De Ecclesia Christi

« As Christ was sent by the Father, so the Apostles were sent by Christ (John XX. 21); wherefore this mission of the Apostles is to be understood as containing, taken together, the office and power of ruling, teaching, and sanctifying the Church visibly in the name and place of Christ. »

We must consider first, more generally, the proper force of this great mission of the Apostles, insofar as Christ himself declares it from his own mission by the Father; then, from this very comparison of the principal mission in Christ with the derived mission in the Apostles, we shall try to understand more specifically the offices included in this mission and instituted in the Apostles through it.

I. It is manifest first of all that the words of the Lord contain not merely a theoretical doctrine or promise, but a legislative and efficacious institution; and therefore they actually confer and effect what they signify.

1°. The propositions of John XX. 21–23 are two: one, set down as a principle, « As the Father has sent me, I also send you; » the other, by way of a consequence, which is contained implicitly in that principle and is deduced from it, and is stated explicitly: « Receive the Holy Spirit; whose sins you shall forgive, they are forgiven them; and whose you shall retain, they are retained. » But this consequent proposition is evidently practical, containing a legislative institution and conferring power; therefore the premise also, in which it is contained as in a principle, and from which it is deduced as a consequent, is practical. Certainly, in act and by its very effect, the mission is conferred on the Apostles by Christ, as he himself was sent by the Father.

2°. This mission of the Apostles by Christ was made in the likeness of the mission of Christ himself by the Father: « As the Father has sent me, I also send you. » In a mission, and so also in the likeness of mission expressed here by Christ, three things are to be considered: the relation and communication of the sender to the one sent, for a mission is (as St. Thomas says, I, q. 43, a. 1) « a certain procession; » then what is communicated, namely the authority and power of the one sent, derived from the sender; and finally the end and term of the mission, or the work to which one is sent. The Lord therefore first expresses the likeness in the relation of communication: as the Father sends me, so I send you; the mission and communication are derived from the Father to me, from me to you. « Here we recognize the words of the Mediator; for he shows himself as intermediary when he says: he sent me, and I you » (St. Augustine, in John, tract. 121). Moreover, from this very mediation, that Christ is sent by the Father and in turn the Apostles are sent by Christ, there is necessarily understood a likeness, not indeed an identity, because of the infinite difference of the subject, but a likeness in the very reality of the mission: in the power, I say, which is communicated by sending, and in the work to which they are sent. Unless it were so, the word to send in the first clause, the Father sends, and in the second, I send, would have to be taken in a wholly different or equivocal sense, which is already absurd in itself, and is excluded by the very comparison by which the likeness or analogy is expressly stated: in the mission itself, in the work (as we have said) to which they are sent, and thereby also in the power necessary for the work of the mission: as the Father sent me, so I send you. « Then, he says, since all impediments are now removed, and I have determined a splendid victory, and all things have been restored (through the death of the cross), he finally says: as the Father sent me, so I send you... Here he lifts up their minds and shows them most worthy of faith, since they were to undertake his own work; nor is it now an invocation of the Father, but by his own proper authority he gives them power » ¹ (Chrysostom, in John, hom. 86).

3°. From these very things it is established that the proposition by which the mission is imparted to the Apostles is universal, and cannot be restricted to that particular power of forgiving or retaining sins which is stated and conferred in the consequent. For it was not said, I send you, that whose sins you forgive, they shall be forgiven; the words of Christ, the Redeemer and founder of the Church, are quite different. There are two distinct parts in the saying, each of which, containing a complete sense, stands on its own; the Evangelist shows this the more clearly by the division of one sentence from the other: « He said therefore to them again, Peace be to you; as the Father sent me, I also send you. When he had said this, he breathed on them, and said: Receive the Holy Spirit; whose sins you shall forgive, they are forgiven them. » In the former sentence the power and work of the mission of the Apostles is determined in no other way than by the mission of Christ himself by the Father. Now this mission is certainly general with respect to the salvation of the human race; therefore the mission of the Apostles too, which Christ says corresponds to his own mission and is like it, must be understood as general, which indeed includes implicitly the particular power of forgiving sins instituted in the second part, but not that alone, nor is it restricted to it. If any sophism should cast obscurity on this, by saying that from our reasoning the Apostles seem to be sent also for the redemption of the world, for the merit and bestowal of graces, the answer is plain. The redemption and merits of Christ are presupposed as complete, and are the foundation of the mission of the Apostles itself, which pertains to the application of the redemption and of the merits of Christ (see above the doctrine of Chrysostom): namely to the ministerial application of the merits and graces, and therefore by means and modes instituted by Christ, borrowing their whole force from Christ the Redeemer himself; for the mission of the Apostles is said to be not equal but similar. But these things will be explained more distinctly a little later.

