Chapter One:

  The Mystical Body Prefigured in the Old Testament

I.

                The incorporation of mankind in Christ is, before all else, a work of unity: unity of all men with God, unity of all men among themselves, and this unity is brought about by the union of all men with Christ. It is under this aspect of unity that the Mystical Body appears in its very origins and in the first documents that speak of it.

                These documents are the most ancient books of Scripture, the writings of the Old Testament. We shall begin our study with them. However, the Scripture itself warns us that in order clearly to understand the Old Testament, we need the light shed upon it by the New. Novum in vetere latet, vetus in novo patet, as theologians say, “the new is hidden in the old, the old is revealed in the new.”

                We shall, therefore, follow this detour, or rather, this only way; it will give us a comprehensive view of our horizons. Nor is it long; in order to determine the proper point of view, we need but read and reflect upon two passages of St. Paul which furnish the theological introduction to our study of the Old Testament.

                The first of these passages is the prologue of the Epistle to the Ephesians; we learn that from the creation of the world, that is, from the moment that God’s plan concerning the finite was put into operation, there was already question of the Mystical Body.

The Apostle may have been thinking of certain errors which were being propagated in Asia Minor, and which, with their genealogies of angels and of eons, and their precepts respecting the use of material creatures, doubtless embodied a doctrine on the origin of the physical world, or creation. At all events, in writing to these churches, Paul considers it necessary to explain at once the Christian concept of creation.

                As far as we can judge, he places himself at the instans rationis when God foresaw original sin, and he tells us what was then God’s will concerning our race. Now, insists Paul, what God willed was not to create a purely natural humankind in a profane world, but to raise up a race of men that should be blessed, chosen and beloved in Christ; in other words, a race that should be incorporated into the Mystical Body.

                The manner of being, therefore, that God willed for man was an esse in Christo, an existence in Christ. Human ontology, viewed in its origins, was in reality a supernatural ontology, an ontology of members destined to be joined together in a body; we have existence in order that we may become members of the Saviour.

Thus, even the creation of the world speaks to us of grace; it speaks of a union with God which is offered to us; it speaks of Christ, Head and Body. Filled with wonder at this spectacle, Paul opens his Epistle with a song of thanksgiving. 

    Paul, an apostle of Christ Jesus by the will of God, to the saints that are at Ephesus, the faithful in Christ Jesus: grace to you and peace from God our Father and the Lord Jesus Christ.

 And the hymn breaks forth immediately:

     Blessed be the God and Father of our Lord Jesus Christ, who hath blessed us with every spiritual blessing on high in Christ. Yea, in Him He singles us out before the foundation of the world, that we might be holy and blameless in His sight. In love He predestinated us to be adopted as His sons through Jesus Christ, according to the good pleasure of His will. (1)

Creation is for Paul so intrinsically Christian that he returns again to

this loving design, conceived by God before the foundation of the world. For from the very beginning Christ is the term and center of all; all things were created in Him, and all subsist in Him.

                The role of Christ, and the concept of the Mystical Body that follows from it, are at once cosmological and ecclesiological. That which makes Christ the first-born of every creature, explains Paul, likewise makes Him Head of the whole Church; He is the supernatural unity of all creation, as He is the unity of the supernatural work which was God’s purpose in creation. We shall frequently meet with these two concepts in the course of our study; hence the need of drawing attention thus early to their close solidarity.

                Here, we are at the very foundations of the doctrine, What the first verse of Genesis is for a religious understanding of the universe: “In the beginning God created heaven and earth”; and what the prologue of St. John’s Gospel is for an understanding of the Word: “in the beginning was the Word”---these opening lines of the Epistle to the Ephesians are for the doctrine of our elevation to the supernatural order and our incorporation into Christ. They tell us that God, who in the beginning made all things, loved us, at the beginning of all His graces, in the Word, who was in the beginning.

                Just as in God there is a pre-existence of Christ in relation to the Incarnation and creation, so there is in Christ a pre-existence of the Mystical Body in relation to all things that are created: the two are inseparable. So, too, as soon as the unity of the Christians begins to appear in the Old Testament, and still more when it reaches its consummation at the end of time, that unity does not so much rise from earth as it descends from heaven, where, in a certain sense, it is realized in advance. In the Apocalypse, St. John sees it coming down from heaven: it is the new Jerusalem that comes, adorned as a bride; and this heavenly Jerusalem, St. Paul assures us, is our Mother. As the streams that flow upon the earth have their prime source in the clouds of heaven, so the Church, by which we live here below, has her beginning in the glory of eternity, in Jesus Christ.

