De Ecclesia Christi

« The Church, expressed according to her visible and invisible element, is to be understood as conformed to the incarnate Word as to her exemplar. This conformation of the Church with Christ is to be considered both in her constitution in general, and in her offices and sacraments, and finally in her glorification, as well begun as consummated. »

« The Word was made flesh; » and « although he was in the form of God, he emptied himself, taking the form of a servant, made in the likeness of men. » Thus one and the same Jesus Christ is God, begotten of the Father in the divine and invisible nature, and man, from men, in the human and visible nature; invisible in his own, he became visible in ours; the divine descends that the human may be raised up; God became man that man might become God. See the Fathers as collected by Petavius, Incarn., l. II, c. 8. Therefore a) there is one person of the twofold nature. The divinity, invisible in itself, manifests itself through its visible humanity: « we saw his glory, the glory as of the only-begotten of the Father; » « what we have seen with our eyes, what we have looked upon, and our hands have handled, of the Word of life, and the life was made manifest. » The humanity, through the divine person whose proper nature it has become, has been infinitely exalted above the natural order; and from this divine person all adorable dignity and holiness, and all the treasures of gifts, are derived into his humanity; nay, the divinity itself is the treasure of the humanity: the mystery of Christ Jesus, « in whom are hidden all the treasures of wisdom and knowledge... because in him dwells all the fullness of the Godhead bodily » ¹ Col. II. 3, 9. Wherefore b) from the divine person also comes the infinite dignity of the priesthood, magisterium, and rule of Christ the man, the infinite price of his sacrifice and of his merits, and the theandric dignity of all his human operations (ἐνέργεια θεανδρική). Finally, c) from the same divine person is owed to his humanity the supreme exaltation in glory at the right hand of God the Father (see on these the Treatise on the Incarnation).

I. Now it is certain that the very end of the incarnation was that the human race might be restored. This restoration, however, was so accomplished that God the incarnate Word would form for himself, from fallen nature, that is from the human race, a Church in his own image and likeness, just as human nature was at first made, both natural and supernatural, according to the image and likeness of God the Word, the firstborn of every creature ².

This formation of the image and likeness, first considered in general, is clearly declared in the Scriptures. For the God-man, the man Christ Jesus, the mediator of God and men, joining the human race to himself, and by joining transforming and raising it, constitutes the Church as homogeneous with himself, as the body in the head: « but you are the body of Christ and members from member » ³ (1 Cor. XII. 27); in himself, as on a foundation, he builds and holds the Church: « the foundation has been laid... which is Christ Jesus » (ib. III. 11); from himself, as from a seed, he sprouts forth the Church as his abundant fruit: « the hour has come that the Son of man should be glorified... if the grain of wheat has died, it bears much fruit » ⁴ (Jn XII. 23 sqq.); from himself, as from a vine, he brings forth and vivifies the branches of the Church: « I am the vine, you are the branches » (ib. XV. 5); from himself he brings forth and derives the Church, as the second Adam the mother of all living: « of his flesh and of his bones » (Eph. V. 30). The firstborn himself gives the power and participation of divine sonship and of co-inheritance to all believers in his name: « he predestined them to be conformed to the image of his Son, that he might be the firstborn among many brethren » (Rom. VIII. 17, 29; Heb. II. 10 sq.; Jn I. 12, 13). He himself is the light that clarifies; the Church is clarified and, as it were, the splendour of his glory ⁵, and is united in this light with him and in herself: « and I have been glorified in them (whom you have given me, δεδόξασμαι ἐν αὐτοῖς)... and the glory which you have given me I have given to them (τὴν δόξαν, ἣν δέδωκάς μοι, δέδωκα αὐτοῖς), that they may be one, as we are one: I in them and you in me, that they may be perfected in one » (Jn XVII. 22). Finally, he himself, rising and glorified, is as exemplar and efficient cause the resurrection and glorification of his Church, the heavenly Jerusalem in all the saints: « the head of the body, the Church, who is the beginning, the firstborn from the dead » (Col. I. 18); « Christ has risen from the dead, the firstfruits of those who sleep, since by man came death and by man the resurrection of the dead; and as in Adam all die, so in Christ all shall be made alive; therefore as we have borne the image of the earthly, let us also bear the image of the heavenly » (1 Cor. XV. 20, 49) ⁶

