De Ecclesia Christi

« The relations between Christ and the Church are set forth most splendidly in the holy Scriptures under the aspect of spouse and body of Christ, by which is declared the intimate union of the Church with Christ according to the very nature assumed by the Word, and the love and efficacy of Christ towards the Church, and the exaltation of the Church. For the Church is the body of Christ not only insofar as in herself she is a moral body and is referred to Christ as to end and Lord; but she is the mystical body of Christ, which through supernatural joints, visible and invisible, is united to the Head himself, draws existence and life from him, and is his fullness. »

As already appears from what precedes, all the ornaments and all the properties of the Church, indeed her very formal reason and essence, flow as from a fount and origin from the intimate union of the Church with Christ. For Christ, if he is regarded according to the humanity united to the divinity, gives and bequeaths by testament to the Church his satisfactions, his merits completed in the sacrifice of the cross, his body and blood, his whole self (« this blood is the new testament »); he joins her to himself as teacher, king, and priest, and in her, with the magisterium, kingdom, and priesthood shared, he remains perpetually. If he is regarded according to the divinity united to the humanity, he pervades the Church and all her properties and all her elements, and raises, illumines, strengthens, and sanctifies her by a manifold distribution of graces. And by this very union of himself and communication of his gifts he forms, and in a certain way informs, the Church.

Now, however, we must consider more distinctly how this union of Christ with the Church is presented to us in revelation.

I. The relation of love, communion, and intimate unity among men is found in marriage, where two become « one flesh », one moral person; each becomes the other's, and both, as parts of one whole, from an indissoluble society of life; and hence the love of one towards the other stands as love of oneself, and the good and evil of one are esteemed, and are, the good and evil of the other.

1°. Now Christ the Lord not only took up this unity between bridegroom and bride as an image of his love towards the Church; but, that it might be a perpetual objective representation of his union, communion, love, and protection by which he embraces the Church, he raised marriage, by superadded grace, to the supernatural order of a sacrament. He therefore, by the dignity and holiness of the sacrament, instituted and effected marriage as a supernatural likeness of his union with the Church; so that it might not only bear the image by the natural properties joined to marriage by God the Creator, as in the Old Testament, but that the supernatural holiness of the indissoluble unity between bridegroom and bride might be « a great sacrament in Christ and the Church » ¹.

The mystery is set out in detail by St. Paul, Eph. V. 23–32. According to this divine doctrine declared by the Apostle, Christ, who by his own union and by the communication of heavenly gifts forms, sanctifies, preserves, and glorifies his Church, is the archetype; the sanctified unity of man with wife is a sacred sign and likeness by which that archetype is represented.

a) The Apostle first states a complex proposition, to be explained afterwards part by part: in the sacrament, « the husband is the head of the wife »; in the archetype, « Christ is the head of the Church, he himself the Saviour of her body » ². Under this figure of head and body both the intimate unity and the outpoured communication are already comprehended, of which we shall speak separately below. Here Paul considers this symbol only in comparison with the other, that of bridegroom and bride, to whose explanation, property by property, he proceeds at once.

b) From the notion of head arises a relation not of equality but of subordination: in the archetype, « the Church is subject (ὑποτάσσεται) to Christ; so also, in the representation, wives to their husbands in all things. »

c) Subjection is not servile, but is a relation of the highest love. This love in Christ does not presuppose a Church already really existing and of herself antecedently worthy; it is rather for forming the Church, so that from love he makes the Church a bride worthy of the bridegroom's love ³. The greater the love in the divine bridegroom, which is the beginning of these holy nuptials, the greater it is in its effect, namely in the holiness and immaculate beauty of the bride. There, love, of which the holy love of the bridegroom towards the bride is the image, proceeds even to the surrender of himself to death for the Church: « Husbands, love your wives, as Christ also loved the Church, and handed himself over for her »; and its end and effect is the Church herself, that she may be holy and immaculate: « that he might sanctify her, cleansing her by the laver of water in the word of life, that he might present to himself a glorious Church. »

