Summa de Ecclesia

We shall touch consequently upon what understanding is to be had of certain propositions which the holy doctors are read to have used in unfolding the sacrament of the mystical unity of the Church with Christ. One of which is this, that Christ and his body which is the Church are one man. This blessed Aug. posits on Psalm 18, saying thus: Therefore the Holy Spirit made those into whom he first came speak in the tongues of all, because he announced that he would speak in the unity in the tongues of all nations; what one man then did, having received the Holy Spirit, that one man should speak in the tongues of all nations, this the very unity now does which speaks in all tongues; therefore man, head and body, are one, Christ and the Church; thus Aug. Likewise the same blessed Aug. posits the same proposition on Psalm 75, saying thus: No greater good can God bestow upon men than to make his Word, through whom he created all things, a head for them, and to join them as members, that the Son of God might be son of man, and one God with the Father, and one man with men. Likewise on Psalm 119 he says: All the saints are one man in Christ, because the union is holy; that one man says: From the ends of the earth I cried to thee when my heart was in anguish. Likewise on Psalm 127, upon that word, Behold, thus shall the man be blessed that feareth the Lord: There is a certain man who is thus blessed, and no one feareth the Lord except he who is in the members of that man, and there are many men, and there is one man; therefore one man is Christ, head and body. And below: Let us understand therefore the voice of this man, in whose body we are one man. Likewise on Psalm 131, through David is typologically figured one man whose voice is often heard in the psalm, namely the whole Christ, head and body; thus there. And in many other places he oftentimes repeats this proposition. For the understanding of which it is to be considered that man can be taken in two ways: in one way physically, in another way mystically. Man taken physically, according to the definition of Aristotle in book 7 of the Metaphysics, denotes something constituted of body and rational soul. But man taken mystically denotes something constituted of that which has the likeness or figure of an organic physical body, and of that which has the likeness of a rational soul animating and ruling the whole body; since, as St. Thomas says in I-II, question 81, article 1, in civil matters all who are of one community are called one body, and the whole community as it were one man. In which manner also Scripture seems to speak of the people of Israel, speaking as of one man when it says in Exod. 4: Israel, saith God, is my firstborn son. Likewise blessed Aug., expounding that word of Psalm 61, Rush in upon a man, slay him, etc., says, as posited in the ordinary Gloss, that the whole Church is generally called a certain man. In like manner we read the part of human nature, namely flesh and rational soul, to be distinguished as true or natural and mystical, or so called through likeness. Whence of flesh blessed Jerome in his epistle to the Ephesians, as had in On Consecration, distinction 2, ch. Dupliciter, says thus: The flesh and blood of Christ are understood in two ways, namely either that flesh of Christ which was crucified and buried, or the other, both spiritual and divine, of which the Lord says: My flesh is meat indeed, etc., which the Master of the Sentences in book IV, distinction 8, calling mystical flesh, says to be the unity of the Church. Of the soul, moreover, Aug. says on Psalm 62: In the concord of Christ we are all one soul. Likewise on John, treating that word of Acts 4, They had one soul and one heart in the Lord, he says thus in sermon 34: Many souls through charity are one soul, many hearts one heart. With these noted, it clearly appears under what understanding that proposition is to be taken which says that Christ and his body which is the Church are one man, since not in that sense is it to be taken in which we speak of man physically or naturally. For in that sense that proposition would be not only false but foolish, since it abhors nature and takes away faith; for although Christ insofar as man, and other men, by participation of species are one man, yet they are not simply said to be one man, since they are distinguished in number and their substances are distinct; nor did the Son of God assume human nature in the universal or in all supposits, but a certain singular nature, as Damascene says in book 3. That proposition, therefore, which says that Christ and the Church are one man, is to be understood under a mystical sense, according as we speak of man mystically or through likeness, as we have already explained.