II. A generic description of this kind certainly does not suffice for a fuller understanding of the matter we treat in this thesis. It must therefore be asked, part by part, how the incarnate Word is set before us according to his invisible and visible nature, not only as the cause through which, but above all as the exemplar and original form, to which the Church of Christ is expressed and formed as its copy: the exemplar, I say, not separate and external, but comprising an image derived from himself, configured to himself and joined to himself, the Church being, as it were, the splendour of his glory.

In Christ himself as exemplar we have considered three things: the exaltation of human nature through the hypostatic union with the Word; the theandric functions consequent upon it; and finally his glorification. According to these, therefore, the assimilation of the Church must be considered: first in general, in the sanctification and elevation of the visible through the invisible; then specifically in the hierarchy and the sacraments; and finally in glorification.

1°. The Church is understood as the image of her founder and head, Christ, in her intimate constitution, by which she has been expressed to the likeness of the incarnate Word. As Christ is God-man, the Word made flesh, so his body, the Church, in her members, in her hierarchy, in her sacraments and institutions, consists of a twofold element: an element that is in itself human, visible, and external, and a divine and invisible and internal element, by which the human is informed and raised, and so is formally constituted ecclesiastical. Hence by the conjunction of each of these, the human and the divine, both the single parts, as it were, of the Church are constituted, and from all of these together the whole Church consists as human-divine. The gifts of the Holy Spirit are in her, so to speak, as if incarnate: the invisible becomes visible, not indeed in themselves, but in the joined visible element, which they inform and through which they are manifested.

The whole Church is the temple of the Holy Spirit, who dwells in her with his gifts and graces, informing and forming the members of the Church by faith, hope, and charity: the Spirit of truth, the Spirit of power ⁷, the Spirit of sanctification. « For you are the temple of the living God, as God says: I will dwell in them and walk among them, and I will be their God, and they shall be my people » (2 Cor. VI. 16; 1 Cor. III. 16, 17). Just as this one Spirit, with his gifts, joins all the members by interior sanctification « in the measure of each member »; so also, by the external visible effects through which he manifests himself, through the unity of profession of faith, of communion, and of the sacraments, he forms the one body itself ⁸. « One body and one Spirit, as you were called in one hope of your calling » (Eph. IV. 4). But all these external and visible things have their own proper character and value from the internal gifts from which they proceed and by which they are informed. The body is quickened by the Spirit: « for as many as are led by the Spirit of God, these are sons of God » (Rom. VIII. 14). The exemplar in Christ the head is evident, insofar as his visible nature is exalted and sanctified through the Word, and the Word manifests himself in it and through it.

2°. According to the offices and theandric operations of Christ, the image must be considered specifically in the hierarchy and the sacraments.

a) Christ, as head and founder, instituted the Church, and through the Paraclete Spirit abiding in her perpetually makes her an organic body. For many members, diverse among themselves, do not all have the same act; yet they are all members one of another, and by their nature belong to one whole, and by their acts conspire to the one end of the whole; and therefore there is one body (Rom. XII. 4, 5; 1 Cor. XII. 18–20). Hence there are diverse grades: not only of the laity, who lack active power whether over the real body or over the mystical body of Christ, and of the clergy, in whom this power resides; but also, as we now consider, by the institution of Christ and the operation of the Holy Spirit, there are diverse hierarchical orders, from one supreme (who immediately represents Christ in the whole Church, and from him participates in the properties of the supreme confirmer of all the brethren, the shepherd of all the sheep, the foundation of the whole Church), down to the inferior ones. In these, by their mutual conjunction and the subordination of inferiors to superiors, one magisterium, one rule, and one priesthood is constituted, derived in some with greater and in others with lesser fullness from the one head Christ, through the communication⁹ of the one Spirit of truth, power, and sanctification. Many are one body in Christ; yet each one individually has « gifts (χαρίσματα) according to the grace that is given to us, differing » (Rom. XII. 6); for « there are diversities of graces, and diversities of ministries, and diversities of operations; but all these one and the same Spirit works, dividing to each one as he wills » (1 Cor. XII). Moreover, all these things have this end: that the whole Church, teaching and hearing (τῇ ὑπακοῇ τῆς πίστεως), governing and governed, sanctifying and sanctified, may perpetually be, and be preserved as, the bulwark of truth, the kingdom of Christ, the temple of the Holy Spirit. All things are given « for the perfecting of the saints, for the work of the ministry, for the building up of the body of Christ » (Eph. IV. 12; 1 Cor. III. 22, 23).