d) Between man and wife the unity is not merely moral through love, but is a certain physical unity, which demands a unity of love and must be consecrated through it. This physical unity also, consecrated by the most efficacious love, joins Christ with the bride Church all the more sublimely and holily, insofar as the archetype is more excellent than its symbol; more excellent, I say, both in the bridegroom Christ and in the bride Church, and in the mode of union, and in the gifts of all the graces by which he perpetually nourishes and cherishes the Church as his own flesh. « He who loves his wife loves himself; for no one has ever hated his own flesh: but he nourishes and cherishes her, as Christ also does the Church, because we are members of his body, of his flesh and of his bones. »

This last clause, Eph. V. 30, together with the following verse 31, declares how there is between Christ and the Church a unity as it were physical, which is at the same time formed by the divine love of the bridegroom towards the bride. The first union, the foundation of the whole restoration, is the hypostatic union of the Word with human nature, by which this nature became the nature of the Word, so that « it had nothing higher to which it could be raised » (Aug., De praedestinatione sanctorum, ch. 15), and the Word was made flesh. In this nature assumed from the human race, « the whole mass was virtually tempered together with it » (Gregory of Nyssa, Contra Eunomium, T. II, p. 45; see the Treatise on the Incarnation, thesis XLVI), the mass, that is, of the whole human race to be restored; and through the nature assumed from this race the second Adam was constituted mediator of God and men, the man Christ Jesus, so that as « Father of the age to come » he might form this same human race into the restored Church ⁴. Whence, as Jesus Christ himself, in the order of his temporal generation, is born « of the flesh and bones » of the human race (see the Treatise on the Incarnation, thesis XIV, n. III), so in the order of regeneration from the second Adam the Church is of his flesh and of his bones, that is, of his holy humanity: « Behold I and my children, whom God has given me (cf. Jn XVII. 6); since therefore the children have partaken of flesh and blood, he himself likewise also partook of the same, that through death he might destroy him who had the empire of death » (Heb. II. 13).

The whole passage of the Apostle, Eph. 30, 31, with which we are concerned, gives the interpretation of the mystical and more sublime sense contained in the other passage, Gen. II. 23, 24. In the first creation, and in the institution of marriage as the root of propagating the human race, Eve is created not only of the same nature, but to constitute the intimate union: she is created first, indeed, from the substance of man: « The Lord God built the rib which he had taken from Adam into a woman... And Adam said: this now is bone of my bones and flesh of my flesh »; then, however, on this foundation, not only for the first parents but for all future time, so that marriage always corresponds to that primitive unity, the relation of bridegroom and bride is constituted by love and indissoluble union: « wherefore (because bone of bones, flesh of flesh) a man shall leave his father and mother, and shall cleave to his wife, and they shall be two in one flesh. » Now the Apostle directly enunciates the first part, which in the literal sense concerns the formation of Eve, mother of all living things in the natural order, from the substance of Adam, in its antitypical sense concerning the formation from the second Adam of the Church, who is our mother in the supernatural order ⁵. Then he states the other part, which concerns the love and indissoluble union of bridegroom and bride, in the same words as they are in Genesis; but these are to be understood in a sense not only literal but at the same time typical, of the bridegroom Christ and the bride Church. The sense intended by the Apostle appears plainly both from the connection of the second part with the first, and from the express declaration that the literal and immediate sense, by which the matrimonial bond is signified, contains a great mystery concerning Christ and the Church. « Christ nourishes and cherishes (as his own flesh) the Church, because we are members of his body, of his flesh and of his bones. On account of this ⁶ a man shall leave father and mother, and shall cleave to his wife, and they shall be two in one flesh. This is a great sacrament, but I speak in Christ and in the Church » (εἰς Χριστὸν καὶ εἰς τὴν ἐκκλησίαν). This, therefore, is what I call the union of Christ with the Church by reason of the incarnation, according to the (specific) unity of nature, and in a certain way physical.

