THE CHURCH
CHAPTER I
THE UNITY OF THE CHURCH
As every earthly pilgrim[1] ought faithfully to believe the holy catholic church just as he ought to love Jesus Christ, the Lord, the bridegroom of that church, and also the church herself, his bride; but as he does not love this, his spiritual mother, except he also know her by faith—therefore ought he to learn to know her by faith, and thus to honor her as his chief mother.[2]
Therefore, in order to reach a proper knowledge of her, it is to be noted, (1) That the church signifies the house of God, constituted for the very purpose that in it the people may worship its God, as it is written, I Cor. 11:22: "Have ye not houses to eat and to drink in?" Or, to speak with Augustine: "Do you despise the church of God, the house of prayer?" (2) The church signifies the ministers belonging to the house of God. Thus the clerics belonging to one material church call themselves the church. But according to the Greeks, a church—ecclesia—is a congregation—congregatio—held to-
- ↑ Viator, a current word. See Wyclif, de Eccles., 4, 42, 350. Gerson, Du Pin's ed., 2: 22.
- ↑ See also chap. II, etc. The designation mother is nowhere given to the church in the N. T. It is derived from the relation the church bears to Christ as his bride. Later on in this chapter Augustine represents her as giving birth to children. So Wyclif, de Eccles., 117: "The church is a virgin since she is the bride of the virgin Jesus Christ, by whom as a mother we are born after a spiritual manner." It followed that Christ was the spiritual father or "father by faith," Wyclif, p. 1, and Grosseteste in this treatise, chap. IV. In his Com. on the Lombard, p. 469, Huss speaks of the church as "our most dear mother, the most worthy mother of the predestinate."
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