CORPO MISTICO. – The doctrine of the mystical body constitutes one of the central points, if not indeed the central point, of Christianity. It is found in outline in the Scripture of the Old Testament, subsequently revealed by Jesus in the Gospel, expounded by St. Paul and St. John in their Epistles, and applied by the holy Fathers to various areas of dogma and Christian life. St. Thomas and the other Scholastics provided a theological explanation of II. From the authors of the Berullian school of the seventeenth century to the present day, it has been studied, preached, and lived with a fervor never before known.
SUMMARY:
I. Concept of the mystical body
II. The doctrine of the mystical body in the Gospel
III. The doctrine of St. Paul. –IV. The doctrine of the holy Fathers
V. mystical body.I. CONCEPT OF THE MYSTICAL BODY. — The encyclical of Pius XII of 29 June 1943 begins: “The mystical Body of Christ, which is the Church”; that is, it identifies the mystical Body with the Church of Christ. In the narrower sense, this refers to the Church militant, which lives and struggles on earth. In a broader sense, however, like the word Church itself, it also includes the souls in purgatory (the suffering Church) and the blessed in heaven (the triumphant Church). The assertion that the mystical Body also includes those who do not belong to the Church but are nevertheless in some way spiritually united to Christ is not without dangers, because it would suggest that the Church is not the only way of salvation for all the redeemed. According to the teaching of Jesus, there is “one flock” (Jn. 21:15–17), and whoever does not listen to the shepherds of Christ’s flock is declared to be “a heathen and a publican” (Mt. 18:17). Pius XII explicitly states: “those who are divided among themselves for reasons of faith or government (heretics and schismatics) cannot live in the unity of such a Body.” It nevertheless remains possible for someone who in good faith is outside the Church to belong to it by desire and thus also, in this way, to be a member of the mystical Body, participating by this means, as though from without, in the graces of the Redeemer.
The mystical Body of Christ may therefore be defined as that “supernatural Society, at once visible and spiritual, organic and living, founded by Christ by virtue of his Redemption, in which all the faithful, united to Jesus and to one another by multiple bonds of grace, faith, charity, and juridical ties, live, as members, by the life of the mystical Head, Jesus Christ, and are moved by the same Holy Spirit, the soul of the whole Christ, who will attain the fullness of his maturity at the end of the ages in the glory of heaven.”
The significance of the two words visible and spiritual must immediately be emphasized, since they avert two contrary errors: that which seeks to see in the mystical Body the invisible union in Christ of all who believe in him, despite being separated by contradictory beliefs; and that which fails to recognize the Church’s intimate life and limits itself to considering her social organization and external juridical aspect. The mystical Body, on the contrary, like the Incarnate Word, possesses a profound spiritual life together with an organic and social cohesion.
II. THE DOCTRINE OF THE MYSTICAL BODY IN THE GOSPEL. — This social and spiritual unity of the mystical body is already outlined in some way in the Old Testament, where the children of Abraham are united among themselves and with Yahweh, forming a single people which, as a mystical bride, is joined to God by the bond of a special predilection (cf. E. Mersch, I, chap. 1). Already in the divine sentence pronounced at Eden, the semen mulieris foretold not only the Messiah, but Christ together with all the redeemed, the Head together with the members, the total Christ.
It was for Jesus, however, to make clear to us this mystery of vital union between him and his faithful. The Kingdom of God, as it is described by Jesus in the Synoptics, reveals the unity that joins all its members; while the various parables illustrating its nature—the mustard seed, the seed sown in the field, the leaven that makes the dough rise—reveal a mysterious life, a hidden energy that pervades that entire spiritual organism. The most perfect expression of this vital union, however, is found in the allegory of the vine: “I am the true vine,” says the Lord, “and my Father is the cultivator. Every branch in me that bears no fruit, he will take away, and the one that bears fruit, he will prune so that it may bear more fruit... Remain in me, and I in you... I am the vine and you are the branches; whoever remains in me, and I in him, bears much fruit, because without me you can do nothing” (Io. 15, 1-2, 4-5). In these words lies the substance of the entire doctrine of the mystical body. The vine of which Jesus speaks is a living organism, whose parts, united among themselves, are animated by one and the same divine sap: sap that flows from the trunk into the branches, from Christ into the faithful, and causes them to produce abundant fruits of virtue.
