and he is the head of the body, the church who is the beginning and the first born from the dead; that in all things he might have the pre-eminence—primatum—for in him it was pleasing that all fulness should dwell and through him to reconcile all things to himself."
This unity of the body—that is the church—the apostle proves by showing, I Cor. 12:3, that the diversity of graces, ministries and operations proceeds from the one spiritual Lord who works in all. For grace must precede: it is the beginning of ministration for clerics and of operation for laymen. The Spirit gives grace, the Lord receives ministration, and God demands ministration. "To one," the apostle says, "is given by the Spirit the word of wisdom, to another the word of knowledge by the same Spirit; to one faith in the same Spirit, to another the grace of healing, to another the working of miracles, to another prophecy, to another discerning of spirits, to another divers sorts of tongues, to another the interpretation of words." These nine the apostle seems to express one after the other, each in its own logical order in the men who receive the gifts. God, he says, has placed some in the church, first apostles, secondarily prophets, thirdly teachers, then miracles, then gifts of healings, interpretations of words, helps, governments, divers sorts of tongues, all nine of which seem to be correlated to the former nine. And in the same passage, comparing the body of Christ and its members to the body of the natural man, the apostle says, I Cor. 12:12: "As the body is one and hath many members, but all the members of the body, though they are many, are one body; so also is Christ.”
There is to be noted a threefold correspondence and a threefold difference between the members of the mystical body and the human body. For as the members compose one body to which the soul is joined, and again as each member is necessary to every other, the one helping the other in the performance of its functions, so it is true of the members of