Therefore, just as Christ is the truth and the one teacher of truth, just as all power in heaven and on earth has been given to him, just as he is priest for ever of his own order because he is the incarnate Word: so in the hierarchy, which is expressed as an image to Christ as its exemplar, and flows from Christ the fountain as a participation, the magisterium is of truth, the rule is of salvation, and the priesthood is of consecration and sanctification, because the human and visible is penetrated by the divine and invisible charism of the Spirit of truth, power, and sanctification ¹⁰.

b) The sacraments are one of the essential and vital elements by which the Church of Jesus Christ is constituted on earth, and is nourished and cherished by her own bridegroom, Christ (Eph. V. 29). In the sacraments the members of the Church are also prepared materially (namely in Christian marriage), and formally the Church is perpetually reborn and renewed in her members through the sacraments, healed, sanctified, and her hierarchy grows and is conserved. Hence these same sacraments are understood to be among the principal « joints of supply » by which the whole body, joined and connected both in itself and with the head Christ, « makes increase of the body unto the building up of itself in charity ». Now from this very fact, that the sacraments are essential parts in the organism of the Church, they show forth the nature of the whole Church, and consequently are copies assimilated to Jesus Christ himself, their institutor and founder. The « great mystery of piety » abiding, which is the incarnate Word, is understood as the foundation, origin, and exemplar of all the sacraments, which for the sanctification of the Church are perpetually repeated in new acts (cf. Tract. on the Sacraments in general, ed. 2, p. 34).

In these mysteries the visible and material nature is raised to the supernatural order of instruments of grace: by conjunction with the merits of Christ according to his humanity, with the sanctifying omnipotence of Christ according to his divinity, and with his priesthood as institutor and principal administrator of the sacraments, « not by the ministry of the body but by the invisible work of majesty » (Aug., contra litt. Petiliani, l. III, c. 49). The invisible divine sanctifying power is the proper character by which the sensible sign, natural in itself, is raised and constituted as a supernatural sacrament. The Holy Spirit « hovers over the waters, sanctifying them from himself, and so the sanctified waters soak up the power of sanctifying » (Tertullian, de baptismo, c. 4); « the oil becomes efficacious through the presence of the divinity of the Holy Spirit » (Cyril of Jerusalem, Catech. 21, n. 3); just as the incarnation of the Word was effected by the overshadowing of the Holy Spirit upon the Blessed Virgin, so « the power of the Most High and the overshadowing of the Holy Spirit, which made Mary bear the Saviour, the same makes the water regenerate the believer » (Leo the Great, Sermons 4 and 5 on the Nativity of the Lord; see the Treatise on the Sacraments in general, th. VI, n. III).

If this conjunction of the divine and earthly, of the invisible and visible element, in the other sacraments reflects the image of the Word incarnate who instituted them, a much fuller likeness, and a perpetual representation of the incarnation, is in the sacrament of sacraments, namely, I say, the most holy Eucharist, where « in sensible things, indeed, all intelligible things (πάντα δὲ νοητά, to be understood by mind and faith) have been handed down by Christ » (Chrysostom, in Matth., hom. 82, al. 83). This likeness is so true that the holy Fathers have often taken this very sacrament as a better-known term of comparison for explaining and defending the incarnation itself (Treatise on the Eucharist, th. IX, X).

