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Works Augustine of Hippo (354-430) De doctrina christiana (CCEL) Contents of Christian Doctrine
Book III.

Chapter 31.--The First Rule of Tichonius.

44. The first is about the Lord and His body, and it is this, that, knowing as we do that the head and the body--that is, Christ and His Church--are sometimes indicated to us under one person (for it is not in vain that it is said to believers, "Ye then are Abraham's seed," 1 when there is but one seed of Abraham, and that is Christ), we need not be in a difficulty when a transition is made from the head to the body or from the body to the head, and yet no change made in the person spoken of. For a single person is represented as saying, "He hath decked me as a bridegroom with ornaments, and adorned me as a bride with jewels" 2 and yet it is, of course, a matter for interpretation which of these two refers to the head and which to the body, that is, which to Christ and which to the Church.


  1. Gal. iii. 29. ↩

  2. Isa. lxi. 10 (LXX.). "As a bridegroom decketh himself with ornaments, and as a bride adorneth herself with jewels" (A.V.). ↩

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Faculty of Theology, Patristics and History of the Early Church
Miséricorde, Av. Europe 20, CH 1700 Fribourg

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