The Formation of Christendom, Volume IIAllies, T. W. (Thomas William)
Religion
The Formation of Christendom, Volume II
Allies, T. W. (Thomas William)
Christianity; Christianity -- Miscellanea
tongue the one truth which was evermore to dwell with them, they were
heard in all the various languages of the nations present at the feast.
“The society by which men are made the one Body of the only Son of God
belongs to the Spirit,”(96) and He came upon all together in one House to
indicate, as He made, that one Body. “The mode of giving,” says S.
Augustine, “was such as never before appeared. Nowhere do we read before
that men congregated together had by receiving the Holy Ghost spoken with
the tongues of all nations.”(97) “Therefore He came upon Pentecost as upon
His birthday.”(98)
It is His presence alone which confers four gifts upon the body which He
vivifies.
It was the will, says S. Augustine,(99) of the Father and the Son that we
should have communion with each other and with Them by means of that which
is common to Them, and by that gift to collect us into one, which, being
one, They both have; that is to say, by the Holy Ghost, who is God, and
the gift of God. For, says S. Thomas,(100) the unity of the Holy Spirit
makes unity in the Church. It is not by similarity, or by juxtaposition,
or by agreement, how much less by concessions and compromises, that unity
exists in the body of Christ, but because the Spirit is one, because all
gifts, however various, all functions, however distinct, are distributed
by this One.
For the same reason truth dwells in this Body, because He is the Spirit of
Truth. Our Lord Himself has defined His great function in this particular,
to lead His disciples by the hand(101) into all truth, to teach all
things, and remind of all things which made up His own teaching. This
function began on the day of Pentecost, and lasts to the day of judgment,
and belongs to the Body of Christ, and to it alone, and belongs to it
because it is animated by the Spirit of Truth. And this animation is like
the Head, the same yesterday, to-day, and for ever. It is not of any past
time more or less than of the present or the future. It is the
illumination which belongs to that whole last day, through which the Body
of Christ grows, teaches, labours, and suffers, until the mortal day break
into the light of eternity.
His third gift to the Body is that of charity, and for the same reason,
because He is this Himself. He who is not only the Unity of the Father and
the Son, but their mutual Love, coming as the gift of that Divine love
which redeemed the world by the sacrifice of its Maker, and as the Spirit
of that Love, who invested Himself with human flesh, creates in this human
dwelling-place that one charity which bears His name, and is of His
nature, and which in that one body joins the wills of men together as His
Truth joins their intellects. If the Body of Christ has one prevailing
charity, which reaches to all its members, and encompasses the least as
well as the greatest, it is because the heart is divine.
Public-domain text, read in full here on John Shaqi.
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