I see authoritative quotes were requested.
I don't want to disappoint...
MAGISTERIUM Pope St. Clement I, <Epistle to Corinth> 7.5-7 (c. 95 AD): "Let us go
through all generations, and learn that in generation and generation
the Master has given a place of repentance to those willing to turn
to Him. Noah preached repentance, and those who heard him were saved.
Jonah preached repentance to the Ninevites; those who repented for
their sins appeased God in praying, and received salvation, even
though they were aliens [allotrioi] of God."
Pope St. Leo the Great, <Sermon> 23.4: (440-61 AD): "So God did not
take are of human affairs by a new plan, or by late mercy, but from
the foundation of the world He established one and the same cause of
salvation for all. For the grace of God by which the totality of the
saints always had been justified was increased when Christ was born,
but did not begin [then]."
Pope St. Gregory the Great, <Epistle VII>. 15: (540-604 AD): "When He
descended to the underworld, the Lord delivered from the prison only
those who while they lived in the flesh He had kept through His grace
in faith and good works."
<Homilies on Ezekiel> 2.3: "The passion of the Church began already
with Abel, and there is one Church of the elect, of those who
precede, and of those who follow... . They were, then, outside, but
yet not divided from the holy Church, because in mind, in work, in
preaching, they already held the sacraments of faith, and saw that
loftiness of Holy Church."
Pope Pius IX, <Quanto conficiamur moerore> (1863: DS 2866): "God...
in His supreme goodness and clemency, by no means allows anyone to be
punished with eternal punishments who does not have the guilt of
voluntary fault. But it is also a Catholic dogma, that no one outside
the Catholic Church can be saved, and that those who are contumacious
against the authority of the same Church [and] definitions and who
are obstinately separated from the unity of this Church and from the
Roman Pontiff, successor of Peter, to whom the custody of the
vineyard was entrusted by the Savior, cannot obtain eternal
salvation."[emphasis added].
Pope Pius XII, <Mystici corporis> (1943: DS 3821): "They who do not
belong to the visible bond of the Catholic Church... [we ask them to]
strive to take themselves from that state in which they cannot be
sure of their own eternal salvation; for even though they are ordered
to the mystical body of the Redeemer by a certain desire and wish of
which they are not aware [implicit in the general wish to do what God
wills], yet they lack so many and so great heavenly gifts and helps
which can be enjoyed only in the Catholic Church."
Holy Office, Aug 9, 1949, condemning doctrine of L. Feeney (DS 3870):
"It is not always required that one be actually incorporated as a
member of the Church, but this at least is required: that one adhere
to it in wish and desire. It is not always necessary that this be
explicit... but when a man labors under invincible ignorance, God
accepts even an implicit will, called by that name because it is
contained in the good disposition of soul in which a man wills to
conform his will to the will of God."
FATHERS St. Justin Martyr, <Apology> 1.46 (c. 150 AD): "Christ is the Logos
[Divine Word] of whom the whole race of men partake. Those who lived
according to Logos are Christians, even if they were considered
atheists, such as, among the Greeks, Socrates and Heraclitus."
<Apology> 2.10:" Christ... was and is the Logos who is in everyone,
and foretold through the prophets the things that were to come, and
taught these things in person after becoming like to us in feeling."
Shepherd of Hermas, <Vision> 2.4.1:(c. 140-55 AD): The angel asks
Hermas who he thinks the old woman was who appeared. He thought it
was the Sibyl: "You are wrong... . It is the Church. I said to him:
Why then an old woman? He said: Because she was created first of all;
for this reason she is an old woman, and because of her the world was
established."
<Second Clement> 14.2 (prob. c 150 A.D. ): "The books of the prophets
and the apostles [say] that the Church is not [only] now, but from
the beginning. She was spiritual, like also our Jesus. She was
manifested in the last days to save us."
St. Irenaeus, <Against Heresies> 4.28.2: (c. 140-202 AD): "There is
one and the same God the Father and His Logos, always assisting the
human race, with varied arrangements, to be sure, and doing many
things, and saving from the beginning those who are saved, for they
are those who love and, according to their generation (genean) follow
His Logos." Ibid. 4.6.7: "For the Son, administering all things for
the Father, completes [His work] from the beginning to the end... .
For the Son, assisting to His own creation from the beginning,
reveals the Father to all to whom He wills." Ibid. 4. 22. 2: "Christ
came not only for those who believed from the time of Tiberius
Caesar, nor did the Father provide only for those who are now, but
for absolutely all men from the beginning, who, according to their
ability, feared and loved God and lived justly... and desired to see
Christ and to hear His voice."