2°. From this teaching of the Apostle we shall understand the other places of Scripture in which the holy nuptials of Christ the bridegroom with the Church the bride are so often praised. In them, namely, there are foreshadowed by these nuptials the hypostatic union with our nature in the incarnation, and, through the nature assumed from us as through « our firstfruits », the conjunction with the Church; and then the origin of the Church from the incarnate Word, his indissoluble communication to the Church through his love and his gifts, and, from this communication, the fruitfulness of the Church. The whole Book of the Song of Songs, in a wholly literal sense, at least in most places, voices nothing other than Christ and the Church longing for these spiritual nuptials, then still future. Whence the Fifth Council condemned Theodore of Mopsuestia also for denying that « the codex of the Song of Songs has the prophetic dictation of the good things of the Church » (Hard. III, p. 86 sq.). Psalm XLIV celebrates the same betrothal. In the prophets the synagogue is indeed often exhibited as a bride, but as one to be repudiated; and with this divorce there is usually connected the description of the indissoluble union to come with the Church. « And I will remember my covenant with you in the days of your youth, and I will raise up to you an everlasting covenant » (Ez. XVI. 60). « And it shall be in that day, says the Lord, that it (my people) will call me, my husband, and will no longer call me Baali (my lord) ⁷; and I will take away the names of the Baalim from her mouth... » « And I will betroth you to me for ever; and I will betroth you to me in justice and in judgment and in mercy and in compassions; and I will betroth you to me in faith » (Os. II. 16 sq.; cf. Is. LIV. 5, 6, in the Hebrew text).

In the books of the New Testament Christ is the « bridegroom », « having the bride, the Church » (Jn III. 29; Matt. IX. 15; XXII. 2). The particular Church too « is betrothed to one husband », and is « presented as a chaste virgin to Christ » (2 Cor. XI. 2). For as there is one bridegroom, so indeed there is one bride, the queen Church; yet the individual Churches, considered in themselves, and constituting together all that one bride, are signified as virgins who are led to Christ the bridegroom (παρθένον ἁγνὴν παραστῆσαι τῷ Χριστῷ): « The queen stood at your right hand... all the glory of the king's daughter is within (in the royal halls before the king)... virgins shall be brought after her, her neighbours ⁸ shall be brought to you » (Ps. XLIV. 10 sq.). The victory and the glorification of the Church is the nuptial solemnity, in which the bride Church is adorned for her bridegroom Christ: « Let us give glory to him; for the marriage of the Lamb has come, and his wife has prepared herself; and it was given to her that she should clothe herself in shining and white linen; for the linen is the justifications of the saints... Blessed are they who are called to the supper of the marriage of the Lamb » (Apoc. XIX. 7–9; cf. Matt. XXII. 2 sq.). John saw the holy city, the new Jerusalem, « coming down out of heaven from God, prepared as a bride adorned for her husband » (ibid. XXI. 2).

II. Akin to this image of bridegroom and bride, and connected by the Apostle himself in Eph. V, is another, yet more explicit, for declaring the ineffable exaltation of the Church, by which she is presented as the body of Christ ⁹. According to this idea St. Paul deliberately describes the Church (1 Cor.; Eph.; Col.); whence this manner of considering the Church is not only common among the holy Fathers and Doctors, but is also familiar to the Christian people, and its excellence is therefore more manifest, so that one may almost say it is the Christian definition of the Church. Hence it is indeed of great moment to form a distinct notion of how the Church is, and in what determinate sense she is called the body of Christ, or, more fully, the mystical body of Christ.

