Chapter Seven:

St. Paul---4. Secondary Formulas of the “Mystery”

I. Part One

It is often thought that Paul scarcely ever treats of the “mystery” without using the figure of the Head and members. This is by no means the case. In the present chapter we shall consider certain other expressions of the same truth which are perhaps less evident at first sight, but which are certainly no less forceful.

In the first place, certain verbs compounded with sún merit our attention. These are peculiar verbs, and they express a thought that is unique; they tell us what Christ does in His capacity as Head of a body, or what is done by the faithful in their capacity as members of that Body. For the Mystical Body must needs manifest its unity by its manner of acting: since we are the Body of Christ, Christ has lived and died and is risen with us, and we with Him. Now, for Paul, who is always somewhat in a hurry, the ideal is to express all these concepts at one and the same time. Naturally, he is at a loss for words. For who ever had such a message to announce? So he has to coin the words, and this explains the presence, in the Apostle’s vocabulary, of verbs, overburdened with meaning. These express the deeds and the sufferings of Christ, but Paul prefixes the preposition súv, “with”. Thus, the reader understands that he must keep two things in mind: the acts of Christ and our own, and he must think of them as one. The expression may not be elegant, perhaps; but Paul is little interested in Attic idiom! His concern is with the excessive charity of Christ; this he must exalt in its fullness.

The verbs occur for the first time in the Epistle to the Galatians. Until then, when he spoke of our solidarity with the Saviour, Paul was content with the ordinary modes of expression, which are still present, in considerable number, at the beginning of this Epistle. However, in the face of the obstacles that are being raised against him, Paul’s thoughts turn particularly to the Cross of the Saviour. In the second chapter, he synthesizes the two ideas:

  I died to the Law through the Law in order that I might live to God. With Christ I am nailed to the cross; it is no longer I that live, but Christ that liveth in me. So far as I live now in the flesh, I live by faith in the Son of God, who loved me and delivered Himself for me. (1)

Christo sunestauromai, with Christ I am nailed to the Cross, or literally, I am “con-crucified-with” Christ. “Christ died upon the Cross”, declares Paul, “and I died upon it too. This Cross has caused me to die to the Law and to the life I once led; this death has given me a new life, the only life by which I truly live. We therefore died together, and by His crucifixion I have been crucified.”

“I am con-crucified with Christ.” The expression, which thus makes its first appearance in the Epistle to the Galatians, was not to remain alone. The Holy Spirit, who, perhaps by a long psychological process, had led the Apostle to discover the phrase, also makes him repeat it often: we have died with Christ, and we are buried with Him, in order that we may rise with Him; we are vivified with Him and exalted with Him, that we may sit with Him at the right hand of the Father.

Paul uses these verbs in speaking of the death, resurrection, and glory of the Saviour, but not to designate Christ’s existence or the ordinary acts of His public life. When he is concerned with these latter topics, at most he employs analogous adjectives, as, for example, when he says that we are “conformable with Christ” (2). But such expressions are not characteristic, and they remain the exception. We may say in general that this mystical community of action does not exist for Paul except in connection with the suffering and glorious life of Christ.

This, we think, is easily explained. It is in His suffering and glorious life that Christ is, so to speak, most mystical. For then it is that He deposits His life within us; it is then that He redeems us in order to make us members of His Body, and institutes the sacrament by which He nourishes us with Himself. Moreover, did not Christ Himself reserve these supreme moments for His most complete confidences concerning the work of union that He was going to accomplish?

These verbs do not ordinarily stand alone, but come in groups, most commonly in groups of three.

  If we have “died-with” Him, we shall also “live-with” Him:

  If we endure, we shall also “reign-with” Him. (3)

  In Christ Jesus through the gospel the gentiles are “coheirs” and “concorporate” and “comparticipant” in the promise (4).

  {We are} “joint-heirs-with” Christ---if, that is, we “suffer-with” Him, that we may also be “glorified-with” Him. (5)

  Ye were “buried-with” Him in baptism; ye had also your “resurrection-with” Him through your faith. (6)

Obviously, there must be a reason for this insistence: The Spirit, who inspires Paul, wishes to arrest our attention. And, as a matter of fact, the thought which these verbs express is one of the great concepts of the Pauline doctrine of the Mystical Body. They signify that Christ’s actions and sufferings are prolonged and consummated in the actions of the Christians, and that only in this way do they attain their totality and their pleroma. Yes, their pleroma. The verbs compounded with súv express, in the order of supernatural activity, what is expressed in the order of being and of reality by the doctrine, so dear to Paul, that the Church is the continuation, the fullness, the pleroma, of the Saviour. Thus God, the Creator of all things, can make use of all, even of the structure of our words, for our instruction.

I. Part Two

            Since the life of Christ is prolonged in ours, our lives must appear as the continuation of His own. Hence there is a special asceticism for the members of the Mystical Body; from their incorporation in the Lord, this asceticism deduces the rules that should govern their conduct.

