Augustinian Studies 41:1 (2010) 165–182

Augustine on the Spirit as the Soul of the Body

or Fragments of a Trinitarian Ecclesiology

Lewis Ayres
University of Durham

“Quod autem est anima corpori hominis

hoc est spiritus sanctus corpori Christi,
quod est ecclesia.”1

Introduction
The idea that the Spirit may be described as the soul of the body of Christ, the
Church, has been a constant minor theme in official Catholic ecclesiology over the
past 150 years. The theme appears in Leo XIII’s Divinum Illud Munus, and is again
referenced in Pius XII’s Mystici Corporis and in Vatican II’s Lumen Gentium.2 The
idea has lost prominence in decades since the council—it makes no appearance,
for example, in John Paul II’s Dominum et Vivificantem and appears in an oddly
dislocated way in the New Catechism of 1992 to 1997.3 Throughout this history,
reference to Augustine as source is also constant. Indeed, for many Catholic writers
in the mid-twentieth century the theme was understood as the key to Augustine’s
ecclesiology, as a central contribution of Augustine to ecclesiological reflection

1. S. 267,4 (PL 38, col. 1231).

2. See, e.g., Divinum Illud Munus § 6, Mystici Corporis § 57, Lumen Gentium § 7. All of these may
be accessed at www.vatican.va.
3. See Catechism of the Catholic Church (New York: Doubleday, 1995), § 797. For some reason this
paragraph is the first in the section “The Church as the Temple of the Holy Spirit.” The idea is not
mentioned in the previous section “The Church—Body of Christ.”

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and, hence, as a key possession of Catholic ecclesiological tradition. Sebastiaan

Tromp, for example, produced, in two small volumes, a selection of texts from the
Greek and Latin Fathers to show the prominence of the theme in the Fathers.4 For
English language readers Stanislaus Grabowski’s highly synthetic The Church:
An Introduction to the Theology of St. Augustine5 offers a perfect example of the
tendency to present this theme as the key to and guiding foundation of Augustine’s
ecclesiology. Throughout this history one main function of the theme has been to
illustrate and distinguish the relative functions of Son and Spirit in their salvific
mission. Although many writers often think of Lumen Gentium as demonstrating a
turn to what is spoken of as a more explicitly “Trinitarian ecclesiology,” they usually
do so in (a partially unfair) comparison with Mystici Corporis, and without noting
the extensive Trinitarian material present in Leo XIII’s 1897 encyclical.
Now, to the scholar of Augustine, this history suggests three sets of questions.
First, how important is this theme to Augustine? Is it really the unifying analogy
of his ecclesiology? Second, how does this idea develop in Augustine’s texts and
what are its sources? Third, does Augustine (and, if so, how?) employ the idea in
an explicitly Trinitarian context? Does this analogy reveal to us the links between
his ecclesiology and his Trinitarian theology? My focus in this paper is partially on
the second set of questions, specifically the question of development, and on the
third set as a whole. I hope eventually to address the first and the rest of the second
in a future paper. (I also note that, oddly, little has been written on this theme by
modern scholars of Augustine).
We cannot proceed further without attempting to answer an obvious question:
what does it mean to speak of an ecclesiology as “Trinitarian”? Some recent writers
appear to operate on the assumption that the more pluralist and devolved an account
of appropriate Church structures and practices, the more Trinitarian an ecclesiology
becomes. Without much more theological discussion we would have here, however,
only the projection of a model of plurality onto the divine and the claim that the
same model was instantiated best in a particular account of the Church. I suggest,
as a more directly theological alternative, that a Trinitarian ecclesiology is one that
describes the nature and purpose of the Church as an integral part of the interrelated
missions of Son and Spirit (and while questions about unity and plurality in the
Church will no doubt play a part (cf., e.g., Jn. 17:11) they will always need to be
asked in the light of prior attention to the sort of unity and plurality appropriate

4. Sebastianus Tromp, De Spiritu Sancto Anima Corporis Mystici. I. Testomina Selecta e Patribus Grae-
cis, II. Testimonia Selecta e Patribus Latinis (Rome: Ponitifcal Gregorian University, 1949 and 1952).
5. Stanislaus Grabowski, The Church: An Introduction to the Theology of St. Augustine (St. Louis:
Herder, 1957).

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for members of the Body of Christ at this point in God’s economy, and they will
always need to be related to epistemological questions about our knowledge of the
divine plurality and unity prior to the beatific vision).
We need to begin with this fairly formal statement because there are a variety
of ways in which a Trinitarian ecclesiology might be instantiated. I presume that,
at a minimum, relating the Church to the missions of Son and Spirit will involve a
narrative of the missions of Son and Spirit in Christ and in the Christian community.
Within such a narrative, one might, for example, focus (implicitly or explicitly) on
Son or Spirit individually, relating the character of their individual actions in the
Church to their eternal propria. Or, one might attempt to show in a more interre-
lated manner how the life of the Church reflects the eternal interrelationships and
ordering of Father, Son and Spirit.
However, once we speak of Trinitarian ecclesiology within a Nicene context,
other questions also impinge. Those theologians who have written most strongly
in favor of drawing out the Trinitarian character of the Church generally assume
that one of the most important aids for achieving this end is establishing, as clearly
as possible, an ecclesial narrative that distinguishes the relative roles of Son and
Spirit. But, in a Nicene context, what are the limits of such differentiation when the
interpenetration and inseparable operation of the persons is confessed? Examining
this particular theme in Augustine’s corpus will provide us with much material for
reflection on this set of questions.

