Extra Ecclesiam nulla salus


The Latin phrase extra Ecclesiam nulla salus is a phrase referring to a Christian doctrine about who is to receive salvation.
The expression comes from the writings of Saint Cyprian of Carthage, a Christian bishop of the 3rd century. The phrase is an axiom often used as shorthand for the doctrine that the Church is necessary for salvation. It is a dogma in the Catholic Church and the Eastern Orthodox Church, in reference to their own communions. It is also held by many historic Protestant churches. However, Protestants, Catholics, and Eastern Orthodox each have a unique ecclesiological understanding of what constitutes "the Church". For some, the church is defined as "all those who will be saved", with no emphasis on the visible church. For others, the theological basis for this doctrine is founded on the beliefs that Jesus Christ personally established one Church and that it serves as the means by which the graces won by Christ are communicated to believers.

Scriptural foundation

The doctrine is based largely on Mark 16:15–16:

History

First appearance

The original phrase, Salus extra ecclesiam non est, comes from paragraph 21 of Letter LXXII, Ad Jubajanum de haereticis baptizandis, of Cyprian of Carthage. The letter was written in reference to a particular controversy as to whether it was necessary to baptize applicants who had been previously baptized by heretics. In Ad Jubajanum de haereticis baptizandis, Cyprian tells Jubaianus of his conviction that baptism conferred by heretics is not valid. Firmilian agreed with Cyprian, reasoning that those who are outside the Church and do not have the Holy Spirit cannot admit others to the Church or give what they do not possess.

Early Church Fathers

The concept was also referred to by Origen in his Homilies on Joshua, but neither he nor Cyprian were addressing non-Christians, but those already baptized and in danger of leaving the faith, as that would involve apostasy. Earlier, Justin Martyr had indicated that the righteous Jews who lived before Christ would be saved. He later expressed a similar opinion concerning Gentiles. Those who act pleasing to God, while not "being" Christian are yet in some sense "in" Christ the Logos.
Each one shall be saved by his own righteousness, those who regulated their lives by the law of Moses would in like manner be saved. Since those who did that which is universally, naturally, and eternally good are pleasing to God, they shall be saved through this Christ in the resurrection equally with those righteous men who were before them, namely Noah, and Enoch, and Jacob, and whoever else there be, along with those who have known this Christ.

Gregory of Nazianzus took a rather broad view in his understanding of membership in the body of Christ. In the funeral oration for his father's death in 374, Gregory stated: "He was ours even before he was of our fold. His manner of life made him one of us. Just as there are many of our own who are not with us, whose lives alienate them from the common body, so too there are many of those outside who belong really to us, men whose devout conduct anticipates their faith. They lack only the name of that which in fact they possess. My father was one of these, an alien shoot but inclined to us in his manner of life". In other words, by their charity of life, they are united to Christians in Christ, even before they explicitly believe in Christ. Fulgentius of Ruspe took a much stricter view: "Most firmly hold and never doubt that not only pagans, but also all Jews, all heretics, and all schismatics who finish this life outside of the Catholic Church, will go into the eternal fire prepared for the devil and his angels".
Jerome wrote: "This is the ark of Noah, and he who is not found in it shall perish when the flood prevails". Bede continues this theme: "And according to this sense the ark is manifestly the Church, Noah the Lord who builds the Church".
Augustine of Hippo made numerous remarks in response to adversaries, often on opposite sides of this issue, once saying: "Whoever is without the Church will not be reckoned among the sons, and whoever does not want to have the Church as mother will not have God as father". He could also pick up on the sayings of the Fathers, and be completely inclusive in his assessment: "All together we are members of Christ and are his body throughout the world from Abel the just until the end of time whoever among the just made his passage throughout this life, whether now or in the generations to come, all the just are this one body of Christ, and individually his members".

Other views

, considered an antipope and a schismatic by the early church, says that the church is not for salvation, but that is a congregation of saints.