These rules we have already seen, and for the sake of brevity we shall merely summarize them here. Says Paul, or rather, through Paul the Spirit of Christ declares: Christians must love one another, since they are members of the same body. They must remain pure, out of respect for their bodies, which are the members of the Saviour. They should be truthful in their dealings with one another, for they are members one of the other. Their life is a “communion” (7), they must live in union with men, with their brethren, rejoicing with those that are glad, mourning with those that mourn, for they are all one in Christ. They must live in union with the Saviour and learn to suffer with Him, for it is by their union with His sufferings that they are saved. Just as Christ receives the complement, the pleroma of His  own life in their lives, so in their sufferings He receives the consummation and the pleroma of His Passion: “I make up in my flesh what is lacking to the sufferings of Christ, on behalf of His body, which is the Church.” (8)

            For Chrstians, therefore, suffering is one of the duties of their state of life. Nay, they are already dead, and their life is hidden with Christ and raised up with Christ. By His victory over death they are born anew to a higher life. This transformation of their being shows forth the mystical fullness of the Saviour’s resurrection, just as their death to sin manifests the mystical universality that was contained in His death.

            This view of the history of the Mystical Body as the continuation of the history of Christ is familiar to the Apostle; in an earlier chapter we saw that it was likewise familiar to his faithful companion Luke, the author of the Acts. It would serve, if necessary, as the center of a general exposition of the Pauline doctrine of the Mystical Body from the standpoint of the growth of that body.

            According to Paul, then, the faithful are no longer of this world, just as Christ Himself is no longer of this world. The things of earth are worthless in their eyes, and only the things of heaven possess value. By all that they are, by all that they do, whether they live or whether they die, whether they eat or whether they breathe, they are Christ’s.

            “They are Christ’s”, Christou einai (9). This phrase expresses, not some vague relationship of the Christian with Christ, but a new, profound manner of being, more profound than their natural being. They are Christ’s because they are of His body: in themselves, they are no longer merely themselves. Hence they should experience in their souls, not so much their own impressions as the sentiments of the Saviour Himself:

              Let that mind be in you, which was also in Christ Jesus. (10)

              For our part, we have the mind of Christ. (11)

            For them, Christ is all things: He is their hope, their wisdom, their redemption; when they die, they shall fall asleep in Him, and as long as they live, their life, their very act of living, is Christ.

              With me, to live is Christ, and to die is gain. (12)

When Christ, our life, shall appear, then also shall ye appear with Him in glory. (13)

1. Part Three

            Such a transfiguration is a tremendous change. Death is a little thing by comparison, and even creation is only a beginning. This emphatic declaration appears for the first time in the second Epistle to the Corinthians. The passage does not treat directly of the Mystical Body, but the thought of the body seems to be presupposed throughout. Directly, the Apostle is simply defending his Gospel; but the excellence of that Gospel lies precisely in the fact that it is Christ’s own work. Christ is hidden within it; Christ grows within it; in it, Christ wills to transform all things. No force can prevent so vigorous an expansion.

The charity of Christ constraineth us, since we judge thus, that one died for all---therefore all had died---and that He died for all that they who live may no longer live to themselves, but to Him who died for them and was raised from the dead.

So that ourselves henceforward know no man according to the flesh. Nay, even if we have had knowledge of Christ according to the flesh, yet now we have such knowledge of Him no longer {or, we wish now to have knowledge only of the Christ who reneweth the spirit}.

If, then, any man be in Christ, he is a new creature: the former things have passed away: behold all things are made new!

But all things are of God, who hath reconciled us to Himself through Christ, and hath given to us the ministry of reconciliation; God, as it were, was reconciling the world to Himself in Christ, by not reckoning against men their transgressions, and by the word of reconciliation wherewith He had entrusted us. On Christ’s behalf, then, we are ambassadors, God as it were exhorting through us; we beseech you for Christ’s sake, be reconciled to God! (14)

“If, then, any man be in Christ, he is a new creature. The former things have passed away: behold, all things are made new.” One cannot fail to have remarked this triumphant assertion. Of what concern are a few petty adversaries? A new life is rising in mankind; the Creator is at work. Who can arrest these all-powerful energies?

            The same thought recurs in the Epistle to the Galatians. There, too, adversaries wished to destroy the work that had been accomplished. But there will be a reckoning. At the close of the Epistle, Paul warns them that God will not be thwarted.

As for me, Heaven forbid that I should make boast of aught save the cross of our Lord Jesus Christ, whereby the world is crucified to me, and I to the world {the former state of things has been done away with, and the ancient distinction between Jews and gentiles no longer exists}. For neither circumcision is aught, nor uncircumcision, but a new creature. (15)

            The life of grace, he tells us elsewhere, is as gratuitous a gift as was creation.