4°. The subjects of the mission are all, and only those who belonged, and insofar as they belonged, to the Apostolic college, and (which holds always for the power to be exercised perennially in the kingdom of Christ, and therefore ordinary) the lawful successors of that college. John relates distinctly (XX. 19, 24) that the appearance took place « where the disciples were gathered together » (οἱ μαθηταὶ συνηγμένοι), but Thomas, « one of the twelve » (εἷς ἐκ τῶν δώδεκα), was not with them, that is, one of the college of Apostles, although at that time, with the traitor now cut off, they were not twelve but eleven in number (th. VIII.). Luke (XXIV. 33) names « the eleven gathered together, and those who were with them » (συνηθροισμένους² τοὺς ἔνδεκα καὶ τοὺς σὺν αὐτοῖς). Although others were present at the appearance as if concomitantly, the very manner of speaking shows that the Apostolic college is directly regarded at the epiphany (οἱ ἔνδεκα καὶ οἱ σὺν αὐτοῖς). And the words by which the mission, as Christ himself was sent, is declared, and the power in the kingdom of God is conferred through the mission, cannot pertain to anyone other than « the eleven gathered together.» This is clear from the very purpose of the choice of the Apostles and the institution of the Apostolic college: that there be an authority of mission or apostleship derived from Christ on the one hand, and obedience of faith on the other, about which enough has been said in the earlier thesis. Paul calls Jesus « the Apostle and High Priest of our confession » (Heb. III. 1); and just as in John Christ imparts the mission as he himself was sent by the Father, so Paul declares the apostleship, or mission (ἀποστολήν), and its power, to have been received through Jesus Christ: « through whom we have received grace and apostleship, to bring about the obedience of faith among all nations, for his name » ³ (Rom. I. 5). Moreover, that this mission pertains to all who are, and insofar as they are, in the Apostolic college, and to their succession, considered in common, is clear also from the fact that the words of Christ certainly hold no less for Thomas, though then absent, than for the others present, for they are addressed to those eleven (πρὸς τοὺς ἔνδεκα). St. Cyril of Alexandria explains this lucidly: « How, then, one may rightly ask, if Thomas was truly absent then, did he come to share the Holy Spirit, when the Lord appeared to the disciples and breathed on them, saying: Receive the Holy Spirit? We reply: the power of the Holy Spirit flowed into all who received the grace (of the Apostolate), and fulfilled the purpose of the giver. Christ gave it not to some separately, but to all the disciples in common (viewed as one whole). Therefore they receive him (the Spirit), even though some were not present, the generosity of the giver not being restricted to those present only, but penetrating the whole chorus of holy Apostles » ⁴ (Cyril of Alexandria, in John, lib. XII, T. IV, p. 1100). St. Augustine reasons to the same sense (to Hesychius, ep. 199, n. 10), who, demonstrating in another matter that the words said by Christ to the Apostles pertain also to Paul, gives this reason: « For although he was not yet among them when this was said to them, we do not doubt that he too pertains to their college and fellowship. »

II. Since the mission is conferred on the Apostles by Christ, as he himself was sent by the Father, we are bound by this very fact first to consider the proper reasons of this mission of Christ by the Father, and then to establish from these a norm, so that we may understand more fully the mission of the Apostles by Christ as like to it.

1°. Since mission is a procession from the sender to some term, in the mission of Christ both must be considered.

a) The mission presupposes and includes origin from the sending Father (see the Treatise on the Trinity). « I did not come of myself, but he who sent me is true... I know him, because I am from him, and he has sent me » (John VII. 28). But since this procession is that of the Son from the Father by generation, and therefore the Son is consubstantial and one with the Father according to the divine nature, all things that belong to the sending Father are the Son's who is sent, but communicated to him by the Father. « Now they have known that all things which you have given me are from you... and they have known in truth that I came from you, and they have believed that you sent me... and all my things are yours, and yours are mine » (ibid. XVII. 7–10). Therefore also the teaching, works, authority, and power in the one sent are from the sender. « My teaching is not mine, but his who sent me » (ibid. VII. 16). « He that hears my word, and believes him who sent me, has eternal life... I cannot of myself do anything; as I hear, so I judge... The works which the Father has given me to perfect, these very works bear witness of me, that the Father has sent me... and his word you have not abiding in you, because him whom he sent, you do not believe » (ibid. V. 24–38).