AD 393–397
Two basic elements of Augustine’s soul and body language first appear together
in the s. dom. mon. of 393. In Book 1 Augustine writes:
Let anyone who seeks the delights of this world and the riches of temporal things
under the Christian name remember that our blessedness is within. As it is said of
the soul of the Church by the mouth of the prophet, “all the beauty of the king’s
daughter is within (Ps. 45:13).” Slanders and persecutions and disparagements
from without are promised; and yet, from these things there is a great reward in
heaven, which is felt in the heart of those who endure, those who can now say,
“We glory in tribulations: knowing that tribulation works patience; and patience,
experience; and experience, hope: and hope makes not ashamed; because the love
of God is shed abroad in our hearts by the Holy Ghost which is given unto us.”
(Rom. 5:5) . . . it is not said merely, “Blessed are those who endure persecution;”
but it is added, “for the sake of righteousness” (Mt. 5:10). Now, where there is
no sound faith, there can be no righteousness, for the just [righteous] man lives
by faith (Rom. 1:17; cf. Hab. 2:4). Neither let schismatics promise themselves
anything of that reward; for similarly, where there is no love, there cannot be

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righteousness, for “love does no harm to a neighbor” (Rom. 13:10); and if they
had it, they would not tear in pieces Christ’s body, which is the Church.6
The two elements are these. First, the collective unit of the Church is treated as
parallel to the individual human soul. Second, the soul is the source of love and it
is love that holds the whole together. At the same time, we should also note that
Augustine deploys the analogy in the context of anti-Donatist polemic, as an argu-
ment against those who “tear” the body of Christ.
Just a few years later we find a fascinating reference in Simpl. Commenting on
Rom. 9:20–21, “has not the potter power over the clay.” Augustine draws in Sir.
33:10ff., a passage in which the same language occurs: “In all there is form and the
fitting together of the body in such concord of the members that the apostle can use
it as an illustration of how charity is obtained. In all a life-giving spirit vivifies the
earthly members, and man’s whole nature is wonderfully attuned, as the soul rules
and the body obeys.”7 In this passage Augustine is describing the original unity of
humankind in Adam and suggesting that Paul’s body language is a similitudo that
draws on it. That original unity is perverted by our common sinfulness, and out of it
God draws one set to salvation and leaves the rest to their just condemnation. For our
purposes, however, we must also note Augustine’s fuller description of the Spirit’s
vivifying function. The Spirit produces a harmony of the limbs of the original social
body, and a harmony that depends on the soul’s focus and exercise of its ruling func-
tion. This account of the soul’s functions follows directly along lines traced some
years before in imm. an. of 386–387 and that appeared again in the agon. of 396.8

6. S. dom. mon. I,5,13 (CCSL 35, pp. 13–14): “Animaduertat, quisquis delicias huius saeculi et facul-
tates rerum temporalium quaerit in nomine christiano, intrinsecus esse beatitudinem nostram, sicut
de anima ecclesiastica ore prophetico dicitur: ‘omnis pulchritudo filiae regis intrinsecus.’ Nam extrin-
secus maledicta et persecutiones et detractiones promittuntur, de quibus tamen magna merces in cae-
lis est, quae sentitur in corde patientium, eorum qui iam possunt dicere: ‘Gloriamur in tribulationibus
scientes quoniam tribulatio patientiam operatur, patientia probationem, probatio spem; spes autem
non confundit, quoniam caritas dei diffusa est in cordibus nostris per spiritum sanctum, qui datus est
nobis.’ . . . non dictum est tantum: ‘Beati qui persecutionem patiuntur,’ sed additum est: ‘propter iusti-
tiam.’ Ubi autem sana fides non est, non potest esse iustitia, quia iustus ex fide uiuit. Neque scismatici
aliquid sibi ex ista mercede promittant, quia similiter ubi caritas non est, non potest esse iustitia;
‘dilectio’ enim ‘proximi malum non operatur,’ quam si haberent, non dilaniarent corpus christi, quod
est ecclesia.” For this translation, which is that of D. Kavanagh, see FOTC 11, pp. 30–31. It along
with several of the other translations that are included here have been modified slightly.
7. Simpl. I,2,20 (CCSL 44, p. 51): “In omnibus est enim species et conpago corporis in tanta membrorum
concordia, ut inde apostolus ad caritatem obtinendam similitudinem duceret; in omnibus est etiam
spiritus uitalis terrena membra uiuificans; omnisque natura hominis dominatu animae et famulatu cor-
poris . . .” For this trans., which is a slightly modified version of that of Burleigh, see LCC 6, p. 404.
8. Imm. an. 16,25; agon. 20,22. This latter text is an interesting one because it is one of the few
where Augustine speaks of the head (Christ) working through the limbs (the Church) like the soul
in the body, but without reference to the Spirit.

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In 394 Paulinus of Nola and his wife Therasia wrote to Augustine, a previous
letter having gone unanswered. In a complex rhetorical flourish Paulinus argues
that even though he and Theresia might seem not to know Augustine because of a
lack of words from Hippo, they do know him because they recognize Augustine in
the Spirit because they are all members of the one body and are in the one spirit (cf.
Eph. 3:5–6 and par.).9 Augustine seems not to have replied until 396 or 397. But
when he finally did so, he quoted Paulinus asserting that he, Augustine, shares in
the same body and grace; and when Augustine then glosses Paulinus, the analogy
of the Spirit and the body is far more clearly articulated than it was in Paulinus’s
letter: “My holy brother and sister, whom God loves, members with us of one body,
who would doubt that we are kept alive by one Spirit except someone who does
not experience the love by which we are bound to one another?”10 Given Paul’s
own linking of s/Spirit and body in such texts as 1Cor. 12 and Eph 4:4, one might
fairly suggest it is unsurprising that we find Paulinus offering his own brief play
on the language. Nevertheless, Augustine brings to this language a particular and
conscious use of a language of the soul’s functioning and its parallels to the Holy
Spirit’s mission. Indeed, while Tromp’s short volumes were intended to show the
constancy of this analogy through early Christian tradition, it is noticeable that his
volume dedicated to the Latin tradition actually demonstrates that while occasional
play on the language is a constant—following the largely implicit hints apparent in
1Cor. 12:12–13—it is only with Augustine that we see the theme developed through
an extended analogy between the powers of the soul and the work of the Spirit.11