                After the eternal decrees---if we may employ the term after for what is eternal---after these decrees, came the fulfillment. God created man, and Adam was the preparation and the figure of the Man-God who was to come.

                This point merits special attention. The parallel of the two Adams was already pointed out by St. Paul, and the idea was destined to become familiar to Tradition. As a matter of fact, it is expressed by the simple representation of the skull at the foot of nearly every crucifix.

                It is important to note that in this parallel the Christ who is compared with Adam is not an isolated individual, but one who possesses within Himself the life of regenerated humanity; in other words, it is the Mystical Christ. The comparison signifies, therefore, that the inclusion of men in their first father was the prototype and the figure of their incorporation in the one Saviour.

                Adam forfeited the divine gift both for himself and for us. But this defection had been foreseen, and God’s plan continued to work itself out in spite of us, as it were. However, in our race, henceforth laden with sin, the full realization of the divine plan would come but slowly, amid sufferings which our nature would not have known but for sin.

                This realization of the design of God is related in the books of the Old Testament. But, we must repeat: even here the message can be read clearly only in the light of the New Testament. Once more Paul is God’s interpreter.

                We find the explanation in the Epistle to the Galatians. Certain Jews had come into the young Church, and were sowing the seeds of alarm. They maintained that the promises made by God in the Old Law were for the Jews alone, and that Christians were excluded unless they submitted to circumcision.

                As if God were not already thinking both of His Son who was to come upon the earth and of those whom He would make members of His Son, when He made the Old Covenant! To reassure the Christians, the Mystical Body of Christ, Paul shows that they were already referred to in the Old Testament. 

    The Scripture foresaw that it was through faith that God would justify the Gentiles and foretold to Abraham, ‘in thee shall all the nations be blessed.’ And so they that are of faith are blessed with faithful Abraham. 

This point required more conclusive proof. Note Paul’s argument: 

    Brethren, I speak in human terms. Still, when a man’s will hath been ratified, no one maketh it void or addeth thereto. Now the promises were spoken to Abraham ‘and to his seed’. It saith not, ‘and to his seeds’, as though there were many, but as of one, ‘and to his seed’; which seed is Christ. (2) 

The will or testament to which St. Paul alludes does not consist

exclusively in the compact which God had made with Abraham; it appears to embrace all the promises given by Yahweh to His people. In other words, it is the entire Old Testament. In fact, it was the whole of the Old Testament that constituted Israel’s greatness; hence, it would seem that the Jewish zealots were using the entire Old Testament as an argument against the Christians. And it was the Old Testament as a whole that had to be explained. Accordingly it is to be thought that Paul is considering here the entire Old Testament in its most solemn moment; namely, in the promises made to Abraham.

                This whole testament, he explains, is meant for the Christians, for they are the true seed of Abraham. God made the covenant primarily with Christ, and they are united with Christ. Is not Christ the term toward which the whole Law is directed, and to which it leads the souls of men, by its prophecies as well as by its precepts?

                In the Epistle to the Galatians, the Apostle proves this point with a rapidity that one would be tempted to call presumptuous, did not the very abruptness of the argument point to an intuition from the Holy Spirit who inspired the writer.

                The seed of Abraham, Paul declares, is designated by a word, sperma, which the Scripture consistently employs in the singular. Therefore this seed can include but one man; and this one man can be none other than Christ. Hence it is with Christ, and with Him alone, that the covenant was made.

                But, one may object, the fact that a certain word is used always in the singular merely proves that here we have to deal with a peculiar Hebrew idiom. Granted; but God, who created language together with all other things, may very well speak to us, if He so wills, even by means of grammar and the dictionary. If He tells us that He was thinking of a certain thing---no matter how stupendous that thing may be---and if He chooses in addressing us to use one word rather than another, and even supervises the formation of that particular word, He knows it, and we know it too, because He tells us about it. Or must we say that the history of words has the right to remain a totally profane subject?

                However, the Apostle does not dwell upon his argument, but passes immediately to its consequence. If the sole heir of the promises is Christ, then we, too, are that heir, since we are in Christ.

                These words are full of doctrinal significance, and we shall have occasion to return to them when we consider St. Paul’s own teaching on the Mystical Body. All the Christians, he says, have put on Christ; they are taken up together in Him; in a mystical sense, they are He. Therefore the promises were made to them, as they were made to Him. But they and He, they in Him, make up the Mystical Body. Consequently, it is to the Mystical Body that the whole of the Old Testament leads.

