catholic. Hence St. Augustine deservedly says (book 2 against Petilian, chapter 38), explaining Daniel’s prophecy, which concerns the Church: “With closed eyes you stumble against the mountain which, according to the prophecy of Daniel, grew from a little stone and filled the whole earth.”
698. Therefore only then could the Church attain moral catholicity of fact, when preaching sufficient to produce it had already preceded. Although, with the passing of the second century, this kind of catholicity can be attributed to the Church, as the testimonies which we gave seem to prove (no. 306), it is at least certain that the Church had already reached it at the beginning of the fifth century. “It is certain,” says Suarez (Defense of the Faith, book 1, chapter 16, no. 9), “that the Church had so grown up to the times of Augustine and the other Fathers that she could simply be said to be diffused throughout the world, as they themselves speak; therefore at least at that time she already had the stated condition, as they themselves proclaim.”
699. From this it is sufficiently clear that at least at one time the Church had simultaneous catholicity of fact; and therefore it is not sufficient to establish only successive catholicity. “It ought to be certain,” says Suarez (loc. cit.), “from the common sense of all the Fathers who so understand the Scriptures, that the Catholic Church has attained not only in our times, but also through many centuries backward, a state, so to speak, of sufficient universality, so that she is said to be diffused throughout the whole world. For besides the prediction of the Prophets and the promises of Christ, Paul already in his own time said concerning the preaching of the Apostles: ‘their sound has gone forth into all the earth, and their words unto the ends of the world.’ Although Augustine interprets this as a prophecy of the future uttered by a verb of the past because of certainty, nevertheless Jerome understands that already then it was in some manner fulfilled; and this is consonant with the context of Paul in the same place and in others. For to the Colossians, chapter 1, he says concerning the Gospel: ‘It has come to you, as also it is in the whole world, and bears fruit and grows, as also among you.’”
700. But Bellarmine (book 4, chapter 7) seems to judge that the simultaneous catholicity of the Church, once obtained, can sometimes, as it were, fail by accident, while catholicity of right always remains; but the common opinion of theologians, which we shall establish, attributes perennial catholicity of fact to the Church. In fact, if the Catholic dominion of the Church in the fifth century is compared with that of our nineteenth century, it will be found almost equal; for what she lost in the south and east, she repaired in the north and west. This equal alternation of loss and recovery constantly recurs in the middle centuries between the fifth and the nineteenth. In the fifth, sixth, seventh, and eighth centuries, the losses brought by Nestorianism and Monophysitism are compensated by new acquisitions of Illyria, Ireland, England, Frisia, and southern and western Germany. In the ninth, tenth, and eleventh centuries, the damages received through Photius and Muhammad are repaired in Pannonia, Poland, northern and eastern Germany, and Scandinavia. In the sixteenth century, what the Catholic Church loses in Europe, she recovers in the Indies and in America.
701. Finally, moral catholicity of fact is either absolute or relative. The first consists in that broad diffusion of the Church throughout the whole world, no comparison being made with other sects; the other consists in such diffusion as, when compared with other sects, surpasses them. This comparison, however, can be made either with all sects, whether they are infidel or are called Christian, or with Christian sects only, taken collectively or distributively.
702. Now then - 1) absolute catholicity certainly belongs to the Church. 2) It is also certain that relative catholicity belongs to the Church when comparison is made with heretical sects distributively. 3) But if comparison is made also with unbelievers, “we concede,” says Suarez (Defense of the Faith, book 1, chapter 16, no. 12), “that it does not belong to the universality of the Church, explained by the name Catholic, that in her there should be a greater multitude of men than in false sects; for this has nowhere been promised to her, and it depends upon the most high counsel of God in his predestination. And as far as we can gather from the Scriptures, by divine counsel it has rather been permitted that there be more bad than good in the world, more unbelievers than faithful…” St. Augustine explains this by the comparison of the threshing floor, in which the grains are few in comparison with the chaff, yet many in themselves and “to be gathered from the four winds, from the heights of the heavens even to their ends,” etc. He teaches the same thing (book 13 against Faustus, chapter 16, and excellently in book 20), whose final words are these: “That fewness must be recognized, which the Lord especially commends in the immense and innumerable multitude diffused throughout the world; which fewness is called fewness as of grains in comparison with the multitude of chaff. Yet in itself it makes so great a mass of wheat that it surpasses, by an incomparable multitude, all your approved and reprobate persons, whom truth alike reproves.”