b) As the term to which one is sent, the offices in the mission of the Son must be considered. Although these belong to the Son in his humanity, in which he is formally understood as sent, they have a mode of incommunicable excellence from the divinity of the person, who is sent in the assumed nature and through this nature exercises these offices. These offices, and their excellence in the Son who is sent, are in general: α) power of rule: « he has given him power to execute judgment, because he is the Son of man »; « he gave him power over all flesh »; « all power is given to me in heaven and on earth »; « he gave him a name which is above every name, that in the name of Jesus every knee should bow, of those in heaven, on earth, and under the earth »; β) authority of teaching: « one is your Master, Christ »; « teaching them as one having power »; « in these last days he has spoken to us by his Son, whom he has appointed heir of all things »; « the only-begotten Son, who is in the bosom of the Father, he has declared him »; « what we have seen, we testify » (John III. 11); « you believe in God, believe also in me »; « they shall all be taught by God »; γ) sanctification of the priesthood, in which he offered himself as victim, and is redeemer and sanctifier by his own infinite merit and his own power: « he did not glorify himself, that he might be made a high priest, but he who said to him: You are my Son, this day have I begotten you »; « a faithful high priest before God, to make propitiation for the sins of the people »; « coming into the world he says: sacrifice and oblation you would not, but a body you have fitted to me... then I said, Behold I come, that I may do your will, O God... by which will we are sanctified through the oblation of the body of Christ once »; « who through the Holy Spirit offered himself without spot to God, shall cleanse our conscience from dead works »; « by one oblation he has perfected for ever those who are sanctified »; « and for them I sanctify myself, that they also may be sanctified in truth. » δ) These offices of the Son sent by the Father are taken together and understood in their excellence, insofar as by his rule, his teaching, and his priesthood he constitutes the Church for himself and the Church as his own: « I lay down my life for my sheep; my sheep hear my voice, and I know them, and they follow me; and I give them eternal life; » « I will build my Church; » « he loved the Church and gave himself up for it... that he might present to himself the glorious Church »; « the Church of God, which he acquired for himself with his own blood » (τὴν περιεποιήσατο διὰ τοῦ ἰδίου αἵματος); « Christ is the head of the Church, he himself the savior of his body » (σωτὴρ τοῦ σώματος).

c) From these things also the end of the mission of Jesus Christ is clear. The proximate end and work of the Son of God sent into the world is redemption, sanctification, and salvation in and through the kingdom of God to be established on earth. « I must evangelize the kingdom of God, because for this I was sent » (Luke IV. 43).⁵ « As you have given him power over all flesh, that to all whom you have given him, he may give eternal life; and this is eternal life, that they may know you, the only true God, and Jesus Christ whom you have sent... I have finished the work which you gave me to do » (John XVII. 2 ff.).

Finally, the ultimate end of the mission is the glorification of the Father in the Son, and of the Son by the Father. « That all may honor the Son, as they honor the Father, who has sent him » (John V. 23). « Father, the hour has come; glorify your Son, that your Son may glorify you... I have glorified you upon earth; I have finished the work which you gave me to do; and now, glorify me, you, Father, with yourself, with the glory which I had before the world was, with you » (ibid. XVII. 1 ff.).

2°. Now, to this most excellent mission of Christ by the Father there corresponds, in his express words, the mission of the Apostles by Christ, as has been shown above, not indeed according to equality in essence, but according to likeness by participation: « as the Father sent me, so I send you. »

a) First, therefore, the mission of the Apostles necessarily implies some origin and procession from Christ as sender; but on account of the difference of subject, not by communication of nature as between the Father and the Son, but as between a supreme Lord and his legate, by participation of power and communication of the gifts required for his administration. In nearly the same way the Son is only-begotten by generation in unity of nature, and yet is the first-born among many brethren, who are sons by adoption, « partakers of the divine nature » and supernaturally made like to him through the gift of grace; « for of his own will (βουληθεὶς, not naturally) he has begotten us by the word of truth. »