By grace ye are saved, through faith; and that not of yourselves, it is the gift of God…lest any should boast. For we are His handiwork, created in Christ Jesus for good works, which God hath prepared beforehand that therein we may walk. (16)

            This divine handiwork, this second creation, is so far-reaching that, through man, it affects nature itself; the whole universe groans in agony and hope. The birth of this new world suggests to Paul’s mind the new light that shone forth upon the nascent world. But the situation is far better now than it was at the beginning.

It is the God who said, “Out of darkness shall shine light”, that hath shone in our hearts, unto the illuminating knowledge of the glory of God, in the person of the Christ. (17)

            The light of the first day was a mere creature, but the Light that now shines within us is God, the eternal Light.

II

            For the second time, therefore, the faithful have experienced the touch of the Creator’s hands. Humanity is beginning anew: there is a new Adam; there is a new race, and this new race is so united that it forms but one man, a new man, one perfect and complete man.

            This gives us all that still remains to be said, and we shall see how characteristically and realistically these affirmations of the Apostle complete his doctrine of the Mystical Body. Not only do the Christians form one “body”; they even form but one man, as Paul declares in answer to those who exalt the Law and consider the Gentile converts far inferior to the Jews.

In Him is neither Jew nor Greek, neither slave nor free, neither male nor female;

For ye are all one person in Christ Jesus. (18)

            “One person”, eis, the word is used, not in the neuter, as if there were question of a thing, of some vague concord or abstract entity, but in the masculine, since there is question of a person, a mystical person. The Apostle takes up the thought again, in the Epistle to the Ephesians, and explains who this one person is.

Wherefore remember that aforetime ye, the gentiles according to the flesh---ye that are styled “uncircumcision” by that which is styled “circumcision”, {a circumcision} done with hands in the flesh---remember that ye were at that time Christless, alienated from the commonwealth of Israel and strangers to the covenants of the promise, without hope and without God in the world.

But now in Christ Jesus ye that were once far off are brought near through the blood of Christ. For He is our peace, He that hath made both {Jew and gentile} one, {ev, one thing}, and hath broken down the dividing barrier, the {sign of} enmity. He hath brought to nought in His flesh the law of commandments framed in decrees, that in Himself He might create of the two one new man, and make peace and reconcile both in one body to God through the cross, slaying their enmity in His own death.

And so He came and brought glad tidings of peace to you that were afar off and of peace to them that were near: because through Him we both have access in one Spirit to the Father. Therefore ye are no longer strangers and foreigners, but ye are fellow-citizens of the saints and members of the household of God. (19)

            Three times does the Apostle repeat the same thought in similar terms in these verses. The statement is at first somewhat vague; you who were once strangers, God has made one, ev, one single thing. Then it becomes more precise: Christ has united you all, by creating you in Himself, in such a way as to make of you all one single new man, eis eva kainon anthropon. Finally, the statement is taken up again, this time in familiar terms: By His Cross, Christ has reconciled you in one body.

            One things, one man, one body. In this triple affirmation, the second is the formula which we wish especially to study at present. It states, but in more explicit terms, the thought we have just seen expressed in the Epistle to the Galatians; namely, that the faithful make up one single person---one new man. Moreover, the two accompanying expressions are its commentary: this new man is something unique; he is he Mystical Body of Christ.

            Paul speaks of this new man in other passages. We see that he is a collective reality; he is formed by the union of Jews and Gentiles. Nevertheless, though  he is a collective being, he perfects those qualities that are most personal to those who are his members. He brings them nearer to God, makes them more like to the Father, more hold, more charitable, and more upright. In fine, he makes them more new, in the candor of an innocence and a sweetness that are always youthful.

            Despite this twofold aspect of collectivism and individuality, the new man is one. Like the “body” of Christ, with which he is often identified, he constitutes a single reality. He is even more truly one than ordinary individuals are, for he is one with the unity of the Master. He is one in Christ’s blood, one by Christ’s Cross; in him Christ does away with the distinctions that so easily arise between personalities so narrow as we are of ourselves.

            A little later in the same Epistle to the Ephesians, Paul again speaks of this mystical man. This time, however, he calls this supernatural organism, not merely a new man, but a perfect man.

He that descended {into the lower parts of the earth}, the same is also He that ascended above all the heavens, that He might fill all things. And Himself gave some as apostles, some as prophets, some as evangelists, some as shepherds and teachers, for the perfecting of the saints in the work of ministry, unto the building up of the body of Christ, till we all attain to the unity of the faith and of the full knowledge of the Son of God, to the perfect man, to the full measure of the stature of Christ. Thus we shall be no longer children….(20)

            Like the new man, this perfect man is also a collective reality. For, like the new man, he is composed of all of us together, and, again like the new man, he explains what the body of Christ is.

            One man, one new man, a perfect man. All these phrases are powerful descriptions of the unity of the Church. But this is not enough; we have not yet heard the Apostle’s strongest expression. The faithful? Why, he assures us, they are Christ Himself!

            Paul ventures to employ the expression for the first time quite early in his teaching, in the first Epistle to the Corinthians. We recall that factious groups had caused a division in that Church.