703. But what must be said if the comparison is instituted with heretical sects only, but taken collectively? In itself it would not seem necessary to attribute this relative catholicity to the Church. For that relative catholicity is to be called necessary in itself by which the true Church of Christ is clearly distinguished from false acatholic sects; but whatever may be the diffusion of acatholic sects, taken together they would never produce true catholicity, for formal catholicity would be lacking. Yet if we consider the constant fact itself, it is evident that all heretical and schismatic sects taken collectively are surpassed in number by the Catholic Church. Therefore we rightly conclude that God, because of his exceedingly great love toward men, has decreed with most lavish liberality to increase and adorn his Church also with this glory.
704. Thus, therefore, the concept of the catholicity of the Church having been explained: Section II. The Proposed Question Is Solved. Proposition XXX. The Church, having received from her Divine Author the mission and power of propagating herself everywhere, 1. ought also actually to have been diffused, and has been broadly diffused throughout the whole world; not indeed with physical universality, but with moral universality; 2. yet this universality is not only successive, but also simultaneous. Therefore the Church is a society catholic by right and in fact.
705. The first part is proved. I. From the Old Testament. St. Augustine, disputing against the Donatists (On the Unity of the Church, chapters 6-17), considers in order first the passages from the Law, from the Prophets, and from the Psalms, and then those from the New Testament. We shall follow him. 1) From the Law. For (Gen. 22.18) it was promised to Abraham: “In thy seed all nations shall be blessed”; and these promises were renewed to Isaac (Gen. 26.4) and to Jacob (Gen. 28.14). That this seed is Christ, the Apostle teaches (Gal. 3.16). Now in all these testimonies the fact of the universal diffusion of the kingdom of Christ is stated; and therefore they cannot be understood of catholicity of right alone. Therefore, after all these have been brought forward, St. Augustine deservedly concludes at the end of chapter 6: “Give me this Church, if it is among you; show that you communicate with all nations, which we already see to be blessed in this seed. Give this, or, having laid aside fury, receive it, not from me, but from him himself in whom all nations are blessed.” 2) From the Prophets. It is read in Isaiah (60.4 ff.): “Lift up thine eyes round about, and see: all these have been gathered together; they have come to thee. Thy sons shall come from afar, and thy daughters shall rise up at thy side. Then thou shalt see and abound, and thy heart shall wonder and be enlarged, when the multitude of the sea shall be converted to thee, and the strength of the nations shall come to thee. The inundation of camels shall cover thee,” etc. Compare also the testimonies which we gave at no. 465. And in Daniel (2.27 ff.): “Daniel, answering before the king, said… There is a God in heaven revealing mysteries, who has shown to thee, King Nebuchadnezzar, the things which are to come in the last times… Thou, O king, sawest, and behold, as it were, one great statue… Thou sawest thus, until a stone was cut out of the mountain without hands; and it struck the statue on its feet of iron and clay, and broke them in pieces… But the stone which had struck the statue became a great mountain and filled the whole earth. This is the dream; we shall also tell its interpretation before thee, O king… But in the days of those kingdoms, the God of heaven shall raise up a kingdom which shall not be destroyed forever, and its kingdom shall not be delivered to another people; but it shall break in pieces and consume all these kingdoms, and it itself shall stand forever.” And in Malachi (1.11): “For from the rising of the sun even to its setting, my name is great among the nations; and in every place sacrifice is made, and a clean oblation is offered to my name, because my name is great among the nations, says the Lord