Our union with Jesus has as its model Jesus’ own union with his divine Father. In the so-called priestly prayer, on the eve of the Passion, Jesus, raising his eyes to heaven, said: “May they all be one, as you, O Father, are in me, and I in you; may they also be one in us” (Io. 17, 21). Jesus, the Son of God, being one with the Father (Io. 10, 30), becomes, through his Humanity, the divine bond that connects us to the Father.
The privileged means that brings about our union with Christ is the bread of life: “I am the bread of life, which has come down from heaven. Whoever eats of this bread will live for ever... My flesh is truly food, and my blood is truly drink. Whoever eats my flesh and drinks my blood remains in me and I in him” (Io. 6, 51-52, 56-57). The mutual indwelling of Jesus in us and of us in Jesus is once again the whole mystery of the spiritual union of the faithful with Christ. The consequence of this union is that Jesus will regard as done to himself whatever good or evil we do to our neighbor, that is, to his members; thus he will say at the last judgment: “I was hungry, and you gave me food; I was thirsty, and you gave me drink; I was a pilgrim, ... naked, ... sick, ... imprisoned, ... (and you assisted me). Whenever you did such a thing to one of the least of these my brethren, you did it to me” (Mt. 25, 35-40). Such is the teaching of the Master.
III. THE DOCTRINE OF S. PAUL. - At the very moment of his conversion, the Lord revealed this mystery to Paul: «Saul, Saul, why do you persecute me?» In the person of the disciples, Saul struck at the Master. «Who are you, Lord? - I am Jesus, whom you persecute» (Act. 9, 4-5). This initial grace matured in the soul of s. Paolo; in his Epistles he outlines the manifold aspects of the mystical organism of Christ. The salient points of his doctrine may be grouped under two headings: dogma and morality.
1. The dogma of the c. m.: 1) The faithful form one body with Jesus: they are its members, Christ its Head. «Just as the body is one, while its members are many, and although numerous they form one body, so also is Christ... You are the body of Christ and individually members of it» (1 Cor. 12, 12, 27). And to the Ephesians: «God appointed him Head over the whole Church, which is his Body and his fullness» (1, 22 ff.). 2) Incorporation into Jesus Christ takes place in Baptism, in which we die to sin with Christ and rise to a new life. To the Romans (6, 3-5) the Apostle writes: «Do you not know that all of us who have been baptized in Christ Jesus have been baptized into his death? We were in fact buried with him through Baptism into death, so that, just as Christ rose from the dead through the glory of the Father, we too might live a new life». 3) As members of his Body, we are animated, together with him, by the same Holy Spirit: «Whoever does not have the Spirit of Christ does not belong to him...; but if the Spirit of him who raised Jesus Christ from the dead dwells in you, he who raised Jesus Christ from the dead will also give life to your mortal bodies, because of his Spirit dwelling in you» (Rom. 8, 9-11). 4) The member of Christ is made a participant in his divine sonship as an adopted child: thus he writes to the Galatians (3, 26-27): «You are all children of God through faith in Christ Jesus. For [this is the reason for such sonship], all of you who have been baptized in Christ have clothed yourselves with Christ». And to the Romans (8, 14): «All those who are moved by the Spirit of God are sons of God». 5) The principle of unity in the total Christ is above all the Eucharistic bread: «Because there is one bread, we are one body, all of us who partake of that one bread» (I Cor. 10, 17).
