And this is one reason why no unity of a college, whether of Apostles, or of Bishops, will adequately express that visible headship of which our Lord's Person is the exemplar. For the root of all lies in a personal unity, that of the Godhead and Manhood, and therefore a merely collective or representative unity cannot express it. And if the Apostle wrote, "God hath set in the Church _first_ Apostles," yet he also wrote that the grand result, "the perfecting of the saints, and the edifying of the body of Christ," was due to the ministry, not only of Apostles, but of prophets, evangelists, pastors, and doctors, each in their degree; they all conspire to a joint action, which does not impede the existence of distinct orders in the hierarchy. And his expression that the Apostles are _first_ in this hierarchy, without defining their mutual relations to each other, does not exclude those other passages of Scripture which _do_ define those relations, and which make Peter among the Apostles "the first," "the ruler," "the greater," the Judah among his brethren, the foundation of the whole building, and the one shepherd in the universal fold. And the more so because S. Paul uses three expressions of the Church, two of which are _relative_, but one _absolute_. He calls it "the body of Christ," and "Christ," which are relative; but he also calls it "one body," which is absolute. Now, these expressions are not to be severed from each other, as if each by itself would convey the whole idea of the Church, which rather is to be drawn from them all together. In answer to what the Church is, we must not say that it is _either_ "the body of Christ," _or_ mystically called "Christ," _or_ set before us as "one body," for it is _all_ of these at once, relatively "Christ," and "the body of Christ," and absolutely "one body." As, then, the former expressions show that the Church is one _in reference to Christ_, so the latter shows that it is so _in itself_, and _simply_. For as the Church is called "Christ," and "the Body of Christ," because it is one with Christ by mystical union, drawing its supernatural life from Christ its head, so it is called "one body," because in the variety of members and parts, of which it consists, no one is wanting to its being one body in itself, and to its being seen to be such. But it would neither be so, nor seem to be so, if it were without a visible head, the origin and principle of its inherent visible unity. And so where the Church is called by S. Paul "one Body," he declares that it has a visible head.