For as we have many members in one body, and all members have not the same office:
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Ambrosiaster
AD 400
By using the example of the body, Paul teaches that it is impossible for any one of us to do everything on our own, for we are members of each other and need one another. For this reason we ought to behave toward one another with care, because we need each other’s gifts. Commentary on Paul’s Epistles.
Paul says not that one person received more and another less of God’s gifts but only that they are different. We all have different functions, but the body is one and the same.
972. After this admonition the Apostle assigns a reason based on the mystical body’s likeness to a natural body. First, he touches on three things in a natural body; first, its unity when he says: For as in one body; secondly, the multiplicity of members when he says: we have many members; for the human body is an organism consisting of various members; thirdly, the variety of functions when he says: all the members do not 482 have the same function. For the variety of members would serve no purpose unless they were ordered to different functions. 973. Then he likens these three aspects to the mystical body of Christ, which is the Church: "He made him the head over all things for the church, which is his body" (Eph 1:22). Concerning which he touches on three things [n. 974ff]. First, he touches on the number of members, i.e., of believers when he says: so we, though many: "A man once gave a great banquet and invited many" (Lk 14:16); "Many are the children of the desolate" (Is 54:1). F...
