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<!DOCTYPE html> <html lang="en"> <head> <title>CATHOLIC ENCYCLOPEDIA: Communion of Saints</title><script src="https://dtyry4ejybx0.cloudfront.net/js/cmp/cleanmediacmp.js?ver=0104" async="true"></script><script defer data-domain="newadvent.org" src="https://plausible.io/js/script.js"></script><link rel="canonical" href="https://www.newadvent.org/cathen/04171a.htm"> <meta name="viewport" content="width=device-width, initial-scale=1"> <meta name="description" content="The doctrine expressed in the second clause of the ninth article in the received text of the Apostles' Creed: 'I believe... the Holy Catholic Church, the Communion of Saints'"> <meta http-equiv="Content-Type" content="text/html; charset=utf-8"><link rel="alternate" type="application/rss+xml" title="RSS" href="http://feeds.newadvent.org/bestoftheweb?format=xml"><link rel="icon" href="../images/icon1.ico" type="image/x-icon"><link rel="shortcut icon" href="../images/icon1.ico" type="image/x-icon"><meta name="robots" content="noodp"><link type="text/css" rel="stylesheet" href="../utility/screen6.css" media="screen"></head> <body class="cathen" id="04171a.htm">  <br/> <div id="capitalcity"><table summary="Logo" cellpadding=0 cellspacing=0 width="100%"><tr valign="bottom"><td align="left"><a href="../"><img height=36 width=153 border="0" alt="New Advent" src="../images/logo.gif"></a></td><td align="right"> <form id="searchbox_000299817191393086628:ifmbhlr-8x0" action="../utility/search.htm">  <input type="hidden" name="safe" value="active"> <input type="hidden" name="cx" value="000299817191393086628:ifmbhlr-8x0"/> <input type="hidden" name="cof" value="FORID:9"/>  <label for="searchQuery" id="searchQueryLabel">Search:</