2. The morality of the c. m.: 1) The Apostle’s fundamental affirmation in this regard is that the life of the Christian is the very life of Jesus: «Christus vita vestra» (Col. 3, 4). It is Jesus who lives in us, who speaks in us, who suffers in us: «With Christ I am nailed to the cross. And I live, no longer I, but Christ lives in me» (Gal. 2, 19). «Christ speaks in me» (II Cor. 13, 3). «I complete in myself what remains of the sufferings of Christ for the sake of his Body, which is his Church» (Col. 1, 24). 2) Hence the necessity of dying to all that bears the stamp of corrupt nature, of the first Adam, of the old man, set in opposition to Jesus, the new Adam, as s. Paolo expresses it several times: «Put to death your earthly members, having stripped off the old man with his deeds, and put on the new» (Col. 3, 5, 10; cf. I Cor. 15, 45). 3) Renewed in this way, the Christian will manifest all the virtues that are a consequence of the life of Jesus in him: sincerity, which shuns falsehood: «Put away falsehood, let each one speak the truth to his neighbor, since we are members of one another» (Eph. 4, 25); purity: «Do you not know that your bodies are members of Christ? Shall I then take the members of Christ and make them members of a prostitute?» (I Cor. 6, 15); and above all fraternal charity: «I have been told... that there are disputes among you. I am referring to what each one of you says: I belong to Paolo! - I belong to Apollo! - I belong to Cephas! - I belong to Christ! - Is Christ then divided?» the Apostle asks with a tremor of indignation (I Cor. 1, 11-13).
IV. THE DOCTRINE OF THE HOLY FATHERS
The doctrine concerning this mystery is developed by the Fathers, the Doctors of the Church, and the great theologians. Irenaeus and Cyprian, Athanasius and Hilary, Gregory Nazianzen and Cyril of Jerusalem, John Chrysostom and Augustine treat extensively of the mystery of our union with Christ in one Body. In the Sacrament of the altar, St. John Chrysostom sees the cause of our unity in Christ to such an extent that the very word body, in his writings, is to be understood sometimes in the sense of Christ’s physical body, and sometimes in that of the mystical body, since the one is the principle of the other. “And why do we still speak of communion? We are that very body. For what is the bread? The body of Christ. What do the communicants become? The body of Christ; no longer many bodies, but one body” (In I Cor. hom., 24: PG 61, 200). St. Augustine everywhere appeals to the dogma of the mystical unity of the faithful in Christ. In it he finds the sole reason for the immense love with which the Eternal Father loves us all: “God cannot but love the members of his Son, since he loves the Son. Nor has he any reason to love his members except because he loves him himself” (In Io. tr., 110, 5: PL 35, 123). Here, however, we can only hint at the inexhaustible wealth offered to us by the Holy Fathers on this doctrine (cf. E. Mersch, the whole of vol. I and part of vol. II).V. LA TEOLOGIA DEL C. M. — Once the mystery of the c. m., of the Christus totus, as St. Augustine often calls it (v. , for example: In Ps., 90, Sermo 2: PL 37, 1159), is known, it is necessary to explain adequately the sublime affirmations of St. Paul and St. Augustine: “You are the Body of Christ” (I Cor. 12, 27); “All men in Christ constitute one man” (In Ps. 29, Enarr. 2a: PL 36, 219): one man, one Christ. In order not to fall into a kind of panentheism or panchristism, according to the error of those condemned by Pius XII who “make the divine Savior and the members of the Church unite and merge into one and the same physical person” (the encyclical cited), it is necessary to determine the nature of this union of us all in Christ. Every union is either purely moral, as that of the members of one and the same family, or physical and ontological.