                This is a thought dear to the Apostle, and one that Tradition has been careful not to lose. As creation is ‘Christian’, so is the Old Testament ‘Christian’. The Mystical Body had its beginning in Abel, even in Adam, and all the pages of the ancient alliance tell us how, little by little, it was formed.

This is the principle that must be insisted upon from the outset: the Old Testament in its entirety is concerned with Christ alone, and with us in Christ.

                Were we dealing with an ordinary book, such a principle would, of course, be unacceptable; for how can one hope to find the meaning intended by one author, in another author who wrote centuries later? The case of the word seed, sperma, is striking; have we any right to look for the explanation of a particular term in a work that appeared some two thousand years after that term was used?

                Certainly not. But the Scripture is no ordinary book. It is inspired; that is to say, it has but one principal author, and, when need arises, this author is always able to complete and explain His meaning; and further, He remains forever in His Church, to interpret His own meaning.

Now it is precisely the fact of inspiration that gives the Scripture its value for us, and makes it competent to speak of a subject so mysterious as is that of Christ living in us by grace. Therefore we take the Scripture, and we intend to study the Scripture, together with the rays of light which it provides in order to make its meaning clear. Indeed, without this help it would be unintelligible. 

II. 

                Now, with the aid of those rays of light which we have discovered, it remains for us to see how the Old Testament actually does speak of Christ, and how it represents that union which even then God was preparing to establish between man and Himself in His well-beloved Son.

                Alas, we must confess at once that despite these helps, our findings amount to very little. To exploit the treasures of the Old Testament would require an intimate knowledge very difficult to attain in our day, when scholars are still deep in research, and a knowledge, too, which we do not claim to possess. Such a task would also demand much labor and meditation, which we have preferred to devote to the New Testament. Vetus in novo patet, “the old is revealed in the new”. Here, research is more easy and more fruitful; whatever indications we might with great difficulty have gleaned from the Law and the Prophets, we find more clearly and more completely expressed in the New Testament.

                Hence a brief outline will suffice. Nevertheless, some such outline is necessary, since, in God’s plan, the Law and the Prophets are an introduction to the Gospel. We can better understand the nature of the union which Christians have with one another and with God in Christ, if we first consider how this union was prepared.

                Now, the preparation for his union, or rather, its commencement, is the union that God established through the Old Covenant; first among His faithful, the children of Abraham, and then between Himself and all of them. It is of this twofold union that we shall now speak.

                First, then, we have to consider the union of the faithful among themselves. At the beginning, the Scripture shows us, those who believe form but one family. If, later on, they are to become a people, this people must, nevertheless, remain united round the same hearth, as it were. In the eyes of God they are one, one whole, a single inheritance, a single field. Again, they are one living organism, one vineyard, according to the Scriptural metaphor. 

                Let me sing for my Loved One

                The song of my Loved One concerning His vineyard.

                My Loved One had a vineyard

                On a fertile hill.

                …He expected it to yield grapes,

                But it yielded wildlings.

                …The vineyard of Yahweh of hosts is he house of Israel,

                And the men of Judah are His cherished plantation. (3) 

The figure of the vineyard is frequent and traditional. It has even passed from the Old Testament into the New. For us today Israel is the vineyard of Yahweh, the vineyard that failed to bring forth fruit, the vineyard to which God sent His Son in vain; no, not in vain, because He was done to death. And today, the Church, the new Israel, considers herself as the vineyard.

                Israel, says the Scripture again, is the flock of Yahweh: 

                As cattle going down to the valley,

                So did the spirit of the Lord lead them. (4) 

                The whole people is a sheep that God loves, a little worn on which He has taken pity. Still more frequently, Israel is but a single person. Together, the children of Israel are the bride of Yahweh; they are the spouse whom He has chosen and adorned with His gifts. 

                As the bridegroom rejoices over the bride,

                So shall thy God rejoice over thee. (5) 

Thus saith the Lord of hosts: ‘I am jealous for Sion with a great jealousy, and with a great indignation am I jealous for her.’ (6) 

                The prophet Ezechiel is bid to deliver this message from Yahweh to Jerusalem: 

    Thy father was an Amorrhite, and thy mother a Cethite….Thou wast cast out upon the face of the earth, in the abjection of thy soul, in the day that thou wast born….And I passed by thee, and see thee….I caused thee to multiply as the bud of the field: and thou didst increase and grow great, and…wast made exceeding beautiful. (7) 

And the allegory continues: God adorns His bride; but she is faithless.