AD 407
In the first decade of the fifth century our analogy begins to appear in a more
developed form, and it does so in the joint context of anti-Donatist polemic and
reflection on the meaning and place of Pentecost. The one extended discussion that
we can securely date to this decade occurs in the sixth of Augustine’s ten homilies
on the first epistle of John, preached in 407. It is also discussion that rewards careful
attention. Toward the end of the homily Augustine comments on the receiving of the

9. Ep. 30,2. The previous letter is preserved as Augustine, ep. 25.

10. Ep. 31,3 (CSEL 34/2, p. 3): “Sancti fratres dilecti deo nostra que inuicem membra, quis dubitet
nos uno spiritu uegetari, nisi qui non sentit, qua nobis dilectione uinciamur?” See Teske, WSA
II/1, p. 104.
11. One of the few examples of direct comparison between the characteristics of the human soul and
the Spirit is to be found in Hilary at in Ps. 118,19,8. Note, however, that here Hilary makes no
comment about Christ and seeks only to illustrate the Spirit’s omnipresence. For Tromp’s pre-
Augustinian texts see his De Spiritu Sancto, pp. 7–34.

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Spirit at Pentecost and offers his standard exegesis: the apostles spoke in tongues
as a sign that all nations would receive the Spirit; now that this has been fulfilled,
the sign is no longer needed. Because of this fulfillment, we need not fear that the
newly baptized do not speak in tongues. However, we do need to ask: How we may
know that they have received the Spirit? In the first place, love of one’s brother is
the abiding of the Spirit, but Augustine immediately qualifies this by equating such
love with love of the peace, love and unity of the Church spread throughout the
world. We must love not only the one nearest to us and seen by us, but also those
to whom we are joined in the unity of the Spirit. He continues:
Let [the Christian] take care not to love only that brother of whom he takes
notice before his eyes, for we do not see many brothers of ours, and yet, we are
joined to them in the unity of the Spirit. What wonder that they are not with us?
We are in one body, we have one head in heaven. Brothers our eyes do not see
themselves; they do not, as it were, know themselves. Can it be that they do not
know themselves in the love of the bodily structure? For, that you may know that
they know themselves in the conjoining of love, when both are open, it is not
permitted for the right eye to take notice of anything of which the left one does
not take notice. Direct the ray of the right eye without the other if you can. They
converge at the same time, they are directed at the same time. Their focusing is
one; their locations are different. If, then, all who love God with you have one
focusing with you, take no care that you are separated in place by the body; you
have together fixed the sight of your heart on the light of truth.12
In this text the language Augustine used when writing to Paulinus is filled out
considerably. The analogy of the soul and the body enables Augustine to talk of
the spatial separation between members of the Church as irrelevant to their actual
unity because of the unifying role of the Spirit. The reality of the body rests here
almost entirely in the Spirit.
The anti-Donatist context is fairly clear. At the beginning of the homily Augus-
tine condemns those who “declare themselves martyrs in heresies and schisms,”

12. Ep. Jo. 6,10 (SC 75, pp.2 98–300): “Non adtendat eum solum diligere fratrem quem adtendit ante
se: multos enim non videmus fratres nostros, et in unitate Spiritus illis copulamur. Quid mirum quia
nobiscum non sunt? In uno corpore sumus, unum caput habemus in caelo. Fratres, oculi nostri non
se vident, quasi non se norunt. An in caritate compaginis corporalis norunt se? Nam, ut noveritis
quia in conjunctione caritatis se nouerunt: quando ambo patent, non licet ut aliquid adtendat dex-
ter, quod non adtendat sinister. Dirige radium dexterum sine altero, si potes. Simul coeunt, simul
diriguntur; intentio una est, loca diversa sunt. Si ergo omnis qui tecum diligit Deum, unam inten-
tionem tecum habet, noli adtendere quia corpore in loco separatus es; aciem cordis simul fixistis
in lumine veritatis.” See FOTC 92, p. 209. This passage also ends with a citation of Rom. 5:5: “the
love of God has been poured into our hearts through the Holy Spirit who has been given to us.” On
Rom. 5:5 in Augustine, see A.-M. La Bonnardière, “Le verset paulinien Rom., v.5, dans l’oeuvre
de saint Augustin,” in Augustinus Magister, I (Paris: Études augustiniennes, 1954), pp. 657–665.

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and here Augustine emphasizes that the Church is spread throughout the world,
and when he speaks of “they” who are not with us, he is referring to the Donatists.
But note that Augustine also speaks here of the sacrament of baptism and its ef-
fects, and that he does so in highly pneumatological terms. The visible water and
words of the sacrament are one thing, its invisible and hidden power another. The
power of the sacrament here is directly equated with the Spirit and maybe known
in the love that one feels for one’s brothers in the Church. Extensive argument is
offered to demonstrate that John’s “rivers of living water (flumina aquae vivae)”
(cf. Jn. 4:10–11) refers to the Spirit who cleanses the soul.13 The primary role of
the Son here is to send the Spirit: the culmination and effectiveness of baptism
rests in Christ’s sending of the Spirit. Thus, throughout the passage, for particular
anti-Donatist purposes, it is the Spirit who takes center stage.
The rhetorical focus on the Spirit in this homily stands out best with a counter-
point, and for that we can turn to Tractate 10 where Augustine again discusses the
unity of the body of Christ. Here Augustine’s emphasis is on Christ’s dwelling in
his body. Thus while the unity of the body is here constituted by love, the precise
role of the Spirit is not specified. It is also here that Augustine states famously:
No one can love the Father unless he should love the Son, and he who loves the
Son loves also the sons of God. What sons of God? The members of the Son of
God. And, by loving, he also himself becomes a member and by love comes to
be situated in the structure of the body of Christ, and there will be one Christ
loving himself (erit unus Christus amans seipsum).14
In the next few lines, Augustine speaks about the Christian loving Father and Son
again at length, but without mentioning the Spirit. Only in passing, when he argues
that both Christ and Love maybe said to be “the end,” does he emphasize that Father,
Son and Spirit are God and are love, so that love is the end.15
Thus Augustine shifts his rhetorical focus. His concern in this homily is to link
together love of Christ (and the Father) and love of our neighbors in the Church; to do
so he emphasizes the unity in love of the totus Christus recommended to us by Christ
himself before his Ascension.16 But to do this is to attribute to Christ the loving that

