A Brief Scriptural and Patristical Analysis of the Nature of the Church

St. Paul's Conversion

          While traveling on the road to Damascus St. Paul experienced a vision of Christ which brought about his conversion to the Christian faith.  When the Lord said to him, "Saul, Saul, why are you persecuting Me?" [Acts 9:4], the whole meaning of the Christian Mystery was revealed to him.  In that one moment St. Paul realized the depth of the connection that exists between Christ and the Church.  The words of the Lord made this quite clear, for He did not say, "Saul, Saul, why are you persecuting My disciples?", or "Saul, Saul, why are you persecuting My servants?"; instead, He said "why are you persecuting Me?"  As St. Thomas Aquinas pointed out, ". . . the whole Church, which is the Mystical Body of Christ, is one person with its Head, who is Christ" [Mersch, 470].  This truth explains the whole purpose of the redemption accomplished by Christ, and shows how He intends through the Church to assimilate all mankind to His offering and thus restore fallen man to communion with God the Father.

          St. Paul himself would explain this Mystery in greater detail in his epistle to the Ephesians.   In the first chapter of that letter he explains how Christ is the recapitulation of all things both in the heavens and on earth.  Christ breaks down the barrier which divides the Jews and the Gentiles, so that "in Himself He might make the two into one new man, thus establishing peace" [Eph. 2:15b], and in this way He reconciles "them both in one body to God through the cross" [Eph. 2:16a].  Approximately four centuries later St. Augustine would say much the same thing in a sermon in which he told the members of the Church in Hippo that "the Head, with all the members, is but one Man" [NPNF, 1st Series, v. 6, p. 399].  From these statements it becomes clear that the Church is the extension of the incarnation through space and time.  In the following extended quotation from John Adam Moelher this idea is beautifully expressed:

          Thus, the visible Church . . . is the Son of God Himself,

          everlastingly manifesting Himself among   men in a 

          human form, perpetually renovated, and eternally 

          young – the permanent incarnation of the same, as in 

          Holy Writ, even the faithful are called 'the body of 

          Christ.'  Hence it is evident that the Church, though 

          composed of men, is yet not purely human.  Nay, as

          in Christ the divinity and the humanity are to be 

          clearly distinguished, though both are bound in unity; 

          so is He in undivided entireness perpetuated in the 

          Church.  The Church, His permanent manifestation, is

          at once divine and human – she is the union of both.  

          He it is who, concealed under earthly and human 

          forms, works in the Church; and this is wherefore she 

          has a divine and a human part in an undivided mode,

          so that the divine cannot be separated from the 

          human, nor the human from the divine.  Hence these

          two parts change their predicates.  If the divine – the 

          living Christ and His Spirit – constitute undoubtedly 

          that which is infallible, and eternally inerrable in the

          Church; so also the human is infallible and inerrable in

          the same way, because, the divine without the human

          has no existence for us; yet the human is not inerrable

          in itself, but only as the organ and as the manifestation

          of the divine.  Hence, we are enabled to conceive how

          so great, important and mysterious a charge could 

          have been entrusted to men.  [Moehler, 259]

From all this is becomes clear that the purpose of the incarnation is to sanctify men and to unite them in Christ, the New Adam; so that what was dismembered and torn asunder in the fall of man, is remembered and reunited in the redemption.

The Gospel of John and the Unity of Christ and the Church

          The mystery of the unity of Christ and the Church is not found in the Pauline texts alone.  In the Gospel of John, Jesus said, "I am the Vine, you are the branches.  He who abides in Me, and I in him, he it is that bears much fruit, for apart from Me you can do nothing" [John 15:5].  In saying this Jesus shows that the union between Himself and His Body the Church goes beyond a mere moral union, and is instead an ontological union of life and action.  Louis Bouyer points out that this text in John's Gospel, ". . . expresses with final precision what St. Paul had taught with the images of the Body and the Head, of the Bridegroom and the Bride" [Bouyer, 116].  The Vine and the branches form one living organism, a single living entity, a Mystical Being or Person.