Jerusalem abandons Yahweh; she forgets the love of her youth, and gives herself over to the idols of the nations. So Yahweh forsakes her, punishes her, and delivers her up to desolation and to ruin. But His wrath endures only for a time: He returns to recall His spouse, forever. 

                For a small moment have I forsaken thee,

                But with great mercies will I gather thee.

            In a moment of indignation have I hid My face a little while

                          from thee,

                But with everlasting kindness have I had mercy on thee,

                Said the Lord thy Redeemer. (8)

                 As He had sworn to Noe, Yahweh swears a second time:

                 So have I sworn not to be angry with thee,

                And not to rebuke thee.

                For the mountains shall be moved,

                And the hills shall tremble;

                But My mercy shall not depart from thee,

                And the covenant of My peace shall not be moved:

                Said the Lord that hath mercy on thee. (9)

                This divine assurance has ever been the joy of devout souls, first among the Jews, then among Christians; they have loved to meditate on the Canticle of Canticles especially, where God declares His tender affection for humanity, for the Church, for every soul, and where, in authentic and inspired language, humanity itself describes the intimate union which it enjoys with its God:

                Let him kiss me with the kiss of his mouth….

                As the lily among thorns, so is my love among the daughters….

                The voice of my Beloved! Behold he cometh leaping upon the

                    Mountains….

                Come from Libanus, my spouse, come from Libanus, come….

                Thou hast wounded my heart, my sister, my spouse!

                Thou hast wounded my heart with one of thy eyes. (10)

                Even for Christians, who have some idea of how dearly God has loved the world, these verses continue to be a stirring revelation of how intense is the love of the Lord and how ardent is His desire to be near His creature, and to be one with it.

                Elsewhere the people is considered as a widow, or again as a fruitful mother who bears Yahweh many children. We recall the magnificent apostrophe of Isaias:

                Arise, be enlightened, O Jerusalem: for thy light is come,

                And the glory of the Lord is risen upon thee….

                Lift up thy eyes round about, and see:

                All these are gathered together, they are come to thee:

                Thy sons shall come from afar,

                And thy daughters shall rise up at thy side. (11) 

                Often, too, the Scripture describes the chosen people as forming but one man, one elect of Yahweh, a servant. God tells him:

                Thou Israel, art My servant,

                Jacob whom I have chosen,

                The seed of Abraham My friend:

                In whom I have taken thee from the ends of the earth,

                And from the remote parts thereof have called thee,

                And said to thee: Thou art My servant.

                And I have chosen thee, and have not cast thee away.

                Fear not, for I am with thee:

                Turn not aside, for I am thy God.

                …Behold all that fight against thee

                Shall be confounded and ashamed;

                They shall be as nothing,

                And the men shall perish that strive against thee.

                ….For I am the Lord thy God,

                Who take thee by the hand,

                And say to thee: Fear not,

                I have helped thee.

                Fear not, thou worm of Jacob,

                You that are dead of Israel:

                I have helped thee, saith the Lord,

                And thy Redeemer the Holy One of Israel. (12) 

                To Yahweh, all the Israelites together are a son. At times the name “son” is reserved to the king, as the official representative of the people. But often it is the people, considered as a whole, that is the son of Yahweh; Israel is the well beloved, the nursling, the first-born, the favorite son, and even the pampered child of God. Yahweh’s love for Him is as tender as that of a father for his son. Consider, for instance, the message which Moses is to deliver to the king of Egypt; the son of Pharaoh will be the hostage for God’s own son, who is Israel: 

    Thou shalt say to him: Thus saith the Lord: Israel is My son, My first born. I have said to thee: Let My son go, that he may serve Me, and thou wouldst not let him go: behold I will kill thy son, thy first-born. (13) 

This son is often rebellious. But so great is God’s love that He cannot

bring Himself to deal severely with him for long. God always pardons, He always forgets. He leads all the Israelites back from the exile into which they had been banished for their sins. 

                Behold…a great company of them returning hither.

                They shall come with weeping:

                And I will bring them back in mercy:

               And I will bring them through the torrents of waters in a right

                    way,

                And they shall not stumble in it:

                For I am a father to Israel,
                And Ephraim is My first-born! (14) 

                When God hears “Ephraim groaning in exile”, He fells constrained to recall him: 

                Surely Ephraim is an honorable son to Me,

                Surely he is a tender child:

                For since I spoke of him,

                I will still remember him.

                Therefore are My bowels troubled for him:

                Pitying I will pity him, saith the Lord. (15) 

                Such is the unity of the people that prefigures the Church. It forms but one, one whole, one living being, a single man.

II. 