1. The constitutive elements of the c. m. — a) The Head: “He (Christ), says St. Paul, is the Head of the Body, the Church” (Col. 1, 18). The Incarnation placed Christ at the head of humanity; the Son of God made man necessarily became “the Firstborn of all creation” (Col. 1, 15), “the recapitulation of heavenly and earthly things” (Eph. 1, 10), “the Mediator between God and men” (I Tim. 2, 5). The eternal Word, “in whom was life” (Io. 1, 4), assumed our nature in the unity of his divine Person and filled it with that Grace, participation in divine life, which he would then pour out upon all the descendants of sinful Adam. This function as Head of the c. m., which belongs to the Incarnate Word, implies, according to St. Thomas (Sum. Theol., 3a, q. 8, a. 1) and according to the encyclical Mystici Corporis, a threefold preeminence over the members: 1) preeminence of order or dignity: “Because of its closeness to God, Christ’s grace is higher and prior (to that of all others)” (Sum. Theol., loc. cit.); 2) preeminence of perfection: just as the head, in the human body, contains all the external and internal senses, so Christ possesses in his Humanity the fullness of all graces. “The virtues, gifts, and charisms found in Christian society,” says Pius XII (loc. cit.), “shine forth in the most perfect manner in its Head, Christ: ‘In him it pleased the Father that all fullness should dwell’” (Col. 1, 19); 3) above all, preeminence of influence. Just as the head moves and governs the entire body, so Jesus Christ exercises a continuous directing and life-giving action upon his Church. According to Pius XII, this influence is exercised by Jesus Christ in two ways: first, insofar as he moves his Body by way of governance, directing the members of the Church toward the sublime end of eternal life, both directly through the hidden means of his interior inspirations and through the hierarchy instituted by him (the Roman Pontiff, his Vicar on earth, and the bishops in the individual dioceses); second, insofar as he moves his Body spiritually by way of vital influence, diffusing grace, light, and manifold virtue into every cell of it (the encyclical cited).
b) The Members. The members of the c. m. are: 1) first of all, those who were incorporated into him here below through Baptism and were not separated from him through heresy, schism, excommunication, or by dying in mortal sin. Sinners are not excluded from the structure of the c. m.; although deprived of the spiritual life of this Body, they still adhere to Christ and to the Church through the faith they profess and, through the various influences of the divine Head, are to be called back to communion of life. 2) The souls in purgatory who, having left this life in the peace of Christ, remain forever united to him, although they must still be purified before enjoying blessed union. 3) Finally, in a perfect manner, the blessed in heaven, to whom Christ communicates the fullness of his life in glory; nor are the Angels excluded, who, although not like Jesus by nature, resemble him by grace and receive manifold influences from him. Among the members of the c. m., however, a preeminent place belongs to the Most Blessed Virgin. Mother of the Head according to the flesh, she became “according to the spirit, Mother of the members,” as St. Augustine already said (De Virginitate, cap. 6: PL 40, 399), and St. Louis de Montfort repeatedly teaches (v. Trattato della vera devozione a Maria Vergine, n. 32). This doctrine was approved by Pius X in the encyclical Ad diem illum (1904): “In the most chaste womb of the Virgin, where Jesus took mortal flesh, he there united to himself a spiritual body, formed of all those who were to believe in him; and it may be said that, in carrying Jesus in her womb, Mary also carried all those whose life was contained in the life of the Savior.” Mediatrix of grace in the closest dependence upon Jesus the Redeemer, Mary, through effective intercession, transmits to all that divine life whose original source is the Incarnate Word.
c) The Soul of the c. m. Like every human or animal being, the c. m. has a first principle of life and unity amid the diversity of its members, which is called the soul. This principle, in the total Christ, is none other than the Holy Spirit himself, several times called in Scripture “the Spirit of Jesus” or “the Spirit of the Son” (Act. 16, 7; Gal. 4, 6). He is therefore, as Pius XII teaches, “this divine principle of life and virtue given by Christ, insofar as it constitutes the very source of every created gift and grace.... It is the Spirit of Christ who has made us children of God and places in our hearts that sense of filial love with which we cry out: Father! Our Father! in imitation of the Only-begotten” (Rom. 8, 14-17). He is also that principle of unity which makes the various members, animated by his breath, into a harmoniously ordered whole. “To this Spirit of Christ, as to an invisible principle, must be attributed the union of all the parts of the Body with one another and with the exalted Head, since he is wholly in the Head, wholly in the Body, wholly in the individual members” (the encyclical cited).
