COMMUNION
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COMMUNION
invocation, veneration, and relics of saints and on
sacred images; on indulgences), is, nevertheless, a
dogma commonly taught and accepted in the t'hurch.
(See Holden, " Di'vina> fidei analysis" in Migne, "Theo-
that the Catechism of the Council of Trent (Pt. I,
cli. x) seems at first sight to limit to the living the bear-
ing of the phrase contained in the Creed, but by mak-
ing the communion of saints an exponent and fimction,
as it were, of the preceding clause, " the Holy Catholic
Church ", it really extends to what it calls the Church's
"constituent parts, one gone before, the other follow-
ing every day"; the broad principle it enunciates
thus: "every pious and holy action done by one be-
longs and is profitable to all, through charity which
seeketh not her own ' '.
In this vast Catholic conception rationalists see not only a late creation, but also an ill-disguised reversion to a lower religious type, a purely mechanical process of justification, the substitution of impersonal moral value in lieu of personal responsibility. Such state- ments are met best by the presentation of the dogma in its Scriptural basis and its theological formulation. The first spare yet clear outline of the communion of saints is found in the " kingdom of God ' ' of the Synop- tics, not the individualistic creation of Harnack nor the purely eschatological conception of Loisy, but an organic whole (Matt., xiii, 31), which embraces in the bonds of charity (Matt., xxii, 39) all the children of God (Matt., xix, 28; Luke, xx, 36) on earth and in heaven (Matt., vi, 20), the angels themselves joining in that fraternity of souls (Luke, xv, 10). One cannot read the parables of the kingdom (Matt., xiii) without perceiving its corporate nature and the continuity which links together the kingdom in our midst and the kingdom to come. (See Rose, Studies on the Gospel.) The nature of that communion, called by St. John a fellowship with one another ("a fellowship with lis" — I John, i, 3) because it is "a fellowship with the Father, and with his Son", and compared by him to the organic and vit<al union of the vine and its branches (John, xv). stands out in bold relief in the Pauline conception of the mystical body. Repeatedly St. Paul speaks of the one body whose head is Christ (Col., i, 18), whose energizing principle is charity (Eph., iv, 16), whose members are the saints, not onlj' of this world, but also of the world to come (Eph., i, 20; Heb., xii, 22). In that communion there is no loss of individuality, yet such an interdependence that the saints are "members one of another" (Rom., xii, 5), not only sharing the same blessings (I Cor., xii, 13) and exchanging good offices (ibid., xii, 25) and prayers (Eph., vi, 18), but also partaking of the same corpor- ate life, for "the whole body ... by what every joint supplieth . . . maketh increase . . . unto the edifying of itself in charity" (Eph., iv, 16).
Recent well-known researches in Christian epi- graphy have brought out clear and abundant proof of the principal manifestations of the communion of saints in the early Church. Similar evidence, care- fully sifted by Kirsch, is to be found in the Apostolic Fathers with an occasional allusion to the Pauline conception. For an attempt at the formulation of the dogma we have to come down to the Alexandrian School. Clement of .Alexandria shows the "gnos- tic's" intimate relations with the angels (Strom., VI, xii, 10) and the departed souls (ibid., VIII, xii, 78); and he all but fornuilates the thesaurus ecclesicv in his presentation of the vicarious martyrdom, not of Christ alone, but also of the Apostles and other martyrs (ibid., IV, xii, 87). Origen enlarges, almost to exag- geration, on the idea of \'icarious martyrdom (Exhort, ad martyr., ch. 1) and of conunimion between man and angels (De orat., xxxi) ; and accDunts for it by the uni- fying power of Christ's Redemption, id calestibus ter-
renn soriaret (In Le\'it., hom. iv) and the force of char-
ity, stranger in heaven than upon earth (De orat., xi).
With St. Basil and St. John Chrysostom the commu-
Jiion of saints has become an obvious tenet used as an
answer to such popular objections as these: what need
of a communion with others? (Basil, Ep. cciii); an-
other has sinned and I shall atone? (Chrysostom,
Hom. i, de poenit.). St. John Damascene has only to
collect the sayings of the Fathers in order to support
the dogma of the invocation of the saints and the
prayers for the dead.
But the complete presentation of the dogma comes from the later Fathers. After the statements of Ter- tuUian, speaking of " common hope, fear, joy, sorrow, and suffering" (De pcenit., ix and x); of St. (Cyprian, explicitly setting forth the communion of merits (De lapsis, xvii) ; of St. Hilary, giving the Eucharistic Communion as a means and symbol of the commimion of saints (in Ps. Ixiv, 14), we come to the teaching of St. Ambrose and St. Augustine. From the former, the thesaurus ecclesicc, the best practical test of the com- munion of saints, receives a definite explanation (De poenit., I, xv; De officiis, I, xix). In the transcendent view of the Church taken by the latter (Enchir., Ivi) the communion of saints, though never so called by him, is a necessity; to the Civitas Dei must needs cor- respond the unitas caritatis (De unitate eccl., ii), which embraces in an effective union the saints and angels in heaven (Enarr. in Psalmos, XXXVI, iii, 4), the just on earth (De bapt.. Ill, xvii), and, in a lower degree, the sinners themselves, the putrida membra of the mystic body; only the declared heretics, schismat- ics, and apostates are excluded from the society, though not from the prayers, of the saints (Senn. cxxxvii). The Augustinian concept, though some- what obscured in the catechetical expositions of the Creed bv the Carlo vingian and later theologians (P. L., XCIX, CI, CVIII, CX, CLII, CLXXXVI), takes its place in the medieval synthesis of Peter Lombard, St. Bonaventure, St. Thomas, etc. (See Schwane- Degert, Hist, des dogmes, V, 229.)
Influenced no doubt by early writers like Yvo of Chartres (P. L., CLXII, 6061), Abelard (P. L., CLXXXIII, 630), and probablv -Alexander of Hales (III, Q. Ixix, a. 1), St. Thomas "(Expos, in symb., 10) reads in the neuter the phrase of the Creed, cominunio sanctorum (participation of spiritual goods), but apart from the point of grammar his conception of the dog- ma is thorough. General principle: the merits of Christ are communicated to all, and the merits of each one are communicated to the others (ibid.). The manner of participation: both objective and inten- tional, in radice opens, ex irdcntione facicnfis (Suppl., Ixxi, a. 1). The measure: the degree of charity (Ex- pos, in symb., 10). The benefits communicated: not the sacraments alone but the superabundant merits of Christ and the saints forming the thesaurus ecclesiw (ibid, and Quodlib., II, Q. viii, a. 16). The p.artici- pants: the three parts of the Church (Expos, in symb., 9); consequently the faithful on earth ex- changing merits and satisfactions (I-II, Q. c.xiii, a. 6, and Suppl., Q. xiii, a. 2), the souls in purgatory profit- ing by the suffrages of the living and the intercession of the saints (Suppl., Q. Ixxi), the saints themselves receiving honour and giving intercession (II-II, Q. Ixxxiii.aa. 4, 11; III,Q. xxv, a. 6), and also the angels, as noted above. Later Scholastics and post-Reforma- tion theologians have added little to the Thomistic presentation of the dogma. They worked rather around than into it. defending such points as were at- tacked by heretics, showing the religious, ethical, and social value of the Catholic conception; and they in- troduced the distinction between the body and the soul of the Church, between actual membership and membership in desire, completing the theory of the relations between church membership and the com- munion of saints which had alreaily been outlined by