of hosts.” But St. Augustine deservedly asserts in chapter 7: “What about the Prophets? How many and how manifest are the testimonies of the Church diffused through all nations in the whole world?” Certainly the words recited make manifest that the question concerns the catholicity of the Church; but neither can there be any doubt that it also concerns catholicity of fact. For the question concerns the nations which come and are gathered, and hence from this gathering of the nations the heart will be enlarged; it concerns the mountain which filled the whole earth; it concerns the sacrifice which is offered everywhere on earth. 3) From the Psalms. It is read (Ps. 2): “The Lord said to me: Thou art my Son; this day have I begotten thee. Ask of me, and I will give thee the nations for thy inheritance, and the ends of the earth for thy possession.” And (Ps. 18): “There are no speeches nor languages, whose voices are not heard. Their sound has gone forth into all the earth, and their words unto the ends of the world.” The Apostle cites these last words (Rom. 10.18). And (Ps. 21): “All the ends of the earth shall remember and be converted to the Lord. And all the families of the nations shall adore in his sight. For the kingdom is the Lord’s, and he shall rule over the nations.” And (Ps. 71): “He shall rule from sea to sea, and from the river even to the ends of the world. Before him the Ethiopians shall fall down, and his enemies shall lick the earth. The kings of Tarshish and the islands shall offer gifts; the kings of the Arabs and of Sheba shall bring presents; and all the kings of the earth shall adore him; all nations shall serve him… And in him all the tribes of the earth shall be blessed; all nations shall magnify him.” Now all these testimonies are to be understood of Christ and the Church, as St. Augustine proves (chapter 9); and the question concerns catholicity also of fact, as the words themselves show. Hence, when the Donatists replied to these testimonies that the Church had indeed begun to grow throughout the world, but afterward, through the wickedness of men, the Christian Religion had failed everywhere except in the party of Donatus, St. Augustine answers thus (chapter 9): “As though the Spirit of God did not know the future wills of men. Who, unless utterly mad, would say this? Why then was it said by Luke (24.44) that all things had to be fulfilled which were written in the Law, and the Prophets, and the Psalms?”
706. II. From the New Testament. It is read in Mark (16.15-20): “Going into the whole world, preach the gospel to every creature. He who believes and is baptized shall be saved… But they, going forth, preached everywhere, the Lord working with them and confirming the word by the signs that followed.” And in Matthew (8.11) and Luke (13.29): “Many shall come from the east and west, and from the north and south, and shall sit down in the kingdom of God.” And (Apoc. 7.9): “After these things I saw a great multitude, which no one could number, from all nations and tribes and peoples and tongues, standing before the throne,” etc. And (Acts 1.8): “You shall receive the power of the Holy Spirit coming upon you, and you shall be witnesses to me in Jerusalem and in all Judea and Samaria and even to the end of the earth.” Hence St. Augustine deservedly concludes (chapter 10): “Let us therefore hold the Church designated from the mouth of the Lord, whence she was to begin and how far she was to arrive; namely, that she was to begin from Jerusalem and to arrive among all nations.” And in chapter 14 he observes that “the testimonies of the canonical Scriptures, which commend the Church as consisting in the communion of the whole world, need no interpreter.” And afterward, again pressing the Donatists, he says: “Bring forward, therefore, something which is not more truly interpreted against you… Bring forward even one such thing by which Africa is most openly declared, either as left alone among the rest, or as preserved for the beginning of renewing and filling the world… But if you cannot show what we so justly demand from you, believe the truth, be silent, fall asleep.”
