Whether each member of the church is Christ; unity of person rightly understood

There is a difficulty, touched on in the fourth argument, about the numerical unity of the churchecclesia: church: whether Christ and each member of the church are the same church in number. And it seems that they are, from a threefold numerical agreement.¹ First, I say, it seems that, however great the part that the soul of a man has adequately actuated, and however much the bodily matter 134varies, the same man remains continuously, as is supposed here. Why then is it not so with the man of the church, whose form is Christ, abiding for ever? The second natural example is that, to whatever member the soul has been joined, both the soul and the member remain the same person of the man. Why then is it not so with Christ and the church, so that each member of it is Christ, as many authorities sound?² Thirdly, it seems that, just as Christ remained the same person in number for the time of his death, both dead in the sepulchre and alive in hell, so it seems that the same person of the church [remains], disjunctively reigning in heaven and on pilgrimagepars peregrinans; peregrinari: the pilgrim part; to be a pilgrim in the world; and so Christ assumed hypostatically the person of the pilgrim church in the blessed Virgin.³ Here one must understand prudently the unity of person which the saints express from scripture, as is clear from the eight kinds of unity which blessed Bernard expresses, as is recited in the preceding chapter in the reply to the third argument.⁴ And then, speaking according to the sense of the doctors, the teachingsentencia: CONTEXTUAL: teaching / sentence of each of these three arguments seems to be granted. For, first, it can be granted that there remains continuously the same church, which is collectively all the predestinatepredestinatus, -i: the predestinate (sg. "a predestinate [person]") and severally each one, and each one of them [is] all, united in Christ the headcaput: head; but then one must understand the person as the head, the base of the whole composite, and each of its members indistinctlyconfuse / confusus (fides, noticia): indistinct(ly), as absorbed, hidden in Christ, so that "the church of Christ" means Christ with every faithful [person] incorporated in him.⁵ For if the popepapa: pope is called the church on account of the power that he makes flowinfluxus / influere: inflow / flow in into the church, 135as is said in [Causa] 24, question 1, Quodcunque, and [Causa] 7, question 1, Scire debes, much more the first pope, the wonderful Lord Jesus Christ.⁶ Again, if those who proceed carnally from the first Adam are said to have been him in whom they originally sinned, much more evidently will those descending from the second Adam be said to be the second Adam, in whom they will finally rest. For the seed of faith, which is truth, is more communicative than bodily seed.⁷ Again, if a combustible or ignitable thing, such as wood, coal or iron, is commonly said after ignition to be fire, since we perceive no other fire here with us, much more [is he Christ who is] spiritually eaten by Christ and fully digested by him, up to the fourth digestiondigestio: digestion, which is glorification; he, therefore, for whom to live is Christ, as are all the saints who live God: … it seems manifest in this sense that they are their life, which is Christ.⁸ And it is clear how it is true that, in doing good to or persecuting the members of Christ, as such, Christ himself is thus regarded (as is clear, Matthew 25, and Acts 9:5). It is clear, secondly, that the martyrs could never have endured so many sufferings and done so many wonders except through the Lord Jesus Christ, incorporating and assimilating the members to the head, speaking and working in them. And it is clear, thirdly, why Christ commanded his own to turn aside from the world and from perceptible thingssensibilis: perceptible, and to cast all their knowledge, care and affection upon him: because otherwise they are not assimilated to him; for nothing hinders assimilation to the heart, the head and the body of the church, which is Christ, more than worldly affection.⁹ For he is often called in the gospel the kingdomregnum: kingdom of heaven, the body which the eagles follow, and the life for all who live him. And it is clear 136how one must answer the second and the third reason: by granting the catholic teaching to which they lead by the hand, and by guarding diligently against error of understanding and the scandal of the audience. For one led astray could believe that every Christian would be the same in person with Christ according to body and soul, so that they would not be disparate persons, essencesens / esse / essencia: a being / being (existence) / essence or natures; which would be too erroneous.¹⁰

Hence, so as not to give scandal to the schools, I put off this matter. For someone is Christ by participation, as each member of his, and someone personally, as the head itself alone; and those who do not grasp this distinction do not grasp the sense of this scripture, "He who is joined to God is one spirit", nor how the bond of charitycaritas: charity or of grace is stronger than the natural bond, as Augustine says in the book On True Religion, 91, and as was touched on in the preceding chapter in the solution of the third argument.¹¹ And it is clear how the holy doctors are to be understood who grant this teaching, such as Augustine, Chrysostom and Bernard, with others who savour God and the law of scripture. And it is clear, secondly, how the sophistical arguments in this matter must be removed, as these [men] objectinstatur; obicitur: it is objected: if the blessed, each of them, are the person of Christ, then they are personally Christ himself, and so only Christ is a man, and every man is every man, with other quibblesargucie; argucia: stratagems, quibbles; a quibble in manifold ways in the matter of the Trinity. But these do not consider that many things can be the same person communicatively, by participation, or according to intelligible beingens / esse / essencia: a being / being (existence) / essence, though not personally; and it is clear that the multiplied inferencesconsequencia: inference do not proceed.¹²

Lastly, it is clear that there is no repugnance in those who equivocally grant and deny the same 137perceptible proposition: as one, in a catholic way, denies that he is Christ, as the Baptist did, because he was not personally Christ himself, and another grants that everyone who has put on Christ is Christ (as is clear of the saints aforesaid).¹³ Hence one must take the measure of the audience to which one is to speak so variously; nor does it seem that it is to be granted that every Christian is God, although every thing is God, and every substance according to intelligible being is God (as is clear in the matter On Ideas); just as every man is the same as Christ, because [of] the same species, and Christ is the Godheaddeitas / divinitas: the Godhead / divinity, and yet [a man] is not the same as the Godhead.¹⁴