13. Ep. Jo. 6,11 (SC 75, p. 302).

14. Ibid., 10,3 (SC 75, p. 414): “. . . nec potest quisquam diligere Patrem, nisi diligat Filium; et qui
diligit Filium, diligat filios Dei. Quos filios Dei? membra Filii Dei. Et diligendo fit et ipse mem-
brum, et fit per dilectionem in compage corporis Christi; et erit unus Christus amans seipsum.”
See FOTC 92, p. 265.
15. Ibid., 10,5.
16. See ibid., 10,9. For further examples of this anti-Donatist reading of the Ascension see ss. 267 and
268, which are discussed in the next section. Note that in those cases Christ’s teaching prior to his

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was earlier attributed to the Spirit. This shift, then, forces us to ask whether Augustine
has a fixed understanding of the relative roles of Son and Spirit in the Church, and
whether (and how) he draws boundaries between functions attributed to the Spirit
and functions attributed to the Son. It is, perhaps, already clear that the answer to
these questions will depend upon Augustine’s Nicene understanding of the unity
of the divine three; the unity of Father, Son and Spirit has been a point of reference
throughout this series of homilies, and it is once more made explicit here.17

Two Pentecost Sermons: AD 405 and 412?

A number of Augustine’s Pentecost sermons survive; two offer accounts of our
theme, possess an anti-Donatist edge, and have frequently been taken to be para-
digmatic of Augustine’s ecclesiology.18 While the two have been fairly consistently
dated some years apart, in 405 and in 412, the dating of neither is secure and I think
it best to treat them together. Indeed, the close similarity in approach between these
two texts only adds to the difficulty of dating.
S. 268 was dated by Kunzelmann to 405, although others have offered only
405–410; it is clearly another case where little certainty is possible.19 The homily
focuses on the unity of the Church: even though seven weeks of seven days makes
forty-nine days, Pentecost is celebrated on the fiftieth day, the extra day signifying
unity.20After discussing the analogy that concerns us, Augustine further empha-
sizes unity by reference to God’s creating of all humanity from one human being,
in distinction from the creating of all other things in original pluralities (and thus
uniquely taking up the theme of the original unity of humanity from the Simpl. in
discussion of the Spirit as the soul of the body of Christ).21
Between these discussions, Augustine reflects on Eph. 4:4 (“one body and one
spirit”). Just as one spirit binds together, gives life to and co-ordinates the parts

Ascension is used to demonstrate the centrality of the Spirit in Christ’s body.

17. Ep. Jo. 10,5 (SC 75, p. 420): “. . . finis praecepti caritas, et Deus caritas: quia Pater et Filius et
Spiritus Sanctus unum sunt.” See also, e.g., ibid., 7,6.
18. Among the other Pentecost sermons, only s. 270,6 makes any use of our analogy. For an anti-
Donatist but non-homiletic text which includes the analogy, see ep. 185,9,42.
19. For the range of dates offered see P.-P. Verbraken, Études critiques sur les sermones de authen-
tiques de Saint Augustin, Instrumenta Patristica XII (Steenbrugge: In abbatia S. Petri, 1976), p.
124. For Kunzelmann’s clearly uncertain suggestion, see A. Kunzelmann, “Die chronologie der
Sermons des hl. Augustinus, Miscellanea Agostiniana, Volume II Studi Agostiniani (Rome: Ti-
pografia Poliglotta Vaticana, 1931), p. 441.
20. S. 268,1.
21. Ibid., 3.

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of the body, so the Spirit joins and co-ordinates the Body of Christ. If one “part”
suffers, all “parts” feel the pain. But, and here we hear Augustine’s anti-Donatist
voice, if a limb is cut from the body it retains its shape but loses its life.22
The second half of the sermon offers us an account of the risen but not yet as-
cended Christ recommending the Church—his bridegroom—by preaching continuity
between his own resurrection and the spreading of the gospel from Jerusalem to the
ends of the earth (cf. Lk. 24). Paul’s rejection of schism at 1 Cor. 1:11–13—“has
Christ been divided up?”—further indicates the importance of a unifying love for
the head of the body. In Acts 1:7–8, Christ’s statement that the Spirit will come
upon the Apostles is used to link Ascension, Pentecost and Augustine’s hearers in
the Church: that which is commended by Christ and discussed by Paul is the Church
as it exists in fifth-century Africa.23
The polemical tone of the sermon—the narrative connection Augustine draws
between Christ and his Church existing in the Spirit—needs no more Trinitarian
context than a simple narrative distinction between Son and Spirit. The analogy of
Spirit as soul is very clearly stated, but serves only to reinforce the principle that the
body must necessarily remain united with it if it is to live. Nevertheless, we do see
here that the more clearly Augustine can articulate the Spirit’s function in achieving
that unity the stronger his rhetoric becomes. The battle with Donatism thus forces
on Augustine the need for particular sorts of clarity about the analogy and a need
for precision about its Trinitarian underpinnings is not among them.
S. 267, which also has the Donatists very much in mind, has been placed by a
number of scholars from Kunzelmann to La Bonnardière in 412. The dating here
may be a little more secure, but only if one accepts the suggestion that it is the
Pentecost sermon preached in the same year as s. 265, one which is more securely
dated.24 The text is short and for the most part follows lines apparent in 268. In
the first half Augustine points back to his Ascension sermon where he discussed
Christ “recommending his Church.”25 If the 412 date is correct, then s. 265 seems
to be the intended referent. In that sermon Augustine again turns to Acts 1. In
response to the apostles asking whether Israel is now to be restored, Christ nega-
tively declares that “it is not for you to know the times,” before more positively

22. Ibid., 2.
23. Ibid., 4.
24. See Verbraken, Études critiques, p. 123 (n. 19). On the relationship between ss. 267 and 265 see
Kunzelmann, “Die chronologie,” p. 449 (n. 19). Pierre-Marie Hombert, Nouvelles Recherches de
Chronologie Augustinienne (Paris: Études Augustiniennes, 2000), p. 287 accepts the 412 date for
s. 265, but makes no comment on s. 267.
25. S. 267,3.