          In the biblical pericope of the Vine, Jesus ". . . speaks not only of [our] being united to Him but of being one with Him," and this "shade of difference must not be overlooked" [Bouyer, 116].  Fr. Bouyer says that the meaning of this text is often weakened and tends to be explained in a way Christ did not intend, it is "as if Christ had said, 'I am the root, you are the branches'; whereas He uses the peculiar expression, 'I am the vine-stock . . .' – that is to say, not a part, were it even the principal part, but the whole" [Bouyer, 117].  As a consequence of this truth it becomes clear that, "The Church is Christ revealing little by little the plentitude of His being" [Bouyer, 117], and that the whole life of the members of the Body, is nothing other than the life of the Head of the Body, the source of all her powers and her blessings.  In His prayer to the Father, Christ emphasizes this truth when He prays in reference to those who believe in Him ". . . that they may all be one, even as thou, Father, art in me, and I in thee, that they also may be in us [. . . and] The glory which thou hast given to me I have given to them, that they may be one even as we are one, I in them and thou in me, that they may be perfectly one" [John 17:20-23, excerpted].  But this union between Christ and His members in the Church is not to be conceived of as a passive oneness, for if the branches fail to bear fruit and abide in the Vine they shall be pruned away.  As the Lord said, "If a man does not abide in Me, he is cast forth as a branch and withers; and the branches are gathered, thrown into the fire and burned" [John 15:6].  So, we must be active in grace, and yet in our actions it is actually Christ who is the source of what we do.  As St. Augustine said, ". . . what else but His own gifts does God crown when He crowns our merits" [FC, v. 30, p. 313]. 

The Suffering of Christ Continues in His Body the Church

          St. Paul's most common way of explaining the connection between Christ and the Church is to show how the Lord's suffering is to be distributed throughout His body.  In the epistle to the Romans St. Paul tells the Christian faithful that they are "heirs of God and fellow heirs with Christ" [Rom. 8:17a], but he goes on to say that they must "suffer with Him in order that [they] may also be glorified with Him" [Rom. 8:17b].  In St. Paul's theology it is clear that Christ continues to suffer in His Body the Church, and that He will continue to do so until He achieves His fullness (pleroma).  For St. Paul it is only through "the fellowship of His sufferings" [Phil. 3:10a], that we come to know Christ, and are thus "conformed to His death" [Phil. 3:10b].

          The ontological unity existing between the Head and the Body, between Christ and His members, explains why St. Paul is able to tell the Church in Colossae that, "Now I rejoice in my sufferings for your sake and in my flesh I do my share on behalf of His Body (which is the Church) in filling up that which is lacking in Christ's afflictions" [Col. 1:24].  In saying this St. Paul does not mean to say that Christ's work as Head is insufficient; instead, he is saying that Christ's work is incomplete in His Mystical Body the Church.  Origen clearly taught this idea in a homily on Leviticus, where he said that:

          Since we are all His Body, and are called His members,

          therefore as long as some of us are not yet perfectly 

          subject [to God], He Himself is said not to be subject.  

          But when He shall have consummated His work, and 

          shall have brought the whole of His creation to the 

          highest perfection, then He shall be said to be subject

          in those whom He has subjected to the Father, and in 

          whom He has fulfilled the work appointed unto Him by

          the Father, so that God might be all things in all men. 

          [Mersch, 259]

So while it is true that Christ as Head of the Body is perfect and His sufferings are all sufficient; it is also true that Christ in His members is still imperfect and has not yet achieved the fullness of His sufferings.  In this same vein St. Augustine in his commentary on Psalm 62 said:

          What does the scripture mean when it tells us of the

          body of one man so extended in space that all can 

          kill him?  We must understand these words of ourselves,

          of our Church, of the Body of Christ.  For Jesus Christ 

          is one man, having a Head and a Body.  The Saviour of

          the Body and the members of the Body are two in one 

          flesh, and in one voice, and in one passion, and, when

          iniquity shall have passed away, in one repose.

          And so the passion of Christ is not in Christ alone; and

          yet the passion of Christ is in Christ alone.  For if in 

          Christ you consider both the Head and the Body, then 

          Christ's passion is in Christ alone; but if by Christ you 

          mean only the Head, then Christ's passion is not in 

          Christ alone. For if the sufferings of Christ are in Christ 

          alone, [that is in the Head alone; why does a certain 

          member of Him, Paul the Apostle, say, "In my flesh

          I complete what is lacking in Christ's afflictions?"].  

          Hence if you are in the members of Christ, all you who

          hear me, and even you who hear me not (though you 

          do hear me, if you are united with the members of 

          Christ), whatever you suffer at the hands of those who

          are not members of Christ, was lacking to the sufferings

          of Christ.  It is added precisely because it was lacking.  

          You fill up the measure, you do not cause it to overflow.

          You will suffer just so much as must be added of your

          sufferings to the complete passion of Christ, who 

          suffered as our Head and who continues still to suffer in

          His members, that is, in us.  Into this common treasury 

          each pays what he owes, and according to each one's 

          ability we all contribute our share of suffering.  The full

          measure of the Passion will not be attained until the 

          end of the world. [Mersch, 424-425, and the bracketed

          portion is from the NPNF, 1st Series, v. 8, p. 251-252]

St. Augustine restates this idea in his homily on the Gospel pericope where Christ sweats blood while praying before His passion; in reference to that text St. Augustine said, "What is this blood streaming from His whole Body but the martyrdom of the whole Church?" [LOTH, 382].

