even by Christ Himself. So great a thing is the communion of saints, and the Church of Christ.[1]
If any one does not believe this, he is an infidel, and has denied Christ and the Church. For even if it should not be perceived yet it is true; but who could fail to perceive it? For why is it that you do not sink in despair, or grow impatient? Is it your strength? Nay: it is the communion of saints. Otherwise you could not bear even a venial sin,[2] nor endure a word of man against you. So close to you are Christ and the Church. It is this that we confess in the Creed, "I believe in the Holy Ghost; the holy Catholic[3] Church." What is it to believe in the holy Church but to believe in the communion of saints. But what things have the saints in common? Blessings, forsooth, and evils; all things belong to all; as the Sacrament of the Altar signifies, in the bread and wine, where we are all said by the Apostle to be one body, one bread, one cup.[4][5] For who can hurt any part of the body without hurting the whole body? What pain can we feel in the tip of the toe that is not felt in the whole body? Or what honor can be shown to the feet in which the whole body will not rejoice? But we are one body. Whatever another suffers, that I suffer and bear; whatever good befalls him, befalls me. So Christ says that whatsoever is done unto one of the least of His brethren, is done unto Him.[6] If a man partake
- ↑ For the various interpretations of the "communion of saints" among mediæval theologians, see Reinh. Seeberg, Lehrbuch der Dogmengeschichte, 1st ed., vol. ii, p. 127, note. Luther, in the Sermon von dem hochwürdigen Sacrament des heiligen wahren Leichnams Christi (1519), still accepts the phrase as meaning the participation in the Sacrament, and through it the participation in "the spiritual possessions of Christ and His saints." In our treatise, it is taken as the definition of the "the holy Catholic Church," in the sense of a communion with the saints. In The Papacy at Rome (later in the same year), it becomes the communion or community (consisting) of saints, or believers; as a Gemeinde oder Sammlung. Compare the classical passage in the Large Catechism (1529): "nicht Gemeinschaft, sondern Gemeine."
- ↑ See A Discussion of Confession, above, p. 88.
- ↑ Changed to "Christian" in the Catechisms (1529), although the Latin translations retain catholicam.
- ↑ 1 Cor. 10:17
- ↑ The Apostle does not say, "one cup."
- ↑ Matt. 25:40