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noting that, “you will receive power when the Holy Spirit has come upon you;
and you will be my witnesses in Jerusalem, in all Judaea and Samaria, and to the
ends of the earth.” (Acts 1:8).26 Interweaving reference to the unity of the Church
as the one bridegroom and the seamless robe, Augustine interprets this speech
as Christ’s last will and testament to the Church: only by receiving the Spirit,
who is Love, and consequently desiring unity, can we receive the inheritance.27
In s. 267 Augustine had emphasized that the Church has spread from one house
to all the corners of the world (Ps. 113:3) and now speaks with the tongues of
all nations. Thus, one shouldn’t ask why we do not speak in tongues if we have
received the Spirit because it is through the Spirit that we become one body and,
thus, do speak in many tongues. The spirit or soul gives life to the parts of the
body: it sees, hears, smells, speaks, works, walks through the body; it is present
simultaneously to all parts and gives each part its role. The functions are diverse,
but the life is common.28
The close connections between the arguments of these sermons—as well as to the
Scriptural texts discussed—might suggest either a closer relationship between them
(or, perhaps, the persistence of a particular anti-Donatist argument in Augustine’s
mind) than the current consensus on the date does, but this is not my concern here.
For our purposes, it is important to note that s. 267 only reinforces the argument that
the anti-Donatist focus of s. 268 reveals the rhetorical utility of a detailed account
of the soul’s necessity for unitary life (and thus the necessity of the Spirit of unity)
by employing an anti-Donatist use of the analogy, but that this context does not
similarly demand any detailed Trinitarian development. Thus the irony that, while
these texts have been frequently quoted to illustrate our analogy—thanks to their
clarity about the soul’s function—they are not accounts that reveal much if we ask
about the Trinitarian structure of Augustine’s ecclesiology.

AD ca. 413—ca. 420

Extensive reflection on our analogy occurs only in homiletic contexts. And, as
we have already begun to see, it is only when Augustine preaches over a number
of days and is consequently able to draw out Trinitarian themes slowly that we find
him reflecting on the Trinitarian underpinnings of this account of the Spirit’s role.
We have seen him begin to do so in the series of homilies on 1 Jn.; we will now see
it again in the most mature treatment of our analogy in Augustine’s extant corpus:

26. S. 265,4,5–5,6.
27. Ibid., 6,7–8,9.
28. S. 267,4 (PL 38, col.1231): “ . . . officia diuersa sunt; uita communis.”

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the 26th and 27th Tractates on the Gospel of John. These two tractates constitute
a unified argument, delivered over consecutive days. Dating these two tractates is
also difficult: none of the current attempts do much more than plausibly suggest
somewhere between ca.413 and ca.420; my own preference is for a date toward
the end of this period.29
The famous 26th Tractate concerns the Eucharistic discourse of Jn. 6: 41–59.
Alluding to 1 Cor. 1: 30, Augustine begins by arguing that Christ is our justice
and, thus, that we become just only through grace: “no one fulfills the law except
he whom grace, that is, the bread which comes down from heaven, has helped.”30
This intriguing comment announces the major rhetorical strategy of the sermon: it
is Christ who is both the visible and the invisible bread, the Spirit here is always
named as the Spirit of Christ. The act of faith in Christ is to eat the living bread.31
But how are we drawn to believe? We are drawn because the revelation that is Christ
draws out of us delight, this revelation excites the will toward belief. This belief
that draws is the belief that Christ is the Son of God and thus is wisdom, justice,
truth, eternity and everlasting life itself.32 We should note the particular focus of
this rhetoric. Although Augustine has long been clear about the importance of God
providing both external or internal objects of desire and the motive power to delight
in and follow those objects, here his focus is solely on the manner in which Christ
as revelation answers to the soul’s deepest need and hence draws out a response.33
We are certainly talking of grace, and of grace within the body that is the Church,
but this particular argument demands that the Spirit stands in the shadows over at
the side of the stage.
Augustine focuses next on the reception both of Christ’s teaching as a whole
and the Eucharist in particular. The teaching is grasped if received “spiritually”:
the bread is eaten truly when it is eaten with the heart:
The faithful know the body of Christ if they should not neglect to be the body of
Christ. Let them become the body of Christ, if they want to live from the Spirit
of Christ. Nothing lives from the Spirit of Christ except the body of Christ.
Understand, my brothers, what I have said. You are a man; you have a spirit,

29. See in particular the discussion of A.-M. La Bonnardière, Recherches de Chronologie Augustini-
enne (Paris: Études Augustiniennes, 1965), pp. 87–104. An excellent summary of the long history
of dating questions with reference Jo. ev. tr. is provided by Rettig in FOTC 78, pp. 23–31.
30. Jo. ev. tr. 26,1 (CCSL 36, p. 260): “Nemo autem implet legem, nisi quem adiuuerit gratia, id est
panis qui de caelo descendit.”
31. Ibid.
32. Ibid., 4–5,7.
33. See, e.g., Simpl. I,2,21–22.