In the first place, from all the passages in which the Apostle treats of this matter, and from the very evidence of the thing, it is plain that the expression is transferred, and indeed transferred from the organic human body; and in the same way it is plain that, in this sense, because it is transferred, the body is not to be understood as a part physically composing the human nature of Christ. Hence, to mark this difference from the physical body of Christ (not, however, solely or chiefly on this ground, as will appear a little later), an epithet is usually added: the body of Christ mystical. If this distinction is considered only negatively, namely that it is not the physical body of Christ, it could also be called the body of Christ in a moral sense; but the expression would be less apt and less effective for positively signifying the mode of the supernatural union of the Church with Christ, and through Christ in herself. This difference must therefore first be declared: how that which is a body and is called mystical excels, and what it adds, beyond a body in the moral sense alone.

There are indeed, both in the civil order, societies, and in the ecclesiastical order, particular communities, which by similitude with the physical organic body are called bodies, because they are composed of several men as members in diverse grades and functions, and all the members are bound together by a common end and by common means variously distributed, and so are united by conspiring powers; and they are preserved and directed by one or several, in the manner of one as a head, in the use of means, in attaining the end, in social life (through power and the exercise of rule). Whence, since all these bonds do not constitute intrinsically and physically one thing (as a physical body has organic unity from its own inner principle of life), but only the conspiring and directing of several individuals, distinct in person and individual nature, toward a common end, and so a certain organism of powers and functions; and since, besides, all these things, founded on rights and duties and on personal liberty, belong to the order of morals, therefore communities of this kind are called moral bodies. From this ground of union it is also plain that in such moral bodies of the natural order one member does not depend on another, nor on the head itself, physically in its being and in its innate powers, but only by moral obligation and in attaining the end, insofar as that end is to be attained by the united forces of several. Therefore, although the head and members of one moral body are spoken of analogically, no one will nevertheless say that the body or¹⁰ the members belong to the head; that the whole city is the king's body, the individual citizens the king's members, the army and its soldiers the general's body and members. Yet all these things are asserted in many places by the Apostle, and from the Apostle in universal preaching and ecclesiastical profession, of the body, the Church, and of the faithful as members in relation to the head, Christ; so that the principle of union and of the relation to the head in moral bodies is in no way sufficient to declare the mode by which the Church is the body of Christ. For the forms of speech and the express explanations of the Apostle are such that, although the Church is a collective body and the individual faithful are persons subsisting in themselves, individual in nature, distinct both among themselves and from Christ the head, and so the Church is not a part composing the human nature of Christ, and in this sense is the body of Christ not physically but morally, nevertheless the union must be understood to be not only external but altogether intimate, through the continual real communication and conservation of all the offices and institutions, all the powers and sacraments, all the graces and supernatural powers, of supernatural life, and finally of the whole being according to the invisible and visible elements, by which the Church of Christ formally is and exists. What is greatest of all is that all these relations are recapitulated as in a source, and are completed as on a summit, in the perpetual sacrifice and the perpetual sacramental presence of Christ according to his divinity and according to his humanity, in the Church and in the members of the Church. And this union by sacrifice and sacrament, which the Fathers, speaking of it, call the commixture and insertion of Christ into his Church, efficacious for the diffusion of life and grace, is called by the same Fathers physical union, by which we are made « concorporeal and consanguineous » with Christ (see the Tract. on the Eucharist, ed. 2, pp. 91, 96, 102). This intimate, real, in a qualified sense physical union of Christ the head with his Church, his body, is indeed to be believed in mystery through faith, and is rightly called mystical; and therefore the Church is the mystical body of Christ (cf. on the Eucharist, p. 146, note).

This true notion of the mystical body of Christ must be demonstrated from the very words of the Apostle, who handed it down to us.

