For as the body is one . . . so also is Christ. As an animal body is one, as a man has but one body, so also has Christ one body, the Church, the members of which are many, whose head He is.
1. But S. Augustine objects (de Peccat. Meritis, lib. i. c31) that if the Apostle had meant this he would have said, "So also is [the body] of Christ," rather than, "So also is Christ." In other words, he would have said that the body of Christ, the Church, has many members.
2. James Faber gathers from this that the body of Christ being indivisibly united to the whole Godhead, locally fills heaven and earth, which are, as it were, its place and His body. As Plato said that God was the soul of the world, and consequently was in a sense the whole world, so the body of Christ, from its intimate conjunction with Deity, Isaiah , like the Divine Spirit, diffused through the whole world, its parts and members are the several divisions of space and the bodies contained in it. But still in respect of the ...
As the body is one From this comparison of the mystical body of Christ, that is, of his Church, to a man's natural body, he brings excellent instructions. 1. That as all members and parts, make up the same body, so also is Christ; that is, so it is in the Church of Christ, which is his mystical body. 2. As all the parts of man's body are enlivened by the same soul, so all in the Church have their life from the same Spirit of God in baptism, and in the sacraments instituted by our Saviour, Christ; in which we are made to drink of the same spirit. 3. As all the members, that have such different offices and functions, do but constitute one complete body, so is it in the Church of Christ. 4. As those that seem the less considerable parts of the human body, are no less necessary for the subsistence and harmony of the whole, and stand in need of one another, (for example, the head stands in need of the feet) so in the Church 5. He takes notice, that in a natural body, the less honourable, th...
After soothing them from the considerations that the thing given was of free favor; that they received all from one and the self-same Spirit; that it was given to profit withal, that even by the lesser gifts a manifestation was made; and withal having also stopped their mouth from the duty of yielding to the authority of the Spirit: (for all these, says he, works the one and the same Spirit, dividing to each one severally even as he will; wherefore it is not right to be over-curious:) he proceeds now to soothe them in like manner from another common example, and betakes himself to nature itself, as was his use to do.
For when he was discoursing about the hair of men and women, after all the rest he drew matter thence also to correct them, saying, Does not even nature itself teach you that if a man have long hair, it is a dishonor to him? But if a woman have long hair, it is a glory to her? 1 Corinthians 11:14-15 And when he spoke concerning the idol-sacrifices, forbidding to touch t...
Paul talks about Christ when perhaps he might well have said the church. In doing so, he raises the level of discourse and appeals more and more to the hearers’ sense of awe.
This, too, I may confidently say: he who has likened the unity of our body throughout its manifold and divers members to the compacting together of the various gifts of the Spirit,