Just as the Word, in the incarnation, was manifested in flesh through the assumed nature, so the Word incarnate, constituting himself in the sacramental state according to the humanity itself, is made manifest invisibly through the alien appearances of bread and wine. As, then, there one Christ is to be believed by faith according to his divinity, and to be seen also by the senses according to his humanity; so here that same one Christ is to be believed by faith alone according to humanity and divinity, and to be seen also by the senses according to the formal character of the sacrament in the sacramental species ¹¹. There, the emptying of the divine person was not by laying aside the form of God, but by taking the form of a servant (Phil. II. 7); here, a certain emptying of the humanity itself, not by laying aside the glory by which it is exalted at the right hand of the Father in the Church triumphant, but by assuming the state of victim in the Church militant (Treatise on the Sacrament of the Eucharist, th. IX, Coroll. 3; on the Sacrifice of the Eucharist, th. XVI, n. II). There: appearance in the flesh through birth, the Holy Spirit operating; a hidden life for thirty years in the not yet glorified humanity; public preaching by the sensible word and manifest miracles in the order of nature; the bloody sacrifice for the consummation of redemption; and all these for founding the Church. Here: a perpetually renewed presence through transubstantiation, the Holy Spirit transmuting the creatures ¹²; a hidden life in the humanity now glorified, until he comes again; spiritual preaching by the interior word in souls, and miracles in the supernatural order itself; the unbloody sacrifice for the application of the consummated redemption; all of which are accomplished in the founded Church. There: the cross, the tree of life, to generate from the side of Christ the Church living by the life of grace; the resurrection, the cause and exemplar of our resurrection and of the glorified Church. Here: from that tree the food of life, to nourish and conserve the life of grace, the pledge and preparation of resurrection and glorification. The tree of life in paradise had a bodily food and a spiritual sacrament, but a typical one, pointing to Christ on the tree of the cross and in the Eucharist ¹³; in the Eucharist itself the sacrament is the antitype, containing in itself the bodily and the spiritual, the human and the divine, sanctifying the members of the Church with the body and blood of God the Word, toward the future glorious and immortal life of those same members in soul and body.

From all these things we understand how the Church, from this eucharistic sacrifice and sacrament as from the heart and centre of her whole life, participates in herself in the conjunction and penetration of the human and the divine, while nature is informed, sanctified, and clarified through grace, the earthly through the heavenly, the visible through the invisible.

3°. As Christ constituted his Church, militant and labouring on earth, an image of himself, as he lived and suffered in his mortal life, so the glorified Church is the image and expression of Christ the glorified head; the resurrection and glory of Christ is the exemplar form and cause from which the Church participates in resurrection and glory.

The Church now indeed exhibits the image of Christ who rose from the dead, looking at once both at the supernatural life of grace on earth and at the blessed life of souls in heaven; but the perfect expression of the resurrection of Jesus Christ the head will be completed at last in the glorious resurrection of the flesh. The assimilation of the Church to the glory of Christ is therefore in a twofold stage, and the sacred books describe it to us under a twofold resurrection, regeneration, renewal.

a) Through spiritual resurrection we reproduce the image of our head, Christ, who rose from the dead. According to this still incomplete idea, Paul says: « we were buried together with him (Christ) by baptism into death (dead to sins), so that as Christ rose from the dead through the glory of the Father, so also we should walk in newness of life » (Rom. VI. 4); and to the same sense: « if therefore you have risen together with Christ, seek the things that are above, where Christ is seated at the right hand of God... for you are dead, and your life is hidden with Christ in God » (Col. III. 1, 3). This same is called in Apocalypse XX. 5, 6 « the first resurrection », considering at once the souls of the martyrs in heaven and the holy Church on earth.