707. III. From the Fathers. St. Augustine (On True Religion, chapter 7, no. 12) writes: “The Christian religion must be held by us, and the communion of that Church which is Catholic, and is called Catholic not only by her own, but also by all enemies. For whether they wish it or not, even heretics themselves and the offspring of schisms, when they speak not with their own but with outsiders, call nothing else Catholic except the Catholic. For they cannot be understood unless they distinguish her by that name by which she is called by the whole world.” But when the Donatists were glorying in their own fewness, which Catholics reproached against them, saying, “For this reason we are more just, because we are few”; “In few,” said Cresconius in Augustine, “truth frequently is; error belongs to the many.” St. Augustine replied to them, as also to the Pelagians (book 2, Unfinished Work against Julian, chapter 3): “Do not glory in fewness. Parricides also are few, and very wicked. The Donatists do not understand in what way it was said by the Lord that few enter through the narrow gate, since he also said that many from the East and West would recline with Abraham, Isaac, and Jacob… They certainly are many in themselves, and the same are few in comparison with the far more numerous who are to be punished with the devil.” St. Optatus (book 2 against Parmenian): “You, brother Parmenian, have said that she [the Church] is among you alone; unless perhaps because from pride you contend to vindicate special sanctity for yourselves, so that where you will, there the Church should be, and where you do not will, she should not be. Therefore, so that she can be among you in a little part of Africa, in the corner of a scanty region, will she not be among us in another part of Africa? Will she not be in Spain, in Gaul, in Italy, where you are not? If you wish her to be among you only, will she not be in the three Pannonias, in Dacia, Moesia, Thrace, Achaia, Macedonia, and in all Greece, where you are not? So that she can be among you, will she not be in Pontus, Galatia, Cappadocia, Pamphylia, Phrygia, Cilicia, and in the three Syrias, and in the two Armenias, and in all Egypt, and in Mesopotamia, where you are not? Where, then, will be the propriety of the Catholic name, since she is called Catholic because she is reasonable and diffused everywhere?” St. Cyril of Jerusalem (Catechesis 18): “But if by chance you come into cities, do not ask simply where the Lord’s place is, or the house of the Lord; for the other heresies of the impious also try to honor their dens with the name of the Lord’s places. Nor ask this only simply, where the Church is, but where the Catholic Church is. For this is the proper name of this holy one, and the mother of us all, who is the spouse of our Lord Jesus Christ, the only-begotten Son of God.” St. Pacian (letter 1 to Sympronian the Novatian) observes that before heresies arose the Church was generally not called Catholic, for by the name Christian she was sufficiently distinguished from the Synagogue of the Jews, the Schools of the Philosophers, and the various Religions of unbelievers. But afterward, when heresies arose, since many called themselves Christians, the Church was called Catholic so that the faithful might be separated from heretics. “This Catholic,” he says, “does not sound of Marcion, nor Apelles, nor Montanus, nor does it take heretical authors”; and: “Christian is my name, but Catholic my surname. The former names me; the latter shows me; by this I am proved, by that I am signified.” St. Cyprian (On the Unity of the Church): “The Church,” he says, “flooded with the light of the Lord, stretches her rays through the whole world… she extends her branches into the whole earth with abundant fruitfulness; she spreads more broadly her streams flowing richly.” But these and innumerable other things can be read in Tournely and in others everywhere.
708. The second part is proved. I. From Scripture, by recalling certain testimonies already cited. And 1) in the Psalms all nations, that is, the Church, are called the inheritance of Christ, whose possession is said to extend to the ends of the earth. But these things imply simultaneous catholicity. For a) properly speaking, and indeed with emphasis, it cannot be said that all nations are received as an inheritance if only a certain few nations are first received, and then, these being lost, certain other few nations, and so on. b) The ends of the earth cannot be said to be possessed, that is, the whole world from end to end, if at any given time only the smallest part of it is possessed. 2) With a tacit comparison instituted between the sound of Apostolic preaching and the human voice, the former is extolled above the latter because it went forth into all the earth. But there would be no reason for extolling it unless it were heard simultaneously unto the ends of the earth. For who would think my voice magnified if it were said to fill a very large hall, but by speaking or singing successively in diverse places of that hall, so that each time I was heard only in a part of that hall? 3) The Church is said to extend from sea to sea, or Christ is said to possess a universal kingdom over all nations. But this cannot be understood unless catholicity is simultaneous. For if someone occupied one or another province of some kingdom, and then, that being lost, occupied another, he could by no means be called the King of that whole kingdom. 4) According to the text of Daniel, the stone grew into a great mountain by filling the whole earth; but a mountain transferred successively from region to region certainly does not fill the whole earth. Similarly, that kingdom of the Messiah of which Daniel speaks would not rightly be said to break in pieces and consume all the other kingdoms if it conquered those kingdoms only successively and singly, while the others, both those formerly conquered and those afterward to be conquered, remained meanwhile safe and intact. It should also be noted that the kingdom which God will raise up is everlasting; but the kingdom itself is represented by the mountain which fills the whole earth. Therefore the universality of that same kingdom will be perennial. 5) From the text of Malachi such a diffusion of the Church is drawn that sacrifice is made and offered in every place, from the rising of the sun even to its setting. But these so ample and magnificent proclamations would lose force if the diffusion of the Church were not simultaneous, especially since they show no limitation of time.