2. The Nature of the Unity Proper to the c. m. — “Father, that they may all be one in us” (Io. 17, 21). Thus Jesus prayed on Holy Thursday after the Eucharistic banquet. Certainly this unity (as Pius XII recalls) does not result from a hypostatic, that is, personal, union that would make us with Christ one physical person, as occurs in the Incarnate Word. Nor does it imply a substantial union, such as exists in us between body and soul in order to constitute one and the same nature and substance. Our union with Christ in the c. m. is to be understood in the accidental order of Grace, which, comprising diverse physical, moral, and juridical realities, has as its purpose and effect the communication to all the faithful of one and the same divine life, infused by Christ into all as a participation in his life of Grace and, finally, in dependence upon his divine sonship.
At the root, or rather at the center, of this mystical union stands the life-giving influence of Christ and of his Divine Spirit. This influence, which manifests itself in many ways, is effected above all through the Sacraments, among which Baptism, by which we are incorporated into Christ, and the Eucharist, the Sacrament proper to the mystical body, hold a pre-eminent place; the latter is the ultimate effect (the res tantum) of the Eucharist (Sum. Theol., 3ᵃ, q. 73, a. 1, obiect. 2), as St. Thomas teaches, as does his master St. Albert the Great (v. l'opera, citata in bibl., di A. Piolanti). From this effective influence of the Head upon the members there results a likeness of life and grace, a conformity of virtue and holiness, of which Jesus is for all the redeemed the exemplary cause. To the intimate union thus established between us and Christ by efficient causality, of a physical and ontological order, there are added other bonds of a moral and juridical order. A very close moral union is that generated “by those three theological virtues by which we are united to God (and to all our brethren) in the most intimate manner” (encyclical Mystici Corporis): the union of minds in adherence to the common revealed truth; the union of wills in the longing to attain the one Supreme Good; the union of hearts in the ardent love that unites us to Jesus and to one another. A juridical and social union, constituted by those bonds which, in the visible Body of Christ, connect the members of ecclesiastical society through reciprocal obligations and rights, and which first of all make us subjects of Christ the Redeemer, since through his Incarnation and Passion he acquired an indisputable right over us all. Finally, all those converging principles of unity culminate in the common end of the eternal kingdom, to which we are predestined by the decree of the heavenly Father, to the glory of his Only-begotten Son, who will finally be omnia in omnibus (Col. 3, 11). To sum up, there are seven principles of unity in the mystical body: 1° the vital influence of the Head; 2° the proper action of the Sacraments, and especially of the Eucharist; 3° the Holy Spirit as the soul of the mystical body; 4° exemplary causality; 5° moral union; 6° juridical bonds; 7° the influence of the final cause. We shall dwell, however, on what we have said is the fundamental principle of the unity of the mystical body: the vivifying influence of Christ the Head.
The mystical body of Christ is revealed first of all as a sharing in supernatural life, which has its origin in Jesus. The Humanity of Christ, hypostatically united to the Word of God, receives within itself a virtue enabling it to infuse into us the life of Grace. This life of Grace is a participation in the divine nature: “We are made partakers of the divine nature” (I Pt. 1, 4); “He gave them power to become the sons of God” (Io. 1, 12). Divine sonship, participation in the divine nature, are gifts that surpass every human concept or desire and every capacity of a created cause. To the question whether Jesus, insofar as he is man, can sanctify us and communicate Grace to us, the answer must be that to sanctify means to deify; now, as St. Thomas says, deification belongs only to one who possesses divinity in his own right, namely, to God alone (Sum. theol., 1ᵃ-2ᵃ, q. 112, a. 1). Such an influence therefore cannot belong to the humanity of Jesus. Yet the Angelic Doctor adds that the influence of divine life or Grace can be attributed only to God as its principal cause; the humanity of Christ, however, can become its instrumental cause (ibid., ad 1). Just as the Sacraments are permeated by the virtue of God, which elevates them to the point of making them truly operative causes of Grace, so a fortiori the human nature of Jesus is made the vehicle of the sanctifying action of the Word, as St. Thomas says: “The humanity of Christ causes Grace by virtue of the Divinity united to it” (ibid., loc. cit. and passim). This was already taught by St. Cyril of Alexandria: “The flesh (of Christ)... can give life, although in itself the flesh is of no avail. From the moment that it is united to the life-giving Word, it is made wholly life-giving, raised up to the virtue of the Word” (In Io. 4: PG 73, 601). The humanity of Jesus is like the fundamental Sacrament of Grace, of which the seven Sacraments are, as it were, the prolongation. They all communicate to us the deifying influence of the humanity of Jesus.