But with this symbolic resurrection and incomplete glorification there is joined, in all places, the bodily resurrection of the members of the Church, and in it the complete glorification of the Church itself, as the perfect expression of the glorified Christ. In the cited passage of Rom. VI the Apostle immediately adds: « if we have become planted together (σύμφυτοι) with the likeness of his death, we shall be so also of his resurrection » (planted together, that is, homogeneous) (Rom. VI. 5). Undoubtedly, from the imperfect image of symbolic death and of newness of life in the first resurrection there follows the perfect likeness in the resurrection and final glorification. More expressly still, in the other passage, Col. III, there is shown the transition from « your life hidden with Christ in God » to life made manifest in the resurrection and conformed to Christ in his supreme manifestation: « when Christ shall appear (φανερωθῇ, be manifested), your life (the exemplar and cause of your glorified life), then you also shall appear (φανερωθήσεσθε) with him in glory » (Col. III. 4). The head, manifested in glory exemplarily, will manifest the still hidden life of the members in glory efficiently: « the whole is the head and the body. » In the same way many places join both assimilations to Christ: imperfect in the Church militant through the first resurrection, perfect in the Church triumphant through the final resurrection. « But if Christ is in you, the body is indeed dead because of sin, but the spirit lives because of justification (first resurrection); but if the Spirit of him who raised Jesus from the dead dwells in you, he who raised Jesus from the dead will also quicken your mortal bodies, because of his Spirit dwelling in you » (Rom. VIII. 10, 11). A little after, the Apostle there speaks expressly of those whom God « predestined to be conformed (συμμόρφους) to the image of his Son, that he might be the firstborn among many brethren »; and he says that this predestination to conformity embraces vocation and justification, and also glorification, which he calls the (complete) adoption of the sons of God, the redemption of our body, and the revelation (ἀποκάλυψιν) of the sons of God (Rom. VIII. 29, 30; cf. 17, 19, 23). So also elsewhere in Scripture: « our citizenship (πολίτευμα, our life through the first resurrection) is in heaven; whence also we await the Saviour, our Lord Jesus Christ, who will refashion the body of our lowliness, conformed (σύμμορφον) to the body of his glory » (Phil. III. 20, 21). « Beloved, now we are sons of God; and it has not yet appeared (οὔπω ἐφανερώθη) what we shall be; we know that when it shall appear (ἐὰν φανερωθῇ) we shall be like him, for we shall see him as he is » (1 Jn III. 2).

There is therefore a twofold stage of the configuration of the Church to Christ the head and exemplar. For the first stage it is said: « planted together in the likeness of his death »; « buried together with Christ »; « newness of life », « conversation in heaven », « life with Christ in God », but still hidden; « we are sons of God, but it has not yet appeared what we shall be »; « we have received the Spirit of adoption of sons, but still all creation awaits the revelation of the sons of God, and we groan within ourselves, awaiting the adoption of sons, the redemption of our body » ¹⁴. For the second stage it is said: « planted together with his resurrection »; « the mortal bodies made alive »; « configured to the body of his glory »; « when he shall appear, we shall appear with him in glory »; « when he shall appear, we shall be like him, for we shall see him as he is ».

b) This twofold resurrection is at the same time a twofold regeneration of the Church after the exemplar Jesus Christ: the first in adoption, which already is but has not yet appeared; the other, final, which will appear « in the redemption of our body ». Of the former it is said: « unless one is born (ἐὰν μή τις γεννηθῇ) of water and the Holy Spirit, he cannot enter the kingdom of God » (Jn III. 5); « he saved us through the washing of regeneration (παλιγγενεσίας) and renewal of the Holy Spirit » (Tit. III. 5); « in Christ a new creature » (καινὴ κτίσις) (2 Cor. V. 17; Gal. VI. 15); « that he might create in himself the two (circumcision and foreskin) into one new man (κτίσῃ ἐν ἑαυτῷ εἰς ἕνα καινὸν ἄνθρωπον), making peace, and reconcile both in one body to God » (Eph. II. 15); « you are all sons of God through the faith that is in Christ Jesus; for as many of you as were baptized into Christ (εἰς Χριστόν) have put on Christ... for you are all one in Christ Jesus » (Gal. III. 26 sq.; Eph. IV. 25, 24; Col. III. 10, 11).