The Union of the Church with Christ through Prayer

          In my talk I may have given the false impression that it is only through suffering that the Church is one with Christ, it was not my intention to limit it to this one aspect alone.  Though the union with Christ through suffering is the easiest to prove, from both scripture and the patristical tradition, it is not the only connection.  St. Augustine gives an additional example of the unity of Christ and the Church in his sermon on Psalm 86.  In it he says that:

          [Christ] prays for us, as our Priest; He prays in us, as 

          our Head; He is prayed to by us, as our God.  Let us 

          therefore recognize in Him our words, and His words 

          in us.  He is prayed to in the form of God, in the form

          of a servant He prays; there the Creator, here created;

          assuming unchanged the creature, that it might be 

          changed, and making us with Himself one Man, Head 

          and Body.  Therefore we pray to Him, through Him, in

          Him; and we speak with Him, and He speaks with us; 

          we speak in Him, and He speaks in us. [NPNF, 1st 

          Series, v. 8, p. 410] 

So the prayer of the Church is the prayer of Christ Himself, and thus it is clear that the union between Christ and the Church is not found in suffering alone, but is found also in prayer and supplication.  In addition to this, Christ is also present in the Church through the celebration of the sacraments as Pope St. Leo indicated, when he wrote that, ". . . our Redeemer's visible presence has passed into the sacraments. Our faith is nobler and stronger because sight has been replaced by a doctrine whose authority is accepted by believing hearts, enlightened from on high" [LOTH, 621].  The Church is also connected to Christ in glory as St. Augustine points out, "We with Him are in heaven through hope, He Himself is with us on earth through love" [NPNF, 1st Series, v. 8, p. 210].  I hope this clarifies what may have been a weakness in my oral presentation.

Conclusion

          In conclusion I would like to point out that the union between Christ and the Church is such that the doctrine of the "communicatio idiomatum" (i.e. the communication of properties between the two natures in the one person of Christ) extends into the ecclesiological teaching of the ancient Catholic Fathers.  Earlier in the semester you pointed out what some individuals perceive to be a Christological problem in Mark 13:32; in that verse it is said that not even the Son of Man knows the day and hour of the end of the world.  But Pope St. Gregory the Great shows that this verse, as interpreted by Church tradition, does not pose a problem because it does "not [refer] to the said Son with respect to His being the Head, but with respect to His Body, which we are" [NPNF, 2nd Series, v. 13, p. 48].  Scripture must always be viewed in the light of tradition as the Fathers of the Second Vatican Council said, "It is clear, therefore, that Sacred Tradition, Sacred Scripture and the Magisterium of the Church, in accord with God's most wise design, are so linked and joined together that one cannot stand without the others, and that all together and each in its own way under the action of the one Holy Spirit contribute effectively to the salvation of souls" [Dei Verbum, #10].

BIBLIOGRAPHY

Louis Bouyer.  The Paschal Mystery.  (Chicago:  Henry Regnery Company, 1950).

Roy Joseph Deferrari (Editor).  The Fathers of the Church.  (New York:  Fathers of the Church, Inc., 1953).  Volume 21.  St. Augustine's Confessions.

Roy Joseph Deferrari (Editor).  The Fathers of the Church.  (New York:  Fathers of the Church, Inc., 1955).  Volume 30.  St. Augustine's Letters 165-203.

Emile Mersch, S.J.  The Whole Christ.  (Milwaukee:  The Bruce Publishing Company, 1938).

John Adam Moehler.  Symbolism or the Exposition of the Doctrinal Differences Between Catholics and Protestants.  (New York:  Benziger Brothers, 1906).

Philip Schaff (Editor).  The Nicene and Post-Nicene Fathers.  (Peabody:  Hendrickson Publishers, 1994).  28 Volumes.

The Documents of Vatican II.  Dogmatic Constitution on Divine Revelation.  (Boston:  St. Paul Books and Media, 1965).

The Liturgy of the Hours.  The Office of Readings, According to the Roman Rite.  (Boston:  St. Paul Editions, 1983).

Biblical Translations:

The New American Standard Bible.  (New York:  University of Cambridge Press, 1977).

The Bible:  Revised Standard Version.  (New York:  American Bible Society, 1971).  

Abbreviations:

          FC:  The Fathers of the Church

          NPNF:  The Nicene and Post-Nicene Fathers

          LOTH:  The Liturgy of the Hours

The Conversion of St. Paul and the Unity of Christ and the Church

by Steven Todd Kaster

San Francisco State University

Philosophy 504:  The History of Christian Thought

Professor J. Glanville

8 December 1998

Copyright © 1998-2025 Steven Todd Kaster