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and you have a body. I say spirit which is called the soul, because of which it
is substantiated that you are a human being; for you are a substance composed
of body and soul. . . . Tell me what lives from what. Does your spirit live from
your body, or your body from your spirit? Everyone who lives answers (but he
who cannot answer this, I do not know if he lives); what does everyone who lives
answer? ‘My body of course, lives from my spirit.’ Do you therefore also wish
to live from the Spirit of Christ? Be in the body of Christ?34
Here the Spirit from which we live is Christ’s Spirit. Only a little later Augustine
writes “And so he wants this food and drink to be understood as the society of his
body and his members, that which is called holy Church.”35 With this statement
we must parallel another found a little later: “to eat that food and to drink that
drink is to abide in Christ and to have him abiding in oneself.”36 Abiding in Christ
and living from the Spirit of Christ are identical, and identical to possessing truth,
justice and eternal life.
In Tractate 27, Augustine’s focus is on the relationship between body and spirit.
The apostles thought that Christ—who stated that they must eat his body (cf. Jn.
6:57)—was going to “disburse his body (illi enim putabant eum rogaturum corpus
suum),” but Christ himself now teaches that “it is the spirit that gives life” (Jn.
6:63), and thus “his grace is not consumed in bite-sized pieces (gratia eius non
consumitur morsibus).”37 “Flesh,” Augustine continues, profits us only when to it
is added “spirit.” The incarnation of the Word, the sending of the apostles, just as
the vocal chords and the pen used by a writer are all examples are the flesh being
used by the Spirit:
All these things are works of the flesh, but with the spirit playing it, its musical
instrument, as it were. . . . we abide in [the Lord] when we are his members; but he
abides in us when we are his temple. But that we may be his members, unity joins
us together. That unity may join together, what causes it except love? And whence

34. Jo. ev. tr. 26,13 (CCSL 36, p. 266): “Norunt fideles corpus christi, si corpus christi esse non
negligant. Fiant corpus christi, si uolunt uiuere de spiritu christi. De spiritu christi non uiuit, nisi
corpus christi. Intellegite, fratres mei, quid dixerim. Homo es, et spiritum habes, et corpus habes.
Spiritum dico quae anima uocatur, qua constat quod homo es; constas enim ex anima et corpore.
Habes itaque spiritum inuisibilem, corpus uisibile. Dic mihi quid ex quo uiuat: spiritus tuus uiuit
ex corpore tuo, an corpus tuum ex spiritu tuo? Respondet omnis qui uiuit; (qui autem hoc non
potest respondere, nescio si uiuit) quid respondet omnis qui uiuit? Corpus utique meum uiuit de
spiritu meo. Vis ergo et tu uiuere de spiritu christi? In corpore esto christi.”
35. Ibid., 15 (CCSL 36, p. 267): “Hunc itaque cibum et potum societatem uult intellegi corporis et
membrorum suorum, quod est sancta ecclesia . . .” See FOTC 79, p. 273.
36. Ibid., 18 (CCSL 36, p. 268): “. . . manducare illam escam, et illum bibere potum, in christo ma-
nere, et illum manentem in se habere.” See FOTC 79, p. 274.
37. Ibid. 27,3 (CCSL 36, p. 271). See FOTC 79, pp. 278–279.

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is the love of God? . . . [quotation of Rom 5:5]. . . . Therefore, ‘it is the Spirit that
gives life’ for the spirit produces living members. And the spirit produces living
members only which it has found in the body which the spirit itself enlivens. For
the spirit which is in you, by which it is clear to you that you are human, does it
give life to a member which it has found separated from your flesh? I call your
soul your spirit. Your soul gives life only to the members which are in your flesh;
if you should remove one, it is no longer given life from your soul.38
The importance of the Spirit in this argument forced Augustine to turn to his central
pneumatological language, and it is no surprise that he quotes Rom. 5:5. Viewing
the sermon cycle of Tractates 26 and 27 together offers further justification for my
comments about Homilies 6 and 10 on 1 Jn.: Augustine is able to shift the weight
of his argument to place either Son or Spirit in center stage, depending on his stra-
tegic goal. Doing so enables him to draw on different sets of (usually Scriptural)
terminologies and metaphors associated with the two, as he now offers extensive
commentary on the notion of “spirit” and the functions of the Spirit. At the same
time, we can note the significance in Tractate 26 of justice, truth, and wisdom, terms
primarily associated with the Son, over against the prominence on love and spirit
in Tractate 27. Of course, Augustine also makes use of terms that are appropriate
to either Son or Spirit: The Son loves, the Spirit is love; the Son is Life, the Spirit
gives life. We can perhaps imagine a Venn diagram of Scriptural terminologies and
titles, different circles for Son and Spirit (and Father), but circles that also overlap
and encompass a partially common field. Augustine attends to the circumscriptions
of this diagram both when he wishes to give prominence to Son or Spirit, and when
it serves his purpose to speak of Son and Spirit in the same terms.39
Tractates 26 and 27, however, offer us a little more than an extended example
of Augustine’s ecclesiological and Trinitarian rhetoric. In both, Augustine draws

38. Ibid., 5–6 (CCSL 36, p. 272): “Ista omnia opera carnis sunt, sed agitante spiritu tamquam orga-
num suum. . . . Manemus autem in illo, cum sumus membra eius; manet autem ipse in nobis,
cum sumus templum eius. Vt autem simus membra eius, unitas nos compaginat. Vt compaginet
unitas, quae facit nisi caritas? Et caritas dei unde? . . . Ergo ‘spiritus est qui uiuificat’; spiritus
enim facit uiua membra. Nec uiua membra spiritus facit, nisi quae in corpore quod uegetat ipse
spiritus, inuenerit. Nam spiritus qui est in te, o homo, quo constas ut homo sis, numquid uiuificat
membrum quod separatum inuenerit a carne tua? Spiritum tuum dico animam tuam; anima tua
non uiuificat nisi membra quae sunt in carne tua; unum si tollas, iam non uiuificatur ex anima tua
. . .” See FOTC 79, pp. 280–281.
39. The diagram we must imagine is further complicated in Augustine’s case by his willingness in
principle (and sometimes very clearly in practice) to attribute to each of the divine three a term
that Scripture seems to “appropriate” to a particular one. Thus “Wisdom” and “Holy” are used by
the New Testament primarily of Son and Spirit respectively, but we must also be able to predicate
them of each of the divine three (and Scripture provides us with evidence that we should do so,
see e.g., trin. VII,3,4). These assumptions only increase the area of overlap in the diagram.