Clement of Alexandria, <Stromata> 7.17:(c. 20-11 AD): "From what has
been said, I think it is clear that there is one true Church, which
is really ancient, into which those who are just according to design
are enrolled." Ibid 1. 5: "Before the coming of the Lord, philosophy
was necessary for justification to the Greeks; now it is useful for
piety... for it brought the Greeks to Christ as the law did the
Hebrews." Ibid. 1.20.99:" Philosophy of itself made the Greeks just,
though not to total justice; it is found to be a helper to this, like
the first and second steps for one ascending to the upper part of the
house, and like the elementary teacher for the [future]
philosopher]."
Origen, <On Canticles> 2.11-12: (c. 240 AD): "Do not think I speak of
the spouse or the Church [only] from the coming of the Savior in the
flesh, but from the beginning of the human race, in fact, to seek out
the origin of this mystery more deeply with Paul as leader, even
before the foundation of the world."
<Against Celsus> 4.7: (c. 248 AD): "... there never was a time when
God did not will to make just the life of men. But He always cared,
and gave occasions of virtue to make the reasonable one right. For
generation by generation this wisdom of God came to souls it found
holy and made them friends of God and prophets."
<On Romans II>, 9-10:(after 244 AD) [the law was written on hearts:
Cf. Rom 2:14-16] "that they must not commit murder or adultery, not
steal, not speak false testimony, that they honor father and mother,
and similar things... and it is shown that each one is to be judged
not according to a privilege of nature, but by his own thoughts he is
accused or excused, by the testimony of his conscience."
Homily on Numbers 16.1: (after 244 AD): "Since God wants grace to
abound, He sees fit to be present... . He is present not to the
[pagan] sacrifices, but to the one who comes to meet Him, and there
He gives His word [Logos?]."
Hegemonius (?) <Acts of Archelaus with Manes> 28: (c. 325-50 AD):
"From the creation of the world He has always been with just men... .
Were they not made just from the fact that they kept the law, 'Each
one of them showing the work of the law on their hearts... ?'[cf. Rom
2.14-16] For when someone who does not have the law does by nature
the things of the law, this one, not having the law, is a law for
himself... . For if we judge that a man is made just without the
works of the law... how much more will they attain justice who
fulfilled the law containing those things which are expedient for
men?"
Arnobius, <Against the Nations> 2.63:(c. 305 AD): "But, they say :If
Christ was sent by God for this purpose, to deliver unhappy souls
from the destruction of ruin - what did former ages deserve which
before His coming were consumed in the condition of mortality? ... .
Put aside thee cares, and leave the questions you do not understand;
for royal mercy was imparted to them, and the divine benefits ran
equally through all. They were conserved, they were liberated, and
they put aside the sort and condition of mortality."
Eusebius of Caesarea, <Church History> 1.1.4:(c. 311-25 AD): "But
even if we [Christians] are certainly new, and this really new name
of Christian is just recently known among the nations, yet our life
and mode of conduct, in accord with the precepts of religion, has not
been recently invented by us; but from the first creation of man, so
to speak, it is upheld by natural inborn concepts of the ancient men
who loved God, as we will here show... . But if someone would
describe as Christians those who are testified to as having been
righteous, [going back] from Abraham to the first man, he would not
hit wide of the mark."
St. Gregory of nαzιanzus, <Oration> 18.5 [at funeral of his father, a
convert]:(c. 374 AD): "He was ours even before he was of our fold.
His way of living made him such. For just as many of ours are not
with us, whose life makes them other from our body [the Church], so
many of those outside belong to us, who by their way of life
anticipate the faith and need [only] the name, having the reality."
<Oration> 8.20 [on his sister Gorgonia]: "Her whole life was a
purification for her, and a perfecting. She had indeed the
regeneration of the Spirit, and the assurance of this from her
previous life. And, to speak boldly, the mystery [baptism] was for
her practically only the seal, not the grace."
St. John Chrysostom, <On Romans II>. 5: (c. 391 AD): "For this reason
they are wonderful, he [Paul, in Romans 2:14-16] says, because they
did not need the law, and they show all the works of the law... . Do
you not see how again he makes present that day [Judgment in 2.16]
and brings it near... and showing that they should rather be honored
who without the law hastened to carry out the things of the law? ...
Conscience and reasoning suffice in place of the law. Through these
things he showed again that God made man self-sufficient in regard to
the choice of virtue and fleeing evil... . He shows that even in
these early times and before the giving of the law, men enjoyed
complete Providence. For 'what is knowable of God' was clear to them,
and what was good and what was evil they knew."
Homilies on John 8.1: ( c. 389 AD): "Why, then, the gentiles accuse
us saying: What was Christ doing in former times, not taking care...
? We will reply: Even before He was in the world, He took thought for
His works, and was known to all who were worthy."