1°. The Church considered in herself is one moral body in the supernatural order, and a body quickened by one Spirit. She must be considered according to the visible element, and according to the element which in itself is indeed invisible, but which manifests itself through the visible as its form, as spirit and life manifest themselves in a living human body. This unity of body and spirit, so long as the Church is still regarded as a moral body in herself, is first by the ordering to the one end of the supernatural vocation. « One body and one Spirit, as you were called in one hope of your calling. » Moreover, this unity is perfected by the fact that there is « one Lord (Jesus Christ), one faith, one baptism »: one Lord, to whom all are subordinated, and by this very fact are ordered into one body and one Spirit; and that through one faith, both in itself and in the sacrament of faith, according to the invisible and the visible element. « For in one Spirit (ἐν ἑνὶ πνεύματι) we were all baptized into one body (εἰς ἓν σῶμα), whether Jews or Gentiles, whether slaves or free; and we were all given to drink of one Spirit (εἰς ἓν πνεῦμα) » (1 Cor. XII. 13). Lastly, this unity of body and spirit has both its principle and its end, because « there is one God and Father of all ». One God and Father « over all », as principle and end, raising all up, from whom and to whom all are to be raised up; « through all (through all persons) », as principle and end pervading all and uniting them through himself into one body in the unity of the Spirit; « in all of us » ¹¹ dwelling as principle and end, beatifying now in hope and afterwards in reality (Eph. IV. 4–6).

2°. This whole unity of « body and spirit » is through Jesus Christ a) as through the meritorious and sanctifying cause. For through his merits the charisms and graces are poured into all the members, but, as befits an organic body, to each according to the diversity of the members, a diverse measure. « But to each one of us grace has been given according to the measure of the gift of Christ » ¹². Then b) the person of Jesus Christ himself, « filling » heaven and earth and the lower parts of the earth by his merits, grace, and the glory of his majesty, is as it were the centre uniting the whole Church: the faithful on earth; the just in the lower parts of the earth, both in the limbo of the Old Testament and in purgatory for remaining punishment; and finally the Angels and all the saints in heaven. « For he first descended into the lower parts of the earth... he is the one who ascended above all the heavens, that he might fill all things » (ibid. 7–10). By this description of the person of Jesus Christ as the centre uniting the whole Church, there is a transition from the consideration of the moral body in itself to the more distinct description of the mode by which the Church is the mystical body of Christ the head.

3°. The Church, therefore, is the body of Christ, Christ the head of this his body. The Apostle teaches us how this idea of the mystical body is.

a) First of all, from Christ the head there begin, and are spread through the whole body, joints organically disposed, as it were nerves and arteries, by which the whole body is both joined to its head and is in itself, and among its members, disposed, united, and held together: « Christ is the head, from whom the whole body, fitted and connected through every joint of supply... » Here we have indeed a metaphor, names that immediately signify the organs of the physical body transferred to signify the organism of the mystical body; but it is an apostolic metaphor, and so apt to express the truth: how Christ is the head, the Church the body of Christ, the origin and life and preservation of the Church flowing from Christ, and the union with Christ and in the members, and the inner disposition, are to be understood. Moreover, the Apostle himself resolves the metaphor into proper speech. Those joints of supply, by which the Church, the body of Christ, is united with Christ and draws from Christ her life and inner disposition, are the ministries instituted by Christ, or, concretely, the ministers instituted by him in his Church ¹³, and with these ministries are connected the charisms, the sacraments, and the means of sanctification. In these ministries and visible mysteries Christ himself dwells invisibly by his merits and by his divine power, and in the principal mystery also substantially, and is united with his Church as her head; and into her, as into his body, through those organs of ministries and mysteries, he pours out, increases, and preserves supernatural life, namely truth and charity, grace and sanctification, actively, or « according to the operation », into the measure of each member. For « he himself gave some as apostles, some as prophets, others as evangelists, others as pastors and teachers, for the perfecting of the saints, for the work of the ministry... that now we may no longer be little children, tossed about and carried round by every wind of doctrine... but doing the truth in charity » (ibid. 11 sq.).