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more directly on some themes of his mature pneumatology to identify the Spirit
as the Spirit of Christ and to link the Spirit’s work in the Incarnation to the Spirit’s
work in the body of Christ that is the Church. This knot of ideas becomes central to
Augustine’s pneumatology only in the first decade of the fifth century, and suggests
to us not so much a new Trinitarian solution to our question about how Son and Spirit
interrelate in the Church, but a new clarity about what the question is: if the Spirit is
always the Spirit of the Father and of the Son, how can we distinguish their work in
the body of Christ without separating Christ from his Spirit?40 In more formal terms,
how does the particular account of perichoresis that Augustine espouses allow and
intentionally prevent clear separation of the work of Son and Spirit?

Failure or Promise?
I have now offered comment on all of the texts where Augustine discusses di-
rectly the analogy of the Spirit as the soul of the body of Christ.41 While Augustine’s
accounts of Son and Spirit in these text certainly draw on his standard accounts of
each divine person’s proprium, none of these texts offers overt reflection on the
ways in which the interrelationship of Son and Spirit within the life of God as such
is reflected in the function of the Spirit as the soul of the body. Tractates 26 and 27
offer some hints when they relate the Spirit as the body’s “soul” to the Spirit be-
ing Christ’s Spirit. At the same time, while we have been able to discern a careful
rhetorical practice in how Augustine manipulates Scriptural language for Son and
Spirit, we have achieved no clarity about the relative functions of Son and Spirit
in the work of redemption.
Now, if this is as close as Augustine gets to a “Trinitarian ecclesiology,” then we
might be tempted to think it an oddly undeveloped theme in his work. Of course,
the historical theologian must always be careful when accusing a given subject of
not answering questions that may only be ours. And at the same time, I have peered
through only a small window onto Augustine’s ecclesiology and much might be
found elsewhere. While this last observation is certainly true, this small window
actually shows us far more than we might at first imagine.

40. We first see this language at trin. I,4,7 and I,8,18. It then appears in summary statements in Jo. ev.
tr. 9,7, s. 52 and trin. IV,20,29. It first receives extensive discussion only at trin. V,11,12ff, written
ca. 414–416. See my Augustine and the Trinity (Cambridge: Cambridge University Press, 2010),
ch. 10.
41. Thus excluding texts where, e.g., Augustine states that we are in one body and have one spirit, but
does not directly mention our analogy. Whether or not all such texts can be considered implicit
references to it, as authors such as Grabowski assumed (see his The Church, pp. 234ff. (n. 5)),
must be left for a different study.

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To progress further we should begin by noting that there are good reasons for
expecting Augustine to do precisely what he seems not to do. One of the most well
known principles of Augustine’s Trinitarian theology is that missions reveal proces-
sions. In his mature articulations of the principle, for example in trin. 4, a text which
probably dates from around 413–415 (and thus probably preceding Tractates 26
and 27), Augustine speaks of the missions of Son and the Spirit as being intended
to reveal that they are from God. In fact, of course, he means, “from God” in a
fully Nicene sense. Son and Spirit are from the Father as co-equal divine realities
possessing the one fullness of divinity and yet inseparable from the Father. Indeed,
Augustine pushes further and tells us that the missions of Son and Spirit reveal to
us (as we grow in understanding of Scripture) that the Father is the principium
in the Trinity, eternally speaking his Word and eternally giving rise to the Spirit.
The missions thus are intended to reveal the eternal ordering of the divine life.42
But Augustine is clear that the missions of the Son and Spirit can reveal to us the
ordering of the divine life by the Father only if we learn how to ascend with heart
and intellect along the path down which Scripture draws the intellect.43 This is the
path which travels from faith and in faith toward understanding and thus always in
confession of our inability to grasp the reality of the divine three existing in true
and ineffable simplicity.44
There are also a number of other contexts where Augustine inchoately offers a
positive account of the work of Son and Spirit that seems to sketch how this agenda
might be fulfilled. But in each case the work of differentiation ends always with a
new clarity about the mystery of the divine life because of the mutual interpenetra-
tion and inseparable operation of Son and Spirit. Let me indicate two.
One of the most interesting themes in his mature pneumatology appears in
Augustine’s exegesis of Acts 4:32. In a handful of places, Augustine offers an anal-
ogy that presents the Spirit’s work among Christians as reflective of the Spirit’s
eternal relationship to Father and Son. One of the most developed is to be found
in Tractate 39 (ca.420):
If . . . many souls through love are one soul, and many hearts are one heart, what
does the very fountain of love do in the Father and the Son? . . . If, therefore, ‘the

42. Trin. II,5,9; IV,19,25; and IV,21,32. See also my Augustine and the Trinity, ch. 7 (n. 41).
43. Trin. IV,20,29 and IV,21,32.
44. One of the more important features of this journey toward contemplation in Augustine’s account
is the necessity for the contemplative reader of Scripture to seek interpretations of Scripture’s
material and temporal terminologies for the divine that allow for a real correspondence between
those terminologies and the realities they describe. See e.g., s. 53 and my Augustine and the Trin-
ity, ch. 6 (n. 41).

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love of God [which] has been poured forth in our hearts by the Holy Spirit who
has been given to us’ (Rom. 5:5) makes many souls one soul and many hearts
one heart, how much more does [the Spirit] make the Father and the Son and the
Holy Spirit one God, one light, one principium?45
This text is particularly interesting because of the wider context in which it appears.
This is the one place in Augustine’s corpus where he unambiguously states that the
divine three of Father, Son and Spirit are not only spoken of ad aliquid, but are noted
to exist ad aliquid. This statement is held, however, alongside the partially explicit
principle not only that missions disclose processions, but also that the intra-divine
acts that Scripture attributes to the divine three are constitutive of them (there being
nothing accidental in God).
This emergent principle in the mature Augustine actually serves to heighten a
key tension: while it does focus our attention on Scripture’s description of the three,
it also makes it even more clear to us that the mode of existence of the divine three
lies beyond our noetic grasp. It does so because we know that all these scriptural
predications are true of the three in ways that necessarily transcend our experience
of them: we can speak of the Son’s being as constituted by his seeing of the Father
(Jn. 5:19) and of the Spirit’s being as constituted by his loving, but either of these
acts must be identical to all other acts predicated of a particular divine person and,
in the case of the Spirit, the key term is one that is only appropriated. At the same
time these acts are identical to the Son and Spirit being generated or spirated and
occur in an atemporal context.46 Thus turning to Scripture’s description of the three
in this manner leads only to a highlighting of the darkness that awaits at the end of
the long noetic climb toward God.
Second, in trin. XV Augustine attempts to sum up the parallels that we may
draw, in the first case, between the eternal Word or Son and the human internal Word
and, in the second case, between the Holy Spirit and the will.47 Throughout these