Christ names the other regeneration: « in the regeneration (ἐν τῇ παλιγγενεσίᾳ) ¹⁵, when the Son of man shall sit on the seat of his majesty (ἐπὶ θρόνου δόξης αὐτοῦ), you also shall sit upon twelve thrones » (Matt. XIX. 28). This final glorious regeneration would have been, in the state of original justice, in the manner that Paul says: « we would not be stripped but clothed upon, so that what is mortal may be swallowed up by life » (2 Cor. V. 4). Now, however, as to the thing itself, the same final regeneration indeed takes place, on account of the Holy Spirit dwelling in us from the first regeneration: « but he who has made us for this very thing (ὁ δὲ κατεργασάμενος ἡμᾶς εἰς αὐτὸ τοῦτο), God, who gave us the pledge of the Spirit » (ib. v. 5; cf. Rom. VIII. 11). But according to the exemplar Christ it is not done except by death intervening, through resurrection: « for this corruptible must put on incorruption, and this mortal must put on immortality... then shall come to pass the word that is written: death is swallowed up in victory » (1 Cor. XV. 52 sqq.). This is the image of the last Adam, the heavenly man, in glorification, which follows upon the same image in justification: « therefore, as we have borne the image of the earthly (Adam the first), let us also bear the image of the heavenly (Adam the second); but this I say, brethren, that flesh and blood cannot possess the kingdom of God, nor corruption possess incorruption » (ib. vv. 42–50).

c) This resurrection and regeneration, for both stages, is also called renewal, as already appears from the texts cited, and a new age. Concerning the time of the New Testament and the renewal of the world through grace it is written: « Behold, I make new things, and now they shall spring forth... I will set in the desert a way, and in the trackless place rivers... this people I have formed for myself » (Is. XLIII. 19). Paul says the same more distinctly: « if therefore in Christ there is a new creature, the old things have passed away; behold, all things are made new » (2 Cor. V. 17). Among the Jews, not without foundation in the Scriptures of the Old Testament, the times of the Messiah are called « the age to come » ¹⁶, which time of grace the sacred books call « the fullness of time » and « the last or ultimate time » (Acts II. 17; 1 Cor. X. 11; Heb. I. 1; 1 Pet. I. 20; 1 Jn II. 18; Gal. IV. 4; Eph. I. 10; Tit. I. 3); and « the world to come » (ἡ οἰκουμένη ἡ μέλλουσα, Heb. II. 5). With this is connected the new age of final regeneration. In the cited passage of Matt. XIX. 28, the Syriac version renders « in the regeneration » as « in the new age » ¹⁷, just as in the parallel places Mark X. 30 and Luke XVIII. 30 it is called « the age to come » (ἐν τῷ αἰῶνι τῷ ἐρχομένῳ). Then: « the creature itself also shall be freed from the bondage of corruption into the liberty of the glory of the sons of God » (Rom. VIII. 21); « but we await new heavens and a new earth according to his promises » (2 Pet. III. 13; Apoc. XXI. 1). For this new heaven and new earth, in the fuller sense now and in final glorification, « he who sat on the throne said: behold, I make all things new » (Apoc. XXI. 5).

Thus, having considered all that we have said, we have in revelation itself the Church most splendidly described as the copy and likeness of the Word incarnate subsisting in the divine and human nature, according to the stage of mortal life and according to the state of glorified life. This image and likeness of the Church is seen expressly in her members, by the sanctification of nature through grace; in her ministries, where visible powers are formed through the invisible charism of truth, power, and sanctification in the magisterium, the sacred rule, and the priesthood; in the sacraments, by the elevation of the natural element to the supernatural force and efficacy of the sacrament, chiefly in the sacrament of sacraments, which substantially contains and really represents Christ himself in his mysteries from the incarnation to the sacrifice of the cross; and it is seen finally in the assimilation of the life and passion, and thence of the glorification, of the Church configured to the brightness of the body of the glorified Jesus Christ.