Now I exhort you, brethren, by the name of our Lord Jesus Christ, all to speak the same thing, thus ending the divisions among you, and to become fully united in the one mind and judgment. For it hath been made clear to me concerning you, my brethren, by those of Chloe’s household, that there are quarrels among you. This is what I mean---each of you saith, “I am for Paul”, {or} “I am for Apollos”. {or} “I am for Cephas”, {or} “I am for Christ”.

Is Christ divided?

Was Paul crucified for you? Or was it in Paul’s name that you were baptized? (21)

            Divisus est Christus? “Is Christ divided?” One can feel all the pent-up indignation in the words. Don’t you see, cries the Apostle, that in destroying the unity of the Church, you are dismembering Christ?

            Divisus est Christus? The expression is so true that it has become classic. The Church, who is qualified to interpret the Scriptures even when she gives no formal definition, has found in these words the phrase that stigmatizes schism: the sin of those who withdraw from her unity consists in the fact that by so doing they tear the Saviour asunder.

            Divisus est Christus? Of course, other translations are possible; for instance: “Is Christ’s Church subject to such divisions?” Or again “Does Christ belong to rival factions?” Or finally, we might say, with many moderns: “Is Christ cut up into pieces, so that each Christian possesses a different part of Christ?” In our opinion, however, these versions do not convey the full force of the text, for the reason that they either speak only of the Church, the Body of Christ, or of Christ without reference to His Body. But the context of the passage is arranged differently. The preceding sentences do not speak of different doctrines or of heresies, but of factions and of division; hence there is clearly question of the Church. On the other hand, it is equally evident that this verse and those that follow have reference to Christ. Consequently, in order to keep the full sense of the phrase, it must be borne in mind that there is question of Christ Himself, and yet that this same Christ is the Church. The subject of the development, therefore, is the Mystical Christ, and the Apostle gives warning that to attack the unity of the Church is to dismember Christ Himself.

            That such is in truth the meaning intended by Paul and by the Spirit, is clearly brought out, we think, by other passages of a like structure. Let us consider, for example, another verse of the same Epistle. While the context is not exactly the same, it is quite similar. Here there is question, not indeed of factions, but of different kinds of graces. Alas, such is man’s nature that these differences were arousing jealousy, and jealousy always leads to disunion. To this spirit of division and of rivalry, Paul opposes the same doctrine of unity. There is indeed, he says, a great variety of spiritual gifts, but we must understand that variety well. It is produced by one and the same Spirit; it is for the good of the whole, and consequently it is for the cohesion and the unity of the whole:

As the body is one and hath many members, and all the members of the Body, many as they are, form one body, so also {it is with} Christ. (22)

            Again we find the same tone of authority, and again, there is question in the beginning of a plurality, a multiplicity of members. The author, we feel, is going to liken this organism to the union of all the faithful, to the Church. But no; the sacred text goes further: “so also it is with Christ”. The faithful are not merely in Christ, nor are they simply one in Christ; they are Christ Himself, the one Christ, the Mystical Christ.

            This is a startling identification, and again it is not a phrase that escapes Paul in a moment of abstraction. He returns to it, and repeats it almost in the same words, in the Epistle to the Colossians.

Lie not to one another. Strip off the old man with his practices, and put on the new, that is being renewed to fuller knowledge after the image of his Creator. Herein there is not gentile and Jew, circumcision and uncircumcision, barbarian, Scythian, slave, freeman, but Christ is all and in all. (23)

Here we find again the same abrupt, forceful manner of speech. Paul seems to lose patience with these near-sighted ones who can see the Church only as a multitude, with no profound unity. Is such blindness possible? No! Look carefully at these many different Christians. They are no longer a mere crowd: the unity of Christ has penetrated them and united them. They are one; they are the Body of Christ; they are Christ. And Paul rejects those expressions that emphasize the multiple aspect of the Church: he wills to hear no more of different categories of Christians; there is now only Christ, who is all in all.

In these vigorous affirmations, everything is significant, even to the structure of the sentence. This development, which tells us of the Church and of the multitude that she embraces, and in which the outward aspect of things is suddenly lost; this unexpected mention of Christ, who, without warning, is substituted for the rest and assumes that multitude into Himself; and the sentence which at first referred only to the faithful, and now, at the end, speaks only of Christ---this development, thus followed up and then broken off, reproduces, in the Apostle’s own style, the lightning-like apparition that one day had struck him down and had placed him in the presence of the Lord. Paul, who until that moment had seen in the Church merely a sect of men and women, apostates from the synagogue, and who had thought only of hunting down this multitude, suddenly found himself facing a single person: Christ had taken the place of His brethren.

This startling revelation left its mark on Paul’s teaching, and even upon his manner of thinking and writing. In certain turns of his sentences, we see Christ suddenly appear, and take up His brethren in Himself, like the fierce eagle that comes to shelter her little ones from danger beneath her wings.

