On the Unity of the Catholic Church 22

For the Lord chose Judas too among the apostles, and yet Judas afterwards betrayed the Lord. Yet the firmness and faith of the apostles did not fall on that account, because Judas the traitor fell away from their fellowship. So here too the holiness and dignity of the confessors is not at once diminished because the faith of some has been broken. The blessed apostle speaks in his letter, saying: "For what if some of them have fallen away from the faith? Has their unbelief made void the faithfulness of God? By no means; for God is true, but every man a liar." The greater and better part of the confessors stands firm in the strength of its faith and in the truth of the Lord's law and discipline; nor do they depart from the peace of the church, who remember that they obtained grace in the church by God's favour; and by this very fact they obtain a fuller praise for their faith, that, separated from the faithlessness of those who were joined with them in the fellowship of confession, they have withdrawn from the contagion of crime. Truly enlightened by the light of the gospel, shining with the pure and white light of the Lord, they are as praiseworthy in preserving the peace of Christ as they were victorious in their conflict with the devil.