On the Church Militant (De Controversiis) by Robert Bellarmine

Author:Robert Bellarmine [Bellarmine, Robert]
Language: eng
Format: epub
Tags: Ecclesiology, Theology, Theology of the Church
Publisher: Mediatrix Press
Published: 2016-07-02T03:00:00+00:00

CHAPTER X: On Secret Infidels

L

ASTLY, it remains to speak of secret infidels, i.e. those who have neither internal faith nor any Christian virtue, but nevertheless profess the Catholic faith due to some temporal advantage and mix with the true faithful by the communion of the Sacraments. Both the Confessionists and Calvinists teach that such men in no way pertain to the true Church, and even some Catholics, one of whom is John de Turrecremata, 236 although this author perhaps meant nothing other than that they require faith for someone can be said to be united by an internal union to the body of Christ, which is the Church, which would be very true.

Nevertheless, we follow the manner of speaking of a great many authors who teach that they who are joined with the remaining faithful only by an external profession are true parts and even members of the Church but withered and dead. 237

1) This opinion can be demonstrated from those words of John: “And now many have become Antichrists, they went out from us, but they were not from us; for if they were from us they would have remained with us.” 238 John speaks in this place on heretics, whom he calls Antichrists, and he says that before they went out, they were not from us, i.e. they were not Catholics in spirit and will but heretics and Antichrists, and still they went out from us because if they were not from us, in spirit and will, nevertheless they were by external profession; but after they betrayed themselves and broke out into open schism, they already ceased to be from us in every manner.

And, although at some time St. Augustine explained those words, “They were not from us,” about predestination, still in his commentary on this passage, he explains they are about secret heretics. He speaks thus: “All heretics, all schismatics, went out from us, that is, they went out from the Church, but they would not have gone out if they were from us, i.e. they went out from the Church, but they would not have gone out if they were from us. Before they went out, therefore, they were not from us, if before they went out they were not from us, many are inside that did not go out, and yet they are Antichrists. . . . And those who are inside are certainly in the body of our Lord Jesus Christ since he still takes care of his own body; and health will not be completed except in the resurrection of the dead; thus they are in the body of Christ in the same way as bad humors, when they are vomited then the body is relieved; thus even the wicked, when they go out, then the Church is relieved and when she vomits them out, and the body casts them out, she says these humors go out from me, but they were not from me. Why were they not from me? They were not cut from my flesh but pressed from my breast when they were present there.

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