b) This procession of the Apostles from Christ, and their likeness to the mission of Christ by the Father, we now consider in the communication of holy rule, teaching, and priesthood, which we saw to be in the Son who is sent originally and pre-eminently, while in the Apostles who are sent they are derived and ministerial. We have as our leader, in a matter otherwise certain, St. Cyril, Doctor of the Church. « As the Father sent me, so I send you. By these words our Lord Jesus Christ appointed the leaders of the world, and its teachers, and stewards of his divine mysteries ⁶, whom he also bids to shine now as lights and to illuminate not only the region of the Jews... but rather everything that is under the sun... The blessed disciples became the pillars and firmament of truth; for he says he sends those whom he sends as the Father sent him, showing at once the dignity of the Apostolate and the incomparable glory of the power handed to them, and at the same time, as was fitting, showing the way of the Apostolic duties. For if he decided that his own disciples should be sent just as the Father sent him, how was it not necessary that those who were to be imitators of like things should discern for the accomplishing of what the Father sent the Son?... After he made them illustrious with the great dignity of the Apostolate, and, as I have just said, appointed them stewards and priests of the divine altars ⁷, he at once sanctifies them, bestowing on them his own Spirit by a manifest breathing » (Cyril of Alexandria, in this place, T. IV, pp. 1093–1095).

α) Since mission is, as it were, of legates on behalf of Christ in the kingdom and toward the kingdom of God, therefore, just as the power of rule is communicated by the Father to the Son according to his humanity in the very mission⁸, but on account of the divinity of the person is in him principal, as in a fountain, so Christ, by the very mission, communicates this his power⁹, yet in such a way that, while remaining in him principally, it is derived to the Apostles as his legates, as participated and ministerial. Christ exercises and applies his own proper power of rule in his kingdom through the Apostles as legates; the Apostles, sent, have no power except to be exercised in the place and name of Christ who sends them.

The holy and true one, who received from the Father and has the key of David, who opens and no one shuts, shuts and no one opens (Apoc. III. 7; cf. II. 28), he, for this his kingdom of David, promised to the Apostles: « but if he will not hear the Church, let him be to you as the heathen and the publican; amen I say to you, whatever you shall bind upon earth shall be bound also in heaven, and whatever you shall loose upon earth shall be loosed also in heaven. » Now, however, he actually sends them, for his kingdom upon earth, as he himself was sent by the Father. Whence indeed this mission from him¹⁰ who opens and no one shuts, shuts and no one opens, contains that promised power (and in the power, the office) of binding and loosing whatever in the Church, pertaining to its proper nature and end, upon earth by judicial sentences, which shall be ratified in heaven. Hence it is more clearly shown how the Lord infers and determines from that general mission the special power of judgment for forgiving¹¹ or retaining sins; and conversely, this conferral of special power¹² of judgments confirms what we have said about the inclusion of general jurisdiction (or sacred rule) in the mission of the Apostles by Christ, analogous to Christ's mission by the Father. Therefore when the Apostle declares that the exercise of his jurisdiction holds good in the name and power of our Lord Jesus Christ, this itself signifies that the power is participated from the mission of Christ and is to be exercised in the place and name of Christ. « I have judged, as present... in the name of our Lord Jesus Christ, you being gathered together and my spirit ¹³, with the power of our Lord Jesus, to deliver such a one to Satan for the destruction of the flesh, that the spirit may be saved » (1 Cor. V. 4). « If I come I will not spare; or do you seek a proof of him who speaks in me, Christ? » (2 Cor. XIII. 3).

β) The mission in the kingdom of truth, for whose testimony Jesus came into the world (John XVIII. 37), includes the communication of teaching from the sending Christ to the Apostles sent, just as the doctrine in the teaching of Christ himself is the doctrine of the sending Father. But to the Person of the Word according to his divinity wisdom is communicated by generation; according to his humanity it is communicated by the mission itself, which is the hypostatic assumption of human nature; whereas to the Apostles, Christ sending communicates his doctrine by external word, and much more by inner illumination through the Holy Spirit. From the very nature of mission it is clear, moreover, that this communication of doctrine is not personal only for the Apostles themselves, but constitutes the internal form of the public office of the apostolate for teaching all nations. Hence, just as this magisterium of the Apostles is wholly exercised by the authority and in the name of the sending Christ, so Christ, by sending, himself teaches through his legates; and in this way remains « one Master, Christ, » and in the Church « all are taught by God. » Sent by the Father, he says of himself: « my teaching is not mine, but his who sent me »; the sent of Christ declare: « we are ambassadors for Christ, as God exhorting through us; we beseech you for Christ, be reconciled to God » (2 Cor. V. 20).