b) Whence, by the power of this supply flowing from the head through many joints, both the single members grow in holiness, and the whole body makes increase. This increase, indeed, ought to be in each taken severally, but in its actual effect it is not infallible in each, because it is free; in the whole body, however free, it is infallible, because Christ the head provides, so that the supply, according to the operation in the measure of each member, never lacks its effect in all, as far as is needed for the increase of the body. The increase is indeed both in the extension of faith, so that the universal Church grows to the furthest ends of the earth, and above all in the intensity of charity, so that the single members are conformed according to the measure of operation and cooperation, and the whole body is always conformed to, and (if it is lawful to speak so) homogeneous with, the head Christ; and so in the single members and in the whole the image of Christ is expressed and Christ is formed (cf. Rom. VIII. 29; Gal. IV. 19). In this way the body is said to grow in Christ, or (from the Greek text) into Christ the head. « But doing the truth in charity, let us grow up in him (εἰς αὐτόν) in all things, who is the head, Christ; from whom the whole body, fitted and connected through every joint of supply, according to the operation in the measure of each member, makes the increase of the body ¹⁴ unto the building up of itself in charity » (ibid. 15 sq.).

c) Hence the Church is the body of Christ in such a way that she is the fullness of Jesus Christ, the redeemer, founder, and sanctifier. Thus, indeed, Christ has the Church as his own, and constitutes with her one thing, so that, though not hypostatically, she is nevertheless one moral person and one subject of right. « For Christ whole, with his members, is on account of the Church, which is his body » (Aug., de dono perseverantiae, c. 7). The foundation of this unity is not only external, as by a certain fiction of law among men between lord and slave, but is real and inward. For he himself, first, in his human nature, « mediator of God and men », the second Adam in the order of restoration, represents the whole human race; then truly, by his merits, « father of the age to come » and « mediator of the new Testament », he has formed the Church for himself and has « acquired her with his own blood » (th. IV). In this his Church he himself perpetually exercises his power of priesthood in the sacrifice and the sacraments, of magisterium in doctrine, and of rule in government, through his ministers as through instruments, whose power is a participation flowing from him (cf. Tract. on the Sacraments in general, th. X). All grace and supernatural life, all gifts and all virtues, flow from him perennially into the Church « according to the operation in the measure of each member ».

Wherefore, while he is regarded as redeemer, sanctifier, and consummator, full in the very effect, he includes in this his fullness the Church, his redeemed, sanctified, and consummated body; and therefore Christ is said to be formed and to grow in his members, in his body, and at last to be consummated, when God shall be all in all ¹⁵; « whom I again bring forth in labour until Christ be formed in you »; « for the building up of the body of Christ, until we all come to the unity of faith and of the knowledge of the Son of God, unto a perfect man, unto the measure of the age of the fullness of Christ ¹⁶; « he put all things under his feet, and gave him as head over the whole Church, which is his body and the fullness of him who is fulfilled in all things »; « and when all things shall have been subjected to him, then the Son himself (the head with the body) shall be subject to him who subjected all things to him, that God may be all in all » (Gal. IV. 19; Eph. I. 23; IV. 13; 1 Cor. XV. 28). The perfection, therefore, the increase, and the glory of the Church is the glory of Christ himself, and the fullness with which Christ is filled: « let us grow up into him in all things »; just as, conversely, the persecution of the Church is the persecution of Christ in his body and in his fullness: « Saul, Saul, why do you persecute me? » (Acts IX. 4). Evidently Christ is considered together with the Church as one moral person and one subject of right ¹⁷, so that Christ, the head, is put simply for the head and the body together in predicating those properties which belong only by reason of the mystical body. « Just as... all the members of the body, though they are many, are yet one body: so also Christ » (1 Cor. XII. 12).

d) Lastly, sacramentally, the Church is not only signified but is made one mystical body, one in herself and intimately united with Christ the head, through the eucharistic union of the substantial body and blood, and of the whole Christ, in the sacrifice and in the sacrament. « The cup of blessing which we bless, is it not the communion of the blood of Christ? And the bread which we break, is it not the participation (κοινωνία) of the body of the Lord? Because there is one bread, we the many are one body, for we all partake of the one bread » (1 Cor. X. 16).