Scholion. That a double resurrection is described in Apoc. XXI in the sense we have stated, which among the Fathers Augustine above all, in De civ. Dei XX, cc. 6 sqq., set out at length, is in our time often called into doubt by some, and is vehemently denied by all those who would revive the obsolete opinion of a millennial kingdom from that chapter XXI of the Apocalypse. (See the Treatise on Tradition, th. XVI.) But the distinction and connection of this double resurrection, spiritual and bodily, is most openly preached in the Scriptures. As Paul in the passages cited above called justification and life in righteousness, after the exemplar of Christ's resurrection, resurrection, and distinguished it from the resurrection of glory: so the same Apostle elsewhere recalls that first resurrection: « rise, you who sleep, and arise from the dead, and Christ shall enlighten you » (Eph. V. 14). Christ the Lord himself first speaks directly of the resurrection to the life of grace, which now belongs only to those who have obeyed his voice. « Amen, amen I say to you, he who hears my word and believes him who sent me has eternal life, and does not come into judgment, but has passed (μεταβέβηκε) from death to life. Amen, amen I say to you, the hour comes, and now is, when the dead shall hear the voice of the Son of God, and those who hear (namely, not all hear) shall live » ¹⁸. After some transition interposed, he then connects the final resurrection, which will be of all men; but of some to the life of glory, of others to the judgment of condemnation, according as that earlier resurrection of justification has preceded or has not preceded. « Do not wonder at this (which had gone before), because the hour comes in which all who are in the tombs shall hear the voice of the Son of God; and those who have done good shall go forth to the resurrection of life, but those who have done evil to the resurrection of judgment » (Jn V. 24–29).

Now in the same way the double resurrection of the Church is described in the Apocalypse. To the first resurrection there belong, considered together as one, both the souls of the saints, namely of the holy martyrs in heaven, and the Church sanctified on earth; by these two parts of the communion of saints one kingdom of Christ is constituted for a thousand years, while the members live in this first resurrection and reign with their head, Christ ¹⁹, whether the « thousand years » are taken for the fullness and the whole time of the New Testament, or are understood as determinate years for the special manifestation of the kingdom of Jesus Christ through his Church among the nations and peoples of the earth, until Satan is loosed. « And I saw thrones, and they sat upon them, and judgment was given to them; and the souls of those beheaded for the testimony of Jesus... and they lived and reigned with Christ a thousand years. The rest of the dead did not live until the thousand years were finished. This is the first resurrection. Blessed and holy is he who has a part in the first resurrection; over these the second death has no power » (Apoc. XXI. 4–6). Entirely distinct from this is the resurrection of bodies, which is described in v. 11 sqq. Through this resurrection the final glorification of the Church will be completed, which is celebrated partly under symbolic images and partly in proper words in the two last chapters of the whole book.

To find a probable explanation of the number of the millennium, we may consult the same St. Augustine. Between the double sense, whether the divine number of fullness is to be understood, as it is said, « a thousand generations », « one day as a thousand years », or whether it is a human arithmetical number, the holy doctor hesitated, l. c., ch. 7. But lest he should seem, with the millenarians, to transfer the kingdom which will be in eternal triumph into this land of warfare, he advised two things to be noted. a) The binding of the devil for a thousand years is understood not as absolute, but by comparison with his earlier free dominion over the nations. « For this, therefore, the devil is bound and shut into the abyss, that he may no longer seduce the nations, out of which the Church consists, which he held seduced before, before there was a Church. For it is not said that he should seduce no one, but that he should not seduce, it says, the nations, in which without doubt the Church was meant to be understood... The binding of the devil is that he is not permitted to exercise the whole temptation which he can use, whether by force or by guile, to seduce men to his side, forcing them violently or deceiving them by fraud » (ibid., cc. 7, 8). Whence b) this kingdom of Christ on earth is far different from that of which he will speak at the end of the ages: « come, blessed of my Father, possess the kingdom prepared for you. » « Meanwhile, while the devil is bound for a thousand years, the saints of God reign with Christ also for the same thousand years, to be understood, without doubt, in the same way, that is, in this present time of his first coming... So his saints also reign with him even now, otherwise indeed than they will reign then... Of this kingdom of warfare, in which still we contend with the enemy, and sometimes we resist as the vices resist, sometimes they yield and we rule, until we come to that most peaceful kingdom where we shall reign without an enemy; and of this first resurrection, which is now, that book speaks thus » (ibid., c. 9).

