Secondly, an ordinary degree of holiness can easily be counterfeited. But none could for any length of time or any extension of space assume
a sanctity which soars far above the ordinary and common level, and which exhibits itself as such. Nemo personam diu fert could be applied in this case more than in any other.
The next distinctive mark is catholicity or universality. She is such not only because she contains all truth; not only because she embraces all the moments of God’s action, as the finishing stroke of them all; but because she is intended for all time and all space.
Finally, the last mark is apostolicity. The first members of the hierarchy chosen by the Theanthropos to communicate as moral instruments the term of the sublimative moment, with the power and authority to transmit to others that very same dignity of being moral instruments, were the apostles. Therefore, that church alone can be the church of the Theanthropos which to this day and for ever can show that her own hierarchy are the legitimate successors of the apostles, by an uninterrupted communication. For we have said that the essence of the church is to be the Theanthropos acting in time and space, through the agency of the hierarchy and other sacraments. Now, suppose a hierarchy who cannot claim or make good their claim to be the legitimate successors of the first ones who composed it, who could not claim any communication or union with them, how could we suppose them to be those very instruments in whom and through whom the Theanthropos lives and acts?
Before we draw the consequence which follows from all we have said concerning the church, it is necessary to recapitulate in a few words all we have written in these articles.
We set out with the question of the infinite, and after refuting the
pantheistic idea of the infinite, and showing that pantheism in its solution of the problem destroys it, we gave the Catholic idea of the infinite. Here another problem sprang up—multiplicity in the infinite. No being can be conceived endowed with pure, unalloyed unity. It must be multiple, under pain of being inconceivable. What is the multiplicity which can be admitted in the infinite? We demonstrated that the pantheistic solution which says that infinite becomes multiple by a necessary interior development, destroys both terms, the unity and the multiplicity. We proceeded to lay down the Catholic answer to the problem, and explained, as far as lay in our power, the mystery of the ever-blessed Trinity. The question next in order was the finite. And we showed the finite to be the effect of an absolutely free act of infinite power, free both to its creation at all and also with regard to the amount of perfection to be created; though we admitted and proved that it was befitting on the part of the Creator to effect the best possible manifestation of himself. Here we found ourselves in face of a duality which claimed reconciliation. How could the finite and the infinite be united together, so as to preserve whole and entire the two respective natures, and at the same time to effect the best possible manifestation of the infinite? We answered by laying down the Catholic dogma of the hypostatic union, which raised the finite to a hypostatic or personal union with the infinite, and elevated finite natures to the highest possible dignity. But as the hypostatic moment raised to a personal union only nature, and left out personality, another duality arose: how to unite human persons with the Theanthropos, and through him with God, and make them partakers
as far as possible of the dignity and elevation of the nature hypostatically united to the Word. The sublimative moment answered the question. This moment, medium between the Theanthropos and substantial creation, by bestowing upon human persons a higher nature and faculties, enabled them to unite in close contact with the Theanthropos and through him with the Trinity. But what was the medium chosen to transmit the term of the sublimative moment to human persons in time and space? The Theanthropos himself, the essential mediator between God and the cosmos; and to that effect he united his infinite energy and his substantial presence to personal and physical instruments, and through them imparted to human persons in time and space the term of the sublimative moment; and thus the cycle of the procession of the cosmos from the infinite was perfected in its being and faculties, to begin a movement of return to the same infinite as its supreme end. The sacramental extension of the Theanthropos in time and space we have demonstrated to be the Catholic Church, and from its essence we have drawn her essential attributes of visibility, indefectibility, infallibility, and authority, and also its intrinsic marks of unity, holiness, catholicity, and apostolicity.
After this necessarily imperfect sketch of all our articles, we submit to the reader this necessary consequence—the Roman Catholic Church is the only true church of God.
First, because it is in the teaching of the Roman Catholic Church alone that the life of the intelligence is possible. We have shown throughout our articles that in every question which the human mind raises, there is no possible alternative—either embrace the Catholic solution, so coherent with reason; or the pantheistic solution, and the death of the intelligence. Now, when we speak of the Catholic solution, we mean of the solution which is given by the church whose head is the Bishop of Rome, for no other pretended Catholic Church gives all the true solutions.