The Church and Her Attributes [pp. 788-803]

The Church and her A4ttributes.
the life which they live in and by it
is the one life of God in his humanity.
Looking at the church, in what theologians call her soul, she is literally
and truly the man Christ Jesus, and
looking at her as the whole congregation of the faithful, she is the body
of Christ, and related to him as the
body to the soul. It is this intimate
relation of the church to God in his
human nature, that led Moehler to
represent the church as in some
sort the continuation on earth, in a
visible form, of the Incarnation; and
she is certainly so closely united to
his divine personality, that we may
say truly, that he is her personality,
as really as he is the personality of
the flesh he assumed and hypostatically united to himself. Perrone
says that, if we exclude from this
view all pantheistic conceptions, it is
scriptural, and, moreover, sustained
by the fathers, especially St. Athanasius, who says, in writing of the
Incarnation, "Et curm Petrus dicat:
certissimne sciat ergo omnis domus Israel, quia et Dominum eum, et Christumrn fecit Deus, hunc Jesum quem vos
crucifixistis: non de divinitate ejus
dicit, quod Dominum ipsum et Christum fuerit, sed de humanitate ejus,
quce est UNIVERSA ECCLESIA, quau
in ipso dominatur et regnat, postquam crucifixus ipse est: et quae
erigitur ad regnum ccelorpm, ut cum
illa regnet, qui seipsum pro illa exinanivit et qui induta servili forma, ipsam assumpsit." * Christ, in
his humanity, is the universal church,
which rules and reigns in him. We
cannot study the great fathers of the
church too assiduously, and we wish
we had earlier known it. The doctrine we are trying to set forth is
there.
There is nothing here that favors
* Edit. Maur. opp. tom. i. p. 2, p. 887; apud Perrone, Pradlect. Locis Theolog. p. I. c. 2; De A nima
EtccZesiza, Art. I.
pantheism: i. Because the hypostatic
union is by the creative act of God, as
much so as the creation of Adam. 2.
Because, although God is really the
church, regarded in her soul, it is
God in his human, which is for ever
distinct from his divine nature, and
therefore in his created nature. 3.
Because the Word was incarnated in
an individual, not in the species, as
some rationalists dream, save as the
species was individualized in the individual nature he assumed; and, 4.
Because, though Christ is identically
the soul, the informing principle, the
life of the church, the individuals
affiliated to the body of the church
retain their individuality, their human
personality, and therefore their own
free-will, personal identity, activity,
or their character as free moral agents.
Not all individuals apparently affiliated to the body of the church are
really assimilated to her, and vitally
united to the body of Christ. They
pertain to the society externally, but
not by an inward union with Christ,
the head and soul. They are, as
St. Augustine says, "ini not of the
church," as the dead particles of matter in the human body which receive
not, or have ceased to receive, life from
it, and are constantly flying or cast
off. Gratia szuvponit naturam. All
the operations of grace presuppose
nature, and nature has always the
power to resist grace. Without grace
nature cannot concur with grace
yet even they who have been born
again, and have entered into the
order of regeneration, are always able
to fall away, or back, practically, into
the natural order. Not every individual in the church is assimilated
to her, nor every one who is assimilated to her will continue to the end.
But she herself survives their loss
and remains always one and the same
body of Christ.
We have dwelt at great length on
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