III

            Thanks be to God! The gift that He makes to men in Christ is even more ineffable! United with Christ, living in Christ, the faithful are the body and the fullness of Christ; they are Christs. And being united in Christ, they are united in God.

For in Him {Christ} dwelleth all the fullness of the Godhead corporally: and ye are filled therewith in Him who is the Head of every principality and power. (24)

            This is the most astounding mystery of all. Christ is God; hence to be one with Him means necessarily to be one with God. Thus St. Paul’s teaching on incorporation in Christ includes a doctrine on the divinization of men in Christ. It is this doctrine that fully explains the “mystery” and shows how that mystery, which has eternity for its source, likewise has eternity as its term; it is this doctrine that accounts for the supreme, the most sublime, and the most essential qualities of Christ’s “body”; in fine, it is this doctrine that constitutes the best and the most clearly formulated part of the “Gospel” of St. Paul.

            True enough, St. John expresses the same doctrine with even greater forcefulness. But like the Synoptics before him, Paul also has made it a part of his teaching. One cannot interpret his message fully or show the Mystical Body as he describes it without reference to these sublime perspectives. Therefore, we shall consider them with him as our guide. However, to avoid needless repetition of what has been said in the foregoing pages or of what will be said when we treat the fourth Gospel, we shall make our study rather brief.

            We have seen that even in His capacity as Head of the Church, Christ is God. Nay, it is precisely in His Headship and in His communication of supernatural life that His divinity appears most strikingly. Paul loves to emphasize the Saviour’s divinity in just this way, by extolling His mystical function as Head.

He is the image of the unseen God, first-born before every creature. For in Him were created all things in heaven and on earth, things seen and things unseen, whether Thrones or Dominations or Principalities or Powers---all creation is through Him and unto Him. And Himself is prior to all, and in Him all things hold together. He again is the Head of the body, the Church: it is He who is the beginning, the first-born from the dead, that so among all He Himself may stand first. For in Him it hath pleased the Father that all the fullness should dwell. (25)

            It is clear that according to the Apostle Christ’s primacy as Head is the continuation of His primacy as Word, and that these two prerogatives of excellence mutually explain each other, “that so among all He Himself may stand first”. Hence it is in God that all Christians are incorporated, and the dignity, the excellence which belongs to them as members of Christ cannot exist without a dignity and an excellence that they receive by reason of the fact that in this Head they are united to God.

            We must remember, too, that according to Paul incorporation in Christ is the “mystery”, and that this mystery is the act whereby God in His mercy unites all men to Himself and deifies them all in His well-beloved Son: incorporation in Christ and divinization are therefore inseparable. This is indicated clearly enough by the passages which we have quoted in our fourth chapter on the subject of the mystery. To recall the memory of these texts we need repeat only one of the most important, taken from the opening lines of the Epistle to the Ephesians:

Blessed be the God and Father of our Lord Jesus Christ, who hath blessed us with every spiritual blessing on high in Chris. Yea, in Him He singled us our before the foundation of the world, that we might be holy and blameless in His sight. In love He predestined us to be adopted as His Sons through Jesus Christ, according to the good pleasure of His will, unto the praise of the glory of His grace, wherewith He hath made us gracious in the Well-beloved. In Him we have redemption through His blood, the forgiveness of our transgressions, according to the riches of His grace.

For God hath given us abundance thereof, together with full wisdom and discernment, in that He hath made known to us the secret of His purpose according to His good pleasure. It was the purpose of His good pleasure in Him---a dispensation to be realized in the fullness of time---to bring all things to a head in Christ, both the things in the heavens and the things upon the earth. (26)

            Hence by being Christ’s we are God’s; it is God who unites the world to Himself in Christ. Men have a new manner of existence: they were once darkness, and now they are become light; but it is in the Lord that they are light. They are sons of the day, children of light, and their existence is described as an ever-increasing brightness and glory.

            As they are light, so, too, are they life, for Christ is the Light of life; they were once dead, but now, in the Saviour, they are alive.

Ye have died, and your life is hidden with Christ in God. When Christ, our life, shall appear, then also shall ye appear with Him in glory. (27)

They are alive, and with what a life! Their life is the life of Christ; it is life in Christ, holy and pure; above all, it is an eternal life, the life of God.

Christ liveth His life to God. Even thus do ye reckon yourselves to be dead to sin, but living to God in Christ Jesus. (28)

            They are therefore wholly alive, in glory. They are already enthroned with Christ on the right hand of the Father in the highest heavens, and though they still have many things to pray for, their first duty is to give thanks at all times for all things:

And in your hearts let the peace of Christ stand supreme, whereunto also ye are called as one body; and be grateful. (29)

Sing and make melody with your heart to the Lord, giving thanks always for all things in the name of our Lord Jesus Christ to God the Father. (30)

            For the Father, in giving His Son to the faithful, has indeed given them all things, and He will continue to give them all things. Between the Only-begotten and them an astounding intercommunication takes place: their miseries are consumed in Him, and His glory ennobles their insignificance. Something undreamed of, something superhuman, something divine is being wrought in their souls: they have entered into the Eternal, and the things of heaven are now their element; they are become worthy objects of the divine good pleasure, they are holy and immaculate before God, and even the commonplaces of their everyday life are made sublime.