That influence, however, comes to us in a special manner through the Sacrament of the altar, since it contains not only the operative virtue of Christ, but Christ himself. It is par excellence the Sacrament of union and incorporation into Christ. Baptism itself, as St. Thomas teaches, makes us members of Christ only by vow or desire of the Eucharist, whose influence and proper effect it transmits to us (Sum. Theol., 3ᵃ, q. 73, a. 3; q. 79, a. 1, ad 1 (v. COMUNIONE EUCARISTICA). In that contact with the life-giving flesh of Christ through Communion, man is transformed, body and soul, and made like Jesus; thus Cardinal Mendoza says: “We, united to Christ in body and soul, assume the qualities of his body” (De naturali cum Christo unitate, p. 209). And, explaining further the manner of this transformation, the same author adds: “Since Christ is truly present, with his substance, in the sacrament of the Eucharist, and through the Sacrament in man himself, a virtue emanating from Christ’s own substance permeates the whole man and every part of him” (op. cit., p. 218).
Our understanding of the present mystery is further broadened by a fundamental datum: the sanctifying virtue of Christ’s humanity belongs also to each of his actions, even the least. This is what St. Thomas teaches us when, speaking of the Passion of Jesus, he enunciates this fundamental principle: “All the actions and sufferings of Christ operate instrumentally, through the virtue of the Divinity, for human salvation” (Sum. Theol., 3ᵃ, q. 48 e 6). This principle explains how all the mysteries of Christ are sources of grace. To unite ourselves to these mysteries (and every action of the God-Man is a mystery), whether during liturgical celebrations, while meditating on the Holy Rosary, or in any other manner, each day and at every moment, is truly to appropriate the treasures of grace contained in them. Every mystery, moreover, every action of the Incarnate Word has its own Grace, as the “French” school of spirituality, following Cardinal de Bérulle, explained admirably in the seventeenth century: Christ’s humility is impressed upon us when we unite ourselves to it in faith; his purity makes us pure, his meekness meek, and divine patience patient and strong, the patience with which he went forth to meet his Passion. A true spiritual communion in the life, death, and resurrection of Jesus, this appropriation of the mysteries of Christ causes Jesus to live in us and us to live by him, fulfilling the Apostle’s word: vivo autem iam non ego, vivit vero in me Christus (Gal. 2, 19). Pius XII says the same in the encyclical Mediator Dei (part 3ª) on the Liturgy: “By recalling these mysteries of Jesus Christ, the sacred Liturgy aims to make all believers participate in them, so that the divine Head of the mystical body may live in the fullness of his holiness in each of its members.” Here one perceives the spiritual richness of this dogma of the mystical body, which harmonizes both dogmatics and morals—a dogmatics which, understood in its practical repercussions, is already a moral theology, the principle and source of every Christian life, from the laborious asceticism of beginners to the highest heights of the mystical life, culminating in perfect union with God through Christ the Mediator.
Magistero ecel.); L. Marvulli, Maria madre del Cristo mistico, Roma 1948; A. Chavasse, Ordonnés au corps mystique, in Nouvelle revue théologique, 80 (1948), pp. 600-702; V. MORELLY, Le corps mystique du Christ et l'Église catholique romaine, ibid., 80 (1948), pp. 703-26; W. Goossens, L'Église corps du Christ d'après s. Paul. Etude de théologie biblique, Parizì 1949. - Ernesto Mura