St. Ambrose, <On Cain and Abel> 2.3.11:(after 375 AD): "Our price is
the blood of Christ... . Therefore He brought the means of health to
all so that whoever perishes, must ascribe the cause of his death to
himself, for he was unwilling to be cured when he had a remedy... .
For the mercy of Christ is clearly proclaimed on all."
St. Augustine, <City of God> 18.47: (413-26 AD): "Nor do I think the
Jews would dare to argue that no one pertained to God except the
Israelites, from the time that Israel came to be... they cannot deny
that there were certain men even in other nations who pertained to
the true Israelites, the citizens of the fatherland above, not by
earthly but by heavenly association."
<Retractions> 1.13.3: (426-27 AD): "This very thing which is now
called the Christian religion existed among the ancients, nor was it
lacking from the beginning of the human race until Christ Himself
came in the flesh, when the true religion, that already existed,
began to be called Christian."
<Epistle> 102.11-13, 15: (406-12 AD): "Wherefore since we call Christ
the Word [Logos], through whom all things were made... under whose
rule [was/is] every creature, spiritual and corporal... so those from
the beginning of the human race who believed in Him and understood
His somewhat [utcuмque] and lived according to His precepts devoutly
and justly, whenever and wherever they were, beyond doubt they were
saved through Him... . And yet from the beginning of the human race
thee were not lacking persons who believed in Him, from Adam up to
Moses, both in the very people of Israel... and in other nations
before He came in the flesh."
St. Prosper of Aquitaine, <De vocatione omnium gentium> 2.5: (c. 450
AD): "... according to it [Scripture] ... we believe and devoutly
confess that never was the care of divine providence lacking to the
totality of men... . To these, however [who have not yet heard of
Christ] that general measure of help, which is always given from
above to all men, is not denied."
St. Nilus, <Epistle 1>. 154:(perhaps c. 430 AD): "In every nation the
one who fears God and does justice is acceptable to Him. For it is
clear that such a one is acceptable to God and is not to be cast
aside, who at his own right time flees to the worship of the blessed
knowledge of God."
St. Cyril of Alexandria, <Against Julian> 3.107: (433-41 AD): "For if
there is One over all, and there is no other besides Him, He would be
Master of all, because He was Maker of all. For He is also the God of
the gentiles, and has fully satisfied by laws implanted in their
hearts, which the Maker has engraved in the hearts of all [cf. Rom
2.14-16]. For when the gentiles, [Paul] says, not having the law, do
by nature the things of the law, they show the work of the law
written on their hearts. But since He is not only the Maker and God
of the Jews [cf. Rom 3.29] but also of the gentiles... He sees fit by
His providence to care not only for those who are of the blood of
Israel, but also for all those upon the earth."
Theodoret of Cyrus, <Interpretation of the Epistle to Romans>
2.14-16:(425-50 AD): "For they who, before the Mosaic law, adorned
their life with devout reasonings and good actions, testify that the
divine law called for action, and they became lawgivers for
themselves... . He [St. Paul] shows that the law of nature was
written on hearts... . According to this image, let us describe the
future judgment and the conscience of those accepting the charge and
proclaiming the justice of the decision."
<Remedy for Greek Diseases> 6.85-86:(429-37 AD): "But if you say: Why
then did not the Maker of all fulfill this long ago? You are blaming
even the physicians, since they keep the stronger medicines for last;
having used the milder things first, they bring out the stronger
things last. The all-wise Healer of our souls did this too. After
employing various medicines... finally He brought forth this
all-powerful and saving medicine.
Primasius, Bishop of Hadrumetum, <On Romans> 2.14-16:(c. 560 AD):
"'By nature they do the things of the law... . ' He [Paul] speaks
either of those who keep the law of nature, who do not do to others
what they do not want to be done to themselves; or, that even the
gentiles naturally praise the good and condemn the wicked, which is
the work of the law; or, of those who even now, when they do anything
good, profess that they have received from God the means of pleasing
God... . 'And their thoughts in turn accusing or even defending, on
the day when God will judge the hidden things of men.' He speaks of
altercations of thought... . and according to these we are to be
judged on the day of the Lord."
St. John Damascene, <Against Iconoclasts> 11:(late 7th cent. to 754
AD): "The creed teaches us to believe also in one Holy Catholic and
Apostolic church of God. The Catholic Church cannot be only
apostolic, for the all-powerful might of her Head, which is Christ,
is able through the Apostles to save the whole world. So there is a
Holy Catholic Church of God, the assembly of the Holy Fathers who are
from the ages, of the patriarchs, of prophets, apostles, evangelists,
martyrs, to which are added all the gentiles who believe the same
way."
Topic: Feenyism (Read 12041 times)