Whatsoever ye do in word or in work, do all in the name of the Lord Jesus, giving thanks to God the Father through Him. (31)

            Since Christ is the Son, and they are His members, they, too, are sons, sons of adoption, and are predestined to be made comformable to the image of the only Son. At their baptism they have put on Christ; with Him they all form but one Christ; with Him and in Him they are all children of God, and hence heirs of all that the Father gives to His Only-begotten.

            In the presence of the Father their attitude will be that of children, their confidence will be like that of children; their holiness and their interior manner of life will be like that of children. So sublime and so glorious is the dignity which they bear still hidden within them that all nature eagerly awaits the day when it shall be revealed. The reader will recall the magnificent prosopopoeia of the Epistle to the Romans:

Yea, creation with eager straining awaiteth the manifestation of the children of God. For creation was made subject to vanity---not of its own will, but by reason of him who subjected it---yet with hope that creation itself shall be freed from its slavery to corruption unto the freedom of the glory of the children of God. For we know that all creation doth groan and travail together to this hour. (32)

            Thus the grace of adoption penetrates even to the depths of the universe: it confers a new manner of existence upon the whole world, that vast body wherein all humanity lives.

            As a matter of fact, if we examine St. Paul’s reasoning closely, Christians are not sons of adoption so much as members of the Son Himself; the grace they have received is not a favor complete in itself, wholly separated from the eternal generation. It is but one aspect of incorporation in this Eternal Son who has become incarnate; it is, if we may use the expression, incorporation into His sonship. There is, and there can be only one Son. But, declares the Apostle, all Christians are so united in this Son that together with Him they are but one, unus, one Christ, and one son.

  For ye are all through your faith sons of God in Christ Jesus. For all of you who were baptized into Christ, have put on Christ. In Him is neither Jew nor Greek, neither slave nor free, neither male nor female; for ye are all one person in Christ Jesus. And if ye are Christ’s, then are ye the seed of Abraham, and heirs by promise….

  When the fullness of time came, God send forth His Son, born of a woman, born under the law, to ransom them that were under the law, that we might enter upon our adoption as sons. And because ye are sons, God hath sent forth the Spirit of His Son into our hearts, crying, “Abba, Father!” Wherefore thou art no longer a slave, but a son, an heir also by the act of God. (33)

            There is only one Son, but in this one Son is included the multitude of poor sinful men; and in Him they, too, are sons, sons by participation in His sonship. This participation is their adoption.

            As proof of this, Paul cites the fact that they all have the Spirit within them. Their adoption in Christ is as much a reality for them as is their possession of the Spirit in the same Christ. God has saved them

By the laver of regeneration, and renovation of the Holy Ghost, whom He hath poured forth upon us abundantly, through Jesus Christ our Saviour. (34)

            They are all filled with this Spirit; He is given to them, He abides in them, they are His temple, and the love of God is poured forth in them by this Spirit who is given to them. The Kingdom, this divine gift brought by Christ, is for them justice, peace, and joy in the Holy Spirit.

            The Holy Spirit is their interior principle of life, strength, charity, holiness, joy; He it is who guides them, who renews them, who gives them assurance of their resurrection and of the glory that awaits them; He it is who infuses into their minds the discernment and the wisdom that befit Christians; He it is who has united them to Christ in baptism, who seals their souls with the sign of salvation, who daily draws from their hearts prayers that ascend straight to God; He it is who makes them address the Most High Himself as “Father”.

            Hence they must reverence both their interior Guest and their very selves, for they are sanctified by His presence. They must take care not to give Him pain or to drive Him from their souls. If they were to lose Him, they would no longer be Christ’s and therefore they would no longer even be themselves.

            Just as the Spirit forms Christ in each individual, so, too, He forms Christ in the whole Body which is the Church: these are but two different aspects of one and the same divine operation. As Paul explains at some length to the Corinthians, it is the Spirit who gives to each his proper grace and who, in the name of the whole Trinity, adapts it to the entire organism which is the Church:

Now there are varieties of gifts, but the same Spirit. And there are varieties of ministrations, and the same Lord. And there are varieties of workings, but the same God, who worketh all things in all. But to each is given the manifestation of the Spirit for the general profit.

To one through the Spirit is granted utterance of wisdom; to another utterance of knowledge, according to the same Spirit; to another faith, in the same Spirit; and to another, gifts of healings, still in the one Spirit; and to another, workings of miracles, to another, prophecy, to another, discernings of spirits, to another, {divers} kinds of tongues, and to another, the interpretation of tongues. But all these are the work of one and the same Spirit, who apportioneth severally to each as He will.

For as the body is one and hath many members, and all the members of the body, many as they are, form one body, so also is it with Christ.