The preaching of the holy Fathers, Latin, Greek, and Syrian, on this unity of the Church, as mystical body, in herself and with the head through the substantial body of Christ in the sacrament, is inexhaustible; their doctrine we have set out in the Treatise on the Eucharist, th. VIII, collated with th. X, n. III. « If the Word was truly made flesh, and we truly take the Word made flesh in the Lord's food, how is he not to be thought to remain in us naturally?... If we truly receive under the mystery the flesh of his body, and through this shall be one, because the Father is in him and he in us, how is only a unity of will asserted, when the natural property through the sacrament ¹⁸ is the sacrament of perfect unity... so that while he is in the Father through the nature of divinity, we are on the contrary in him through his bodily birth, and he again is believed to be in us through the mystery of the sacraments? » Hilary, de Trin. VIII, nn. 13–17. « If therefore you are the body of Christ and members, your mystery is placed on the Lord's table; your mystery you receive. » Aug., serm. 272. « The bread which we break, is it not the communion (κοινωνία) of the body of Christ? Why did he not say participation (μετοχή)? Because he wished to signify something more, and to indicate a great conjunction. For we communicate not only by participation and by taking, but also by union; for just as that body is united to Christ, so also we are united to him through this bread... Having said communion of the body, he sought again to say something closer (ἐγγύτερόν τι); therefore he added: because there is one bread, we the many are one body. For what, he says, do I call communion? We are that very body. For what is bread? The body of Christ. And what do those who partake become? The body of Christ, not many bodies, but one body. For just as bread, composed of many grains, is united..., so we are joined together with one another and with Christ; for it is not that you are nourished from one body and another from another, but all from the same. » Chrysostom, in 1 Cor., hom. XXIV. « Paul says: for we are all one body in Christ, because we are one bread, we the many; for we all partake of one bread. For let someone tell us the reason, and teach us in another way the power of the mystical Church. For why is she inserted in us? Is it not that she may make Christ dwell in us also bodily, by the participation and communion of his holy flesh?...

It is worth taking most careful note that Christ does not say he will be in us merely according to affective relation, but also through physical participation (κατὰ μέθεξιν φυσικήν). » Cyril of Alexandria, in Jn, l. X, T. IV, p. 862. « Invited to the bodily nuptials, he performed the stupendous miracle (of changing water into wine); and shall we not much more confess that he gave to the sons of the bridal chamber (the Church) his body and blood to be enjoyed?... In the figure of bread is given to you his body, and in the figure of wine is given to you his blood, so that, having received the body and blood of Christ, you become concorporeal (cf. Eph. III. 6) and consanguineous (σύσσωμος καὶ σύναιμος αὐτοῦ) with him. » Cyril of Jerusalem, Catech. IV, n. 3. « As often as we approach the body and blood and take them upon our hands, so we believe that we embrace the body, and that we are of his flesh and of his bones, as it is written. » Maruthas, in Assemani, Bibl. Orient., T. I, p. 180.

According to the divine teaching of the Apostle and the explanation of the holy Fathers, therefore, the Church is to be called not only the moral body of Christ, but is the mystical body of Christ, through the union of the operation of the charisms and graces from Christ the head into the body; hence in turn, through the increase in supernatural life of the body toward Christ the head; through the unity of the moral person, or through one subject of right, insofar as honour and injuries are referred from the body to the head (κατ' ἀναφορὰν), and the value and efficacy of the ministries flow from the head into the body (κατ' ἐνέργειαν); and finally through the communication and indwelling of Christ the head in the Church, his body, through the sacrifice and the sacrament of the real body and blood, which the Fathers call the « natural property » of the head with the members, the « physical participation, » and the « concorporation and consanguinity » of the members with the head.