CHAPTER VI
CHRIST THE HEAD OF THE ELECT
Treatment having been made of the holy catholic church, which is Christ's mystical body and of which Christ is the head, a statement must also be made of the church of the wicked—malignantium—which is the body of the devil, he being its head.[1] For St. Gregory says, Moralia, 4: 9 [Migne, 75: 647]: "As our Redeemer is one person with the assembly of the good (for He is the head of the body and we the body of that head), so is the old enemy one person with all the company of the reprobate, for he as their head presides over them unto iniquity. Hence it is evident that all the reprobate constitute one body. For Christ said to the Jews, the high priests and Pharisees, who were called the chiefs—capitales—of the church: 'Ye are of your father, the devil, and the lusts of your father ye will do,'" John 8:44. This shows that there must be one generation—brood—which was bad in the case of the common people, worse in the case of secular rulers, but worst of all in the case of the prelates, just as the generation of the righteous has three opposite classes, corresponding grade for grade to these three classes. If, therefore, the generation of the perverse is one, it is fitting that there should be one evil man [being] with parts, who are the members of the devil. And as there cannot be a head or a member except as these are related to the entire body, it is plain that there is one body of the devil.
- ↑ In his Super IV. Sent., 36, 733, Huss also calls the kingdom of Satan ecclesia malignancium, or civitas diaboli. "This is the congregation of all the damned, as the holy church is the congregation of all the faithful—those who are to be saved. In the present time this church of the wicked is dispensing its evil odor and infection and the virus of false doctrine."
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