For in one Spirit all we, whether Jews or Greeks, whether slaves or free, were baptized into one body; and all were given to drink of one Spirit. (35)

            Thus, in the Mystical Body, the Third Person of the Holy Trinity is the principle of adaptation and of concord: He directs the Church’s ministry and preaching and unites the “body” to God even as He unites it to itself.

Be careful to keep the unity of the Spirit in the bond of peace. {There is but} one body and one Spirit. (36)

            The Christian community, therefore, is one in the Spirit as it is one in Christ; it is a participation (koinonia) of the Spirit, as it is a participation (koinonia) of the Son of God. For the Spirit is the Spirit of the Son, the Spirit of Christ; wherefore He must also be the Spirit of the sons of adoption, the Spirit of adoption, the Spirit of the Mystical Body.

            Here, however, we must note a point that is of importance for the theology of the Mystical Body. While the Apostle repeats insistently that the Spirit does everything in the Mystical Body and in its members, and while he even seems to say that the Spirit is everything in the body, yet he never says that the body or the members are in any way a prolongation of the Spirit or that they are, in a mystical sense, the Spirit. According to his constant teaching, regenerated humanity has this relation only with Christ and, in Christ, with the Son.

            Herein lies the chief distinction which St. Paul draws between the union of the Spirit with us and the union of Christ with us. Never does he say, as others have said or at least seem to say, that the Spirit is now united with holy souls and with the Church in somewhat the same manner as the Word is united with the human nature of Christ, and that the present era or the era to come is the era of the Spirit, as the Old Testament was the era of the Father and the New Testament the era of the Son.

            For St. Paul, there is only Christ; but, as we have seen, this Christ is one with the Church and with the faithful. Since they are mystically Christ, the faithful possess all that He possesses; in Him and in Him alone they are what He is, as it is in Him and in Him alone that they are what they are.

            There is only Christ. But in Him is all fullness: all the fullness of the divinity substantially, and all the fullness of humanity mystically. Hence, in Him and in Him alone, the whole of humanity has access to the whole of the divinity, and the supernatural society of men is united with the divine society of the three Persons who are but one God.

Ye were at that time Christless, alienated from the commonwealth of Israel and strangers to the covenants of the promise, without hope and without God in the world.

But now in Christ Jesus ye that were once far off are brought near through the blood of Christ….He came and brought glad tidings of peace to you that were afar off and of peace to them that were near: because through Him we both have access in one Spirit to the Father.

Therefore ye are no longer strangers and foreigners, but ye are fellow-citizens of the saints and members of the household of God. (37)

            In the mind of the Apostle, this relation of the members of Christ with the whole Trinity is so close that most of the texts which seem to allude to the three divine Persons also speak of the Mystical Body and of the members of that body. Several of these texts have already been quoted, but we shall here add a few more. The names of the divine Persons are {placed in bold letters} to indicate the references to the Trinity:

{There is but} one body and one Spirit, as also ye were called in one hope, that of your calling: one Lord, one faith, one baptism: one God and Father of all. (38)

For as many as are led by the Spirit of God, these are the sons of God. For ye have not received the spirit of slavery, to be once more in fear, but ye have received the spirit of adoption, whereby we cry, “Abba, Father!” The Spirit Himself beareth witness with our spirit that we are the children of God.

And if children, heirs also: heirs of God, and joint heirs with Christ---if, that is, we suffer with Him, that with Him we may also be glorified. (39)

I bend my knees to the Father…that He grant you to be strengthened powerfully through His Spirit…that Christ may dwell in your hearts through faith. (40)

He that is warrant for us and for you unto Christ, who also hath anointed us, is God; He, too, hath sealed us and given us the earnest of His Spirit in our hearts. (41)

In Christ you also are built together into a habitation of God in the Spirit. (42)

The Spirit of God dwelleth in you. But if any man hath not the Spirit of Christ, that man is not of Christ. And if Christ be in you…your spirit is life by reason of justness. And if the Spirit of Him who raised Jesus from the dead dwelleth in you, then He who raised Christ Jesus from the dead will also bring to life your mortal bodies through His Spirit who dwelleth within you. (43)

Your bodies are members of Christ….He that cleaveth to the Lord is one spirit with Him….Know you not that your body is the temple of the Holy Spirit who is within you, whom you have from God? (44)

The grace of our Lord Jesus Christ and the charity of God and the fellowship of the Holy Spirit be with  you all. (45)

            Not all of these passages are equally significant. But they are so numerous that they leave no room for doubt. According to the doctrine of the Apostle, the sanctification of Christians in Christ is a real deification, a deification through union with the inner life of God, through union with the Trinity itself.

            Nevertheless, despite its intrinsic importance, this deification is not the most prominent element of Paul’s doctrine. What he teaches with the greatest forcefulness is the means through which God gives us this divinization. This is the union of grace, whereby all Christians are made one Christ.