The same reason holds for the signs of the mission. As in the teaching of the Son sent by the Father the demonstration and confirmation of divine authority by divine works is included, so the same demonstration pertains to the mission of the Apostles. He says: « the works that the Father has given me to perfect; the very works that I do bear witness of me, that the Father has sent me » (John V. 36). The Apostles say: « I dare not speak of anything which Christ does not effect through me for the obedience of the Gentiles (εἰς ὑπακοὴν ἐθνῶν), by word and deed, in the power of signs and wonders, in the power of the Holy Spirit » (Rom. XV. 18). But Christ does them as the Son and power of the Father, and so by his own power; the Apostles work only as legates, by the power not of themselves but of the sender. « Why do you look at us, as if by our own power or might we had made this man walk?... by faith in his name, this man whom you see and know, his name has strengthened » (Acts III. 12, 16).

γ) The mission in the kingdom of sanctification and in the ministry of the New Testament undoubtedly includes the priesthood; for sanctification is not accomplished without priesthood (Heb. IX. 22, 23), and the divine testament among men has an essential connection with priesthood (ibid. VII. 12; VIII. 6). Christ, the great priest and founder of the new testament, was sent by the Father to save the world by eternal redemption through the one bloody sacrifice; « for by one oblation he has perfected (τετελείωκεν) for ever those who are sanctified » (Heb. X. 14); and likewise, that this redemption, once completed (ἐφάπαξ), the same priest should bring to effect continually for ever, according to the order of Melchisedech, through his perpetual unbloody sacrifice and through his sacraments in the Church, acquired for himself by the blood of his sacrifice, and founded by him with visible institutions and invisible gifts of the Holy Spirit.

This application of the redemption and the sanctification of the members of the Church was entrusted to the Apostles in their mission, as ministers of the great and eternal priest, though as yet in a confused way, and in a manner determined, or to be determined, more distinctly by other commands of Christ. For if their mission had nothing to do with these chief and inner reasons of the mission of Christ by the Father, how, I ask, would the meaning of the word and institution of Christ the Savior remain whole: « as the Father sent me, so I send you? »

They were sent, then, so that they might apply continually, by their ministry, the sacrifice of redemption offered on the cross by the great priest, without a minister, through the unbloody sacrifice (already explicitly instituted and committed to them at the last supper) and through the sacraments (instituted or to be instituted by Christ). But through the sacrifice and sacraments not their own but Christ's, since, as they were instituted by him from the merits of his bloody sacrifice, so by him principally the unbloody sacrifice is offered and the sacraments are performed through the ministry of his legates (Tract. de Sacram. in genere, th. X). They are sent to sanctify the Church, not theirs but of Christ the Redeemer and founder, and that by the power which, principal in Christ, is derived to them by the mission as participated. This priestly power in them is therefore ministerial, by which the great priest continually carries out his eternal priesthood in his Church. « Let a man so account us, as the ministers of Christ and dispensers of the mysteries of God » (1 Cor. IV. 1). « Was Paul crucified for you, or were you baptized in the name of Paul?... What then is Apollo, or what is Paul? Ministers of him in whom you believed » (ibid. I. 13; III. 5). « And all things are from God, who has reconciled us to himself through Christ, and has given us the ministry of reconciliation » (2 Cor. V. 18, 19).

c) Now it is easily seen how sacred rule, teaching, and priesthood, from the very nature of the mission, are wholly for the praise and glory of the sender. Just as the Son sent (in his humanity) is the glorification of the Father who sent him, and he himself testified of this: « he who seeks the glory of him who sent him, he is true » (John VII. 17); so of the Apostles he says: « the words which you have given me, I have given to them... and I am glorified in them... as you sent me into the world, so I have sent them into the world... I in them and you in me, that they may be made perfect in one, that the world may know that you have sent me » (ibid. XVII. 8 ff.). And the Apostles declare: « the illumination of the glory of Christ, who is the image of God; for we preach not ourselves, but Jesus Christ our Lord, and ourselves your servants through Jesus » (2 Cor. IV. 1–6).

The mission of the Apostles is therefore, from the very mission of Jesus Christ, like an emanation, by which, now glorified and no longer to be with us in visible presence, he takes them to himself as ministers of sacred rule, teaching, and priesthood in his kingdom upon earth, and substitutes them for himself, so that they may discharge these offices for him, and he through them, for ruling, teaching, and sanctifying his Church, acquired by his blood, as long as the Church shall remain on earth.