If these things are true, and if then, by the human arithmetical number, the thousand years are assumed, during which the Church, the new Jerusalem, is to be made manifest on earth in a special glorification among the nations, not indeed yet fully, but as far as is fitting for this « kingdom of warfare », perhaps there will not be lacking those who, from history, may call to mind certain probable limits of this Christian millennium. At the starting limit they will observe a certain progress up to a height; and conversely, at the ending limit, they will seem to see a certain decline of that manifestation in the public life of kingdoms and peoples, until « the falling away (ἡ ἀποστασία) comes » (2 Thess. II. 3), namely the falling away of the public life of nations from the whole Christian order, and consequently the dissolution of the whole social order ²⁰.

From the principal epochs, this progress of the kingdom of Christ manifested in the public life of nations could be considered from the beginning of the fourth century to the close of the eighth and the opening of the ninth, and so on thereafter; while at the other limit the defect of the Christian public life, gradually growing strong, would be seen from the beginning of the fourteenth century to the close of the eighteenth and our nineteenth, with what is to follow, which is not yet open in history but still closed in the book of the knowledge and providence of God (cf. Apoc. V. 1–9). The degrees, moreover, of each inverted process, from darkness to light and from light to darkness (in the sense declared), could thus be discerned. At the beginning of the fourth century: Christian emperors; the persecutions of the idolatrous empire ended (the woman drunk with the blood of the saints and of the martyrs of Jesus shall go to destruction, cf. Apoc. XVII). At the end of the fourth century to the middle of the fifth: vengeance for the blood of the martyrs through the barbarian kings, who themselves for a short time still remain in idolatry (cf. Apoc. XVII. 12–14). At the end of the fifth century, from the sixth to the ninth: the barbarians are conquered by the Lamb and united to the kingdom of Christ (cf. Apoc. XVII. 14). At the end of the eighth and the beginning of the ninth century: the Christian empire is constituted, Christian life and the Christian commonwealth; sword under sword, the spiritual to be drawn by the Church, the temporal to be drawn for the Church: « because the Lord our God the Almighty has reigned » (cf. Apoc. XIX. 6; XX. 1–6). This whole constitution of the manifestation of the kingdom of Christ in the public life of nations proceeds indeed successively in time, but in the counsel of God it stands as one term of the reigning Church on earth. In the same way, at the other extreme, the falling away (ἡ ἀποστασία) has its degrees and its epochs, each of which corresponds, at the interval of a thousand years, to the epochs we indicated in the manifestation of the kingdom of Christ. At the beginning of the fourteenth century: by the usurpations and tyranny of secular power, in the Avignon captivity, the preparation of the schism. At the end of the fourteenth and the beginning of the fifteenth century: the great schism. From what was connected with the schism, at the end of the fifteenth century: the proximate preparation; in the sixteenth century: the completion of the great heresy of Protestantism. From the principles of this archheresy, Protestant, against all religious authority and therefore against the very existence of the visible Church, at the end of the eighteenth century and in the nineteenth: deism, pantheism, atheism; rebellion, first French, then universal; the Christian empire destroyed; the political state and its public life throughout the whole world without God, without Christ, without the Church. Satan was bound for a thousand years, « that he should no longer seduce the nations, until the thousand years are finished; and after these things he must be loosed for a little time... And when the thousand years are finished, Satan will be loosed from his prison, and he will go out and seduce the nations which are at the four corners of the earth, Gog and Magog ²¹; and he will gather them to battle... and they surrounded the camp of the saints and the beloved city » (Apoc. XX. 3, 7, 8).

But such calculations of the thousand years, as is plain, are wholly uncertain, so that it is much more convenient to understand the thousand years, according to the other opinion, as the divine number of the whole time of the New Testament, whatever its duration may be.