3
In fact, the question of pagans and others who had never heard of Christ or the Church is
an issue discussed by a number of the early fathers. Justin Martyr speaks positively, for
example, about the possibility of salvation for the philosophers who lived before Christ. Their
commitment to living according to reason, which Justin knows as logos, qualified them as
followers of the only begotten Logos of God incarnate in Jesus Christ.
3
Moreover, Irenaeus,
4
Clement,
5
and Origin
6
also contend for the possibility of salvation, inclusion among the elect, of
those who predated or had never heard of Christ. The upshot of all this is that extra ecclesiam
takes root in an historical context that allows for the possibility of salvation for those who are, in
a sense, innocently outside the Church. Thus, at least at this point, extra ecclesiam is not entirely
exclusive.
Another important development in extra ecclesiam comes with Augustine. A
fundamental shift, which begins to take place by the end of the 4th century, is the perspective
that all pagans were lost since the gospel had spread to the whole world, making the argument of
ignorance less valid. Pagans were not pagans because they did not know the gospel, but because
they rejected it. At least in his early writings, Augustine also accepts that those who lived before
Christ and had faith or lived just lives are saved by Christ and members of the Church.
7
Also,
those who had not heard of Christ could be saved apart from the Church. But once the gospel
had been made known through the Church, ". . . there was no possibility of salvation without
orthodox Christian faith and membership in the true church, which for him was the catholica: the
2
Cyprian of Carthage. The Unity of the Catholic Church. Ferm, Robert L. Readings in the History of Christian
Thought. (New York: Holt, Reinhart and Winston, 1964) 435.
3
See his First Apology, 46.
4
See Against Heresies 4.22
5
See Stromata 7.2.
6
See Against Celsus 4.7
7
See his Epistle 102 and Sermon 341.