Extra Ecclesium nulla salus

[Columcille]

Just following the quick notes from wikipedia, I hope that we can first establish primary links for later discussion.

http://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Extra_Ecclesiam_nulla_salus

Pope Boniface VIII's bull en***led "Unam Sanctam"
http://www.papalencyclicals.net/Bon08/B8unam.htm

St. Cyprian of Carthage "To Jubaianus, concerning the babtism of heretics"
http://www.ccel.org/ccel/schaff/anf05.iv.iv.lxxii.html

21. Can the power of baptism be greater or of more avail than confession, than suffering, when one confesses Christ before men and is baptized in his own blood? And yet even this baptism does not benefit a heretic, although he has confessed Christ, and been put to death outside the Church, unless the patrons and advocates of heretics declare that the heretics who are slain in a false confession of Christ are martyrs, and assign to them the glory and the crown of martyrdom contrary to the testimony of the apostle, who says that it will profit them nothing although they were burnt and slain.28772877 1 Cor. xiii. 3. But if not even the baptism of a public confession and blood can profit a heretic to salvation, because there is no salvation out of the Church,28782878 [One of the Catholic maxims which has been terribly misunderstood and cruelly abused. See below, p. 385, notes 2 and 3.] how much less shall it be of advantage to him, if in a hiding-place and a cave of robbers, stained with the contagion of adulterous water, he has 385not only not put off his old sins, but rather heaped up still newer and greater ones! Wherefore baptism cannot be common to us and to heretics, to whom neither God the Father, nor Christ the Son, nor the Holy Ghost, nor the faith, nor the Church itself, is common. And therefore it behoves those to be baptized who come from heresy to the Church, that so they who are prepared, in the lawful, and true, and only baptism of the holy Church, by divine regeneration, for the kingdom of God, may be born of both sacraments, because it is written, “Except a man be born of water and of the Spirit, he cannot enter into the kingdom of God.”28792879 John iii. 5. [His exposition of this passage explains his hyperbole, nulla salus extra ecclesiam. Of which sec. 23, infra.]


The Wikipedia has numerous quotes including the CCC 846-848, 851.

http://www.scborromeo.org/ccc.htm

http://www.vatican.va/archive/hist_councils/ii_vatican_council/documents/vat-ii_const_19641121_lumen-gentium_en.html


If we discuss other quotes by others mentioned in the wikipedia, I shall then try and find a primary source link if possible. As is, I think there is sufficient resources in the above links to carry on a contextual dialogue on the phrase extra ecclesium nulla salus.

[Columcille]

I think it fair enough to say that the structure of the Church was such that it did not recognize outsiders as having the authority to create new doctrines. Cyrprian seems to make this clear in the seventh council of Carthage when he states:

Munnulus47014701 Ep. liii. p. 336, supra. Munnulus is mentioned as one of the bishops who write with Cyprian to Cornelius. He is there called “Monulus.” of Girba47024702 Gerra. said: The truth of our Mother47034703 [Testimony to the meaning of the Holy Catholic Church in the Nicene Creed.] the Catholic Church, brethren, hath always remained and still remains with us, and even especially in the Trinity of baptism, as our Lord says, “Go ye and baptize the nations, in the name of the Father, of the Son, and of the Holy Spirit.”47044704 Matt. xxviii. 19. Since, then, we manifestly know that heretics have not either Father, or Son, or Holy Spirit, they ought, when they come to the Church our Mother, truly to be born again and to be baptized; that the cancer which they had, and the anger of damnation, and the witchery of error, may be sanctified by the holy and heavenly laver.

http://www.ccel.org/ccel/schaff/anf05.iv.vi.i.html


It encompasses the Church from the past with the present, and should remain till Christ comes again. I think the Reformation is a complicated mess, simply because the Church was steeped in politics. But the reformers was also steeped into politics as well. So in many respects, it is not hard to imagine that Protestants would seek the safety of the secular governments that had political greivances against the Catholic Church no matter if the secular bodies were in error or not. Seems to me King Charles wanted a divorce so bad, he killed his wife and physically took control over the Church of England. Luther gained the protection of government officials in Germany, and I am sure Calvin received the same in France. France seems to have its own problems in subverting the papal election with some antipopes. I mention this in passing, because the condemnation of the Protestants was not based on politics... but on their changing doctrine based on their singular interpretation. As such, it created division and did not seek after reform, but power. Therefore, much is condemned in Trent in relation to doctrine which was the vehicle. As a consequence, many ******** followers are now called "seperated brethren" by the Catholic Church. Toleration and even dialogue have helped cure hostility, but there is much more work to be done as Pope John Paul II's encyclical Ut Unum Sint states.