                Most perfect, too, is the union of this people with God. We shall now turn our attention to this second phase. It, too, is a commencement and a figure of that union which we have, as members of the Mystical Body, with God. We have already had to speak of it, in order to show how closely the whole people is joined together by the grace of God.

                The whole people is the tabernacle of Yahweh. Yahweh dwells therein, so that the Hebrews are, as it were, a manifestation of Yahweh upon earth. When the Gentiles see them triumph over their enemies, they will know that God is in Israel.

                Yahweh is one with His people, and He considers the outrages of which “His son” is the object, as an offense against Himself. In times of persecution, the Jews pray Yahweh to remember that their interests are His own: “Arise o God”, they cry, “judge Thy own cause”. (16) And Yahweh answers: 

                Behold I will judge thy cause,

                And I will take vengeance for thee. (17) 

                Israel’s cause is indeed the cause of Yahweh, and he that lays hand on Israel, wounds Him in the apple of His eye. This Edom and Moab will one day come to realize: by insulting Israel, they insult God Himself. He will come to take up the challenge; He will enter into judgment with the nations on behalf of His own people and His inheritance. Then they shall see that He, Yahweh, has heard the taunts that were uttered against the mountains of Israel, and they shall understand that in so doing they were defying Yahweh Himself. 

                Because Moab and Seir have said:

                Behold the house of Juda is like all other nations:

                Therefore behold I will open the shoulder of Moab. (18) 

When He avenges His people, it is His own honor that Yahweh will restore: 

                For I have spoken it, saith the Lord God.

                And I will send a fire on Magog,

                And on them that dwell confidently in the islands:

                And they shall know that I am the Lord.

                And I will make My holy name known

In the midst of My people Israel,

                And My holy name shall be profaned no more;

                And the Gentiles shall know that I am the Lord, the Holy one

                    of Israel.

                ….Now will I bring back the captivity of Jacob,

                And will have mercy on all the house of Israel:

                And I will be jealous for My holy name. 

                This solidarity is not to be something purely extrinsic. Israel has more than an alliance with Yahweh; Israel is like unto Yahweh, because he is His son and because a son is like unto his father. As Yahweh is a God different from all others, or rather, as He is the only God, and holy God, so too Israel is a nation apart, a holy nation. This the Law reiterates unceasingly: 

    I am the Lord your God: be holy because I am holy. Defile not your souls by any creeping thing, that moveth upon the earth. For I am the Lord, who brought you out of the land of Egypt, that I might be your God. You shall be holy, because I am holy. (20) 

This holiness refers primarily to the absence of any juridical defect,

but according to the teaching of both the Law and the Prophets, it also means holiness of soul.

                Moreover, by this holiness the whole people becomes an image and a figure of the Holy One of God that is to come. As St. Paul and constant Tradition affirm, the Old Covenant in its entirety is an immense symbol, and the virtues that adorn it, the precepts it contains, even the deeds it records, have the mission to prefigure Christ and those that are Christ’s.

                To search out and to develop this symbolism of the Old Testament would be a long process; we must be content with having mentioned its existence. It explains that the entire Old Law is the beginning of a plan, of a reality, of a mystery, and that this is the mystery of Christ, coming to live in His own.

                Of this we have given some indication; little enough, it is true. Much more might have been said. However, all that we could say would seem but little. For, were one to consider the Old Testament independently and to judge from outward appearances only, might he not say that the ideal of unity which it expresses---union with God, union of all the Hebrews among themselves---differs very little from the ideal of unity to which every people aspires?

                But this is precisely the point we wish to stress: the Old Testament cannot be taken alone. It is but the beginning of a message, and only the remainder of the message can give that beginning its true significance.

1.       Eph. 1:1-5.

2.       Gal. 3:8, 9, 15, 16.

3.       Isa. 5:1 ff (Private translation).

4.       Isa. 63: 14 (Private translation).

5.       Isa. 62:5 (Private translation).

6.       Zach. 8:2 (Private translation).

7.       Ezech. 16:3, 5, 8, 7, 13.

8.      Isa. 54:7 ff.

9.  Ibid.

10.   Cant. 1:1; 2:2, 8; 4:8, 9.

11.    Isa. 60: 1, 4.

12.    Isa. 41: 8-14.

13.    Exod. 4: 22, 23.

14.    Jer. 31: 8, 9.

15.    Jer. 31:20.

16.    Ps. 73: 22.

17.    Jer. 51: 36.

18.   Ezech. 25: 8, 9.

19.    Ezech. 39: 6, 7, 25.

20.   Levit. 11: 44-46.

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