709. II. From the Fathers, recalling also the testimonies already given. For 1) the Fathers often use the same testimonies of Sacred Scripture which we were just considering, in order to prove the catholicity of the Church. But the same testimonies speak, as we have seen, of simultaneous catholicity. Therefore. 2) The Fathers often speak of the catholicity which flourished in their own time, and which was to remain and to become more ample. Thus, for example, St. Gregory Nazianzen (oration 4 against Julian I, no. 67) writes: “O most foolish man, and most impious, and most unskilled in great matters! Do you oppose so great a lot, and the Church spread throughout the whole world, which through the lowliness of speech and the foolishness of preaching, as perhaps you yourselves might say, has embraced all the ends of the earth, which has conquered the wise, crushed demons, and overcome time; the same old and new together, as you portentously invent some one of the gods; the former reserved for a few, this latter for the promiscuous multitude, the former in shadow, this latter in the perfection of the mystery reserved for its own times? Do you, then, whoever and how great and whence you are, oppose the great inheritance of Christ? Great, I say, and one which, even if certain persons are carried headlong by a madness and insanity greater than yours, will not have an end, but rather will always and more and more advance, and rise higher?” 3) They employ, as a note of the Church, a catholicity as it were then placed before the eyes of all; recall the testimonies already exhibited. Indeed, they say that it is essential to her in the same way as it is essential to her that Peter should rule the whole world. Thus St. Augustine (Enarration on Psalm 56): “But what kind of madness the heretics [the Donatists] suffer, I ask you to attend to. They, cut off from the joining of the Church of Christ, and holding a part, losing the whole, are unwilling to communicate with the whole world, through which the glory of Christ has been diffused. But we Catholics are in every land, because we communicate with every land wherever the glory of Christ has been diffused. For we see that what was then sung is now fulfilled. Our God has been exalted above the heavens, and his glory above all the earth. O heretical madness! What you do not see you believe with me; what you see, you deny. You believe with me that Christ has been exalted above the heavens, which we do not see; and you deny his glory above all the earth, which we do see. ‘Be thou exalted above the heavens, O God, and thy glory above all the earth.’” And St. John Chrysostom (homily 54, otherwise 55, on Matthew, no. 2): “Those things which belong to God alone, namely to loose sins, to render the Church unmoved amid such a rushing together of waves, and to render a fisherman, while the whole world opposed him, firmer than a rock, these he promises that he will give to him [Peter]. As the Father, addressing Jeremiah, said that he had set him as a bronze column and as a wall (Jer. 1.18), but the one [Jeremiah] for one nation, the other [Peter] in the whole world… But the Son entrusted to him the spreading of the knowledge both of the Father and of himself throughout the whole world, and gave all power in heaven to a mortal man, when he handed over to him the keys, to him who extended the Church throughout the whole world and showed her firmer than the heavens.”
710. Scholion. Several difficulties have been anticipated in the very exposition of the thesis; others we shall examine below when treating of the indefectibility of the Church. Therefore it suffices to indicate the following here.