IV

            In the foregoing pages we have touched upon the principal statements of St. Paul concerning our incorporation with Christ. We have seen that they take on a great variety of forms. First, frequent mention is made of the presence and life of the Mystical Christ within us, and of our own in Him. Then, there is the statement, likewise of frequent occurrence, that in Christ we all form a single living body, which is the body of Christ. Again, the life of Christ is declared to be inseparable from our own, and therefore we must express His sentiments and His virtues in our conduct. According to St. Paul, we are completely changed, entirely new, wholly deified; together we constitute a new creature: one man, a new man, a perfect man, one Christ, and, in the sense which we have just explained, one son.

            Of these statements, the most vigorous is not the declaration that we are the body of Christ; for all its energy, it does not designate so intimate a union as do the brief sentences in which Paul declares that, in Christ, we are unus, one mystical person, one Mystical Christ.

            These affirmations of oneness with Christ figure in the most varied contexts. At times Paul uses them to inculcate charity, or chastity, or peace; now he employs them to help us understand what the Church and Christianity are; again he has recourse to them in order to explain to the faithful the nature of their life as regenerated men and as children of God; upon it he bases his arguments against those who claim to find grounds for hope in themselves or in the Law; in fine, he uses them to give a brief summary of God’s plan regarding the world, and of the entire economy of salvation.

But, despite their variety and their adaptation to different contexts, they always express the same reality. Paul varies the phrasing and the development only that he may better exhaust the full meaning of this central truth; and, in their very variety, the expressions that he employs possess features in common. It will not be disrespectful for us to call attention to these features, to assemble them, and with them to try to formulate the fundamental expression of the “mystery” that is the theme of all these many forms, and which God so insistently repeats to us in the sacred text.

            This general expression, we think, would be as follows: Oi pantes (or, oi polloi), en to Christo, eis or ev soma, or eis anthropos, or eis Christos: all of us, in Christ, are one body, one man, one Mystical Christ.

            Paul carries this announcement to the whole world. It has been engraved upon his heart by Christ Himself. He can always hear Christ repeating: “I am Jesus whom thou doest persecute: I am Christ in the Church”.

            From that day forward he has a message to deliver, and in his preaching we can hear the voice that ever echoes in his soul. He preaches only what he has learned. He goes about, repeating the central mystery of Christianity: Christ in us. He preaches it on every occasion and in every circumstance, in season and out of season, in sentences as energetic as his soul, as tempestuous as his life, and as overburdened with meaning as his Gospel overflows with love. And occasionally, in these hurried and ardent sentences, like lightning flashes, appear brief mentions of Christ, of the Mystical Christ---reminders of the sudden apparition that made Paul an Apostle.

            And today, when we read his Epistles, we come into contact with the impulse he received. The conviction and the motive that urge him on and which he communicates to others, do not proceed from him. He is but the intermediary. In his hasty sentences that bring us suddenly face to face with Christ; in his emphatic declarations that Christ is in us, that He suffers in us, lives in us; that He is one with us and we are one in Him; in the Apostle’s voice, stirred and still vibrant with the mystery that he preaches, it is not Paul we hear. As he tells the Corinthians, we have proof of Christ who speaks in him.

1)      Gal. 2: 19-21.

2)     Rom. 8: 29.

3)     2 Tim. 2: 12.

4)     Eph. 3: 6.

5)     Rom. 8: 17.

6)     Col. 2: 12, 13.

7)     Acts 2: 42; Phil. 2: 1; 2. Cor. 13: 13; 1 Cor. 1: 9.

8)    Col. 1:24.

9)     Gal. 5: 24; 1 Cor. 15: 23; 3: 23, etc.

10) Phil. 2: 5.

11) 1 Cor. 2: 16.

12) Phil. 1: 20, 21.

13) Col. 3: 4.

14) 2 Cor. 5: 14-20.

15) Gal. 6: 14, 15.

16) Eph. 2: 8-10.

17) 2 Cor. 4: 6.

18) Gal. 3: 28.

19) Eph. 2: 11-19.

20) Eph. 4: 10-13.

21) 1 Cor. 1: 10-13.

22) 1 Cor. 12: 12.

23) Col. 3: 9-11.

24) Col. 2: 9, 10.

25) Col. 1: 15-19.

26) Eph. 1: 3-10.

27) Col. 3: 3, 4.

28) Rom. 6: 10, 11.

29) Col. 3: 15.

30) Eph. 5: 19, 20.

31) Col. 3: 17.

32) Rom. 8: 18-23.

33) Gal. 3: 25-29.

34) Tit. 3: 5, 6. D.V.

35) 1 Cor. 12: 4-13.

36) Eph. 4: 3, 4.

37) Eph. 2: 12, 13, 17-20.

38) Eph. 4: 4-6.

39) Rom. 8: 14-17.

40) Eph. 3: 14-17.

41) 2 Cor. 1: 21, 22.

42) Eph. 2: 22, D.V.

43) Rom. 8: 9-11.

44) 1 Cor. 6: 15-20.

45) 2 Cor. 13: 13.

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