45. Jo. ev. tr. 39,5 (CCSL 36, p. 348): “Si . . . multae animae per caritatem una anima est, et multa
corda unum cor; quid agit ipse fons caritatis in patre et filio? . . . Si ergo caritas dei diffusa in
cordibus nostris per spiritum sanctum qui datus est nobis, multas animas facit unam animam, et
multa corda facit unum cor, quanto magis Pater et Filius et Spiritus Sanctus, Deus unus, lumen
unum, unumque principium?” See also my Augustine and the Trinity, ch. 9 (n. 41).
46. See, e.g., Jo. ev. tr. 18,10–11 and 23,9.
47. Even this account is not quite accurate. Augustine actually brings in the possible parallels between
the Spirit and will only at the very end of his pneumatological discussion (see trin. XV,21,41),
whereas the parallels between Word and word are the structuring principle of his discussion
of the second of the divine three. Augustine’s discussion of the Spirit actually focuses on the
links between Spirit, Gift and Love. For a detailed explication of this passage, see Basil Studer,
“Zur Pneumatologie des Augustinus von Hippo (De Trinitate 15.17.27–27.50),” in Mysterium

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two discussions it is noticeable how few comments he offers regarding the rela-
tionship between understanding and will as illustrative of the relationship between
Son and Spirit. Importantly, both these discussions are prefaced by an account of
the failure of the mental triad to image the divine life precisely because doing so
might lead us to parse out mental functions to each divine “person.”48 Thus, in two
places, Augustine lets us know that we should not think of the divine three as each
corresponding to one term in the mental triad: each of the divine three must possess
the unitary full reality of the divine life even as they are irreducible. Thus, in good
Trinitarian reflection there comes a point at which the unity of the persons must be
recognized as defeating our understanding (although remaining intelligible): only
thus can we grasp the task involved in moving into the divine mystery.
The manner in which Augustine uses the analogy of the spirit as the soul of the
body of Christ should not then surprise us; it should, however, instruct us. The more
directly one attempts to parse out how Son and Spirit work in the life of the Church,
the closer one comes to attempting an articulation of the eternal relationship of the
two and the more one runs the risk of importing into the Godhead ether language
imbued with the material and the temporal or a conceptual apparatus foreign to
Scripture. In attempting such a presentation, one moves, as it were, precisely in the
direction that Augustine sets out as the direction from Scriptural language toward
the mysteries of the persons’ interpenetration and their inseparable operation. We
have seen that Augustine’s accounts of Son and Spirit follow Scriptural patterns of
predication, and that they reflect his standard ways of speaking about each person’s
eternal characteristics. An essential feature of those patterns of predication is the
possibility of speaking of Son and Spirit using a common set of titles and predica-
tions. But this pattern of predication reflects the mysterious existence and working
of the three who are one: the more closely we speak of the eternal interrelationship
of Son and Spirit, the more we should expect to find the mysterious interchange
of actions and attributes that prevents any easy parsing out of “responsibilities” in
the body of Christ.

Conclusions
What is it, then, that we learn from Augustine with reference to the character
of a “Trinitarian ecclesiology”? We have only begun to examine the resources he
offers. Indeed, much more would have to be done before any global judgment could

Caritatis: Studien zur Exegese und zur Trinitätslehre in der Alten Kirche, Studia Anselmiana 127
(Rome: Pontifico Ateneo S. Anselmo, 1999), pp. 311–327.
48. Trin. XV,7,12 and XV,17,28.

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be made.49 However, let me suggest some rather obvious principles that follow
from this brief discussion. In the first place, Augustine shows us very clearly that a
Trinitarian ecclesiology which follows Scriptural patterns will take as its guiding
narrative the manner in which the Spirit’s work in the Church both witnesses to
and continues the redemptive work of the Son. Through meditation on the totus
Christus and the corpus Christi, Augustine draws us into a complex reflection on
the interplay between Son and Spirit without succumbing to a simple narrative
separation into two distinct “ages.” But, in the second place, in doing so, Augustine
witnesses to the peculiar constraints that attend upon a fully Nicene theology. The
more one explores not only the co-eternity of the divine three, but also the insepa-
rably operating presence of those three in the life of Christ’s whole body, the more
ecclesiology is rooted in the attempt to describe the divine life as such, and, thus,
the more clearly it seems to be rooted in mystery. The presentation of the Spirit as
the soul of Christ’s body has frequently seemed to possess great explanatory power
because it so clearly separates Son and Spirit; placing Augustine’s usage against
the background of his Trinitarian theology should remind us that this explanatory
power is illusory if it does not also draw us to the mystery of the joint work and
interpenetration of Son and Spirit. In the third place, and in a way that should
gain the attention of all Nicene theologians, Augustine shows how entering into
Scriptural narratives and language sets should disrupt our thought, how a practice
of attentive rhetorical supplementation and adaptation—reflecting Scripture’s own
usage of such techniques—remains essential for the gradual advance of mind and
heart toward the Trinitarian mystery.50

49. We might well also expect Augustine to offer a far more detailed account of the correspondence
between Scripture’s account of Son and Spirit in the Church and the eternal relationship between
Son and Spirit—despite the ultimately mysterious character of their joint operation. Whether
Augustine does offer anymore than we have seen here must await further research and analysis.
50. The consonance between this argument and that of Robert Dodaro’s study in these proceedings
should be noted. His argument concerning the mediation of virtue further demonstrates how Au-
gustine attributed to Son and Spirit overlapping functions. I, of course, concur with his account of
the significance of the Trinity’s inseparable operations that lie behind the account given here.

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