711. You will say I: The Church (Luke 12.32) is called a little flock: “Fear not, little flock.” Therefore she is not catholic. I respond. 1) Although several things contained in the context pertain to all, nevertheless only the disciples seem to be called “little flock,” and indeed according to the letter. For at the beginning of the chapter, “when many crowds were standing around, so that they trampled upon one another, [Jesus] began to say to his disciples” (verse 1); then, in verse 15, he addresses the crowds; but in verse 22 he again turns his discourse to the disciples, until verse 40: “And he said to his disciples.” Therefore the words objected from verse 32 are deservedly judged to be directed to the disciples. In fact, the Disciples were few in number. 2) But if they wish those words to be referred to all the faithful, we answer with Suarez (Defense of the Faith, book 1, chapter 16, no. 14): “The flock of Christ could also be called little by other titles and reasons: in comparison with unbelievers; or, if it is said of the predestined, in comparison with the reprobate; or on account of the devotion of humility, as Bede said (book 4 on Luke, chapter 54); or because of the lowliness of the condition of the disciples who were then hearing Christ, because they were poor and of the lowest condition; or because, on account of voluntary poverty or the renunciation of worldly glory, the servants of Christ are accounted in the world as lowly.”
712. You will say II: If catholicity were an essential property of the Church, it could never be absent from her. But it can be absent. For in Luke 18.8 Christ says that at the end of the world there will scarcely be those who believe: “When the Son of Man comes, do you think he will find faith on the earth?” And in Matthew 24.24 and Mark 13.21 it is foretold that the tribulation of those days will be so great that those days are to be shortened for the sake of the elect, and that Antichrist will produce so many deceits that even the elect would be led into error, if it were possible. I respond. 1) These two things are certain: the persecution of Antichrist will be the most dreadful of all, and the victory of the Church will be the most glorious of all. But even if this happened, that the greatest part of Christians should fall away from the Church in that persecution, this momentary defection, according to moral estimation, would not take away catholicity; almost in the same way as, if at the beginning of a war, an enemy occupied the provinces of some kingdom, that momentary invasion, according to moral estimation, would not diminish the amplitude of that kingdom, if a little later in the same war the enemy were cast out. 2) No catholicity belongs to the Church of Christ except that which Christ willed; but what Christ willed we are taught from the Scriptures. Therefore if from the Scriptures it is established that catholicity is greatly obscured in the time of Antichrist, this certainly does not obstruct the catholicity of the Church; indeed, the very fulfillment of the prophecy confirms her divinity. But since what is to happen in the time of Antichrist was often foretold by Christ and by the Apostles, so that men might guard themselves against error, if nothing of this sort has been foretold concerning other ages, that ought to be an indication that nothing of this sort will ever happen.
713. You will insist. But catholicity seems to have ceased also at other times, as, for example, at the time of the Arians; for St. Jerome writes (dialogue against the Luciferians, no. 19): “Then the name of ousia was abolished; then condemnation of the Nicene faith was shouted out. The whole world groaned and wondered that it was Arian.” I respond. It must be denied that in the time of the Arian heresy the heretics surpassed the Catholics in number. “For,” says Suarez (Defense of the Faith, book 1, chapter 16, no. 17), “although in the little council of Ariminum the greater part of the Bishops was deceived by the Arians, and therefore Jerome said that the groaning world wondered that it was Arian, nevertheless that error was not with a heretical mind; otherwise why would they wonder? As the same Jerome and Augustine indicate, and Ambrose (book 3 On Faith, last chapter). And therefore almost all, once the fraud was understood, immediately began clearly to profess and teach the true faith. Then, although perhaps in the East there was a greater multitude of heretics, nevertheless not in the West, nor simply in the whole world. For Basil openly testifies to this (letter 72, to the Evaisenians), writing: ‘Stand in the faith, inspect the world itself, and see how small is that portion which labors under this disease; but the rest of the Church, which from the ends of the world even to the ends has received the Gospel, follows this sound and right doctrine.’ Athanasius also, in the Synodical Letter to the emperor Jovinian, which Theodoret reports (book 4 of the History, chapter 3), speaking of the faith defined in the Council of Nicaea, says: ‘All the Churches everywhere have assented to this, as those of Spain, Britain, Gaul, all Italy,’ etc.; and after enumerating many others he adds: ‘Finally the Churches of the East, excepting a few who favor the Arian sect; for we have the opinion of all these things known by the matter itself as explored, and we have received letters from them, and we know for certain, most holy Emperor, that nevertheless no prejudice can thence be made against the whole world.’”