Catholic Church

Writing while still a cardinal, Pope Benedict XVI commented that Cyprian was not expressing a theory on the eternal fate of all baptized and non-baptized persons.
The 1992 Catechism of the Catholic Church explained this as "all salvation comes from Christ the Head through the Church which is His Body".
  • Pope Pelagius II : "Consider the fact that whoever has not been in the peace and unity of the Church cannot have the Lord Although given over to flames and fires, they burn, or, thrown to wild beasts, they lay down their lives, there will not be that crown of faith but the punishment of faithlessness. Such a one can be slain, he cannot be crowned. slain outside the Church, he cannot attain the rewards of the Church".
  • Pope Gregory I in Moralia, sive Expositio in Job said: "Now the holy Church universal proclaims that God cannot be truly worshiped saving within herself, asserting that all they that are without her shall never be saved". Pope Gregory XVI later quoted his predecessor in his 1832 encyclical Summo iugiter studio.
  • Pope Leo XII, : "It is impossible for the most true God, who is Truth itself, the best, the wisest Provider, and the Rewarder of good men, to approve all sects who profess false teachings which are often inconsistent with one another and contradictory, and to confer eternal rewards on their members… by divine faith we hold one Lord, one faith, one baptism, and that no other name under heaven is given to men except the name of Jesus Christ of Nazareth in which we must be saved. This is why we profess that there is no salvation outside the Church".
  • Bishop John Carroll, the first bishop in the United States, recognized a distinction between being in communion with the Church and being a member thereof:
    To be in the communion of the Catholic Church and to be a member of the Church are two different things. They are in the communion of profession of her faith and participation of her sacraments, through the ministry and government of her lawful pastors. The members of the Catholic Church are all those who with a sincere heart seek the true religion and are in unfeigned disposition to embrace the truth wherever they find it. It never was our doctrine that salvation can be obtained only by the former.
    Carroll traces this analysis back to Augustine of Hippo.
  • Francis Cardinal Bourne, Archbishop of Westminster from 1903–1935, summarized the Church teaching as follows:
    If God the Creator speaks, the creature is bound to listen and to believe what He utters. Hence the axiom "outside the Church there is no salvation". But, as it is equally true that without the deliberate act of the will there can be neither fault nor sin, so evidently this axiom applies only to those who are outside the Church knowingly, deliberately, and wilfully. And this is the doctrine of the Catholic Church on this often misunderstood and misrepresented aphorism. There are the covenanted and the uncovenanted dealings of God with His creatures, and no creature is outside His fatherly care. There are millions – even at this day the vast majority of mankind – who are still unreached or unaffected by the message of Christianity in any shape or form. There are large numbers who are persuaded that the old covenant still prevails and are perfectly sincere and conscientious in their observance of the Jewish Law. And there are millions who accept some fashion of Christian teaching who have never adverted to the idea of Unity as I have described it, and have no thought that they are obliged in conscience to accept the teaching and to submit to the authority of the Catholic Church. All such, whether separated wholly from acceptance of Christ and His teaching, or accepting that teaching only to the extent in which they have perceived it, will be judged on their own merits.

    Councils

  • Fourth Lateran Council : "There is but one universal Church of the faithful, outside which no one at all is saved".
  • Council of Florence, Cantate Domino : "The most Holy Roman Church firmly believes, professes and preaches that none of those existing outside the Catholic Church, not only pagans, but also Jews and heretics and schismatics, can have a share in life eternal; but that they will go into the 'eternal fire which was prepared for the devil and his angels', unless before death they are joined with Her; and that so important is the unity of this ecclesiastical body that only those remaining within this unity can profit by the sacraments of the Church unto salvation, and they alone can receive an eternal recompense for their fasts, their almsgivings, their other works of Christian piety and the duties of a Christian soldier. No one, let his almsgiving be as great as it may, no one, even if he pour out his blood for the Name of Christ, can be saved, unless he remain within the bosom and the unity of the Catholic Church". The same council also ruled that those who die in original sin, but without mortal sin, will also find punishment in hell, but unequally: "But the souls of those who depart this life in actual mortal sin, or in original sin alone, go down straightaway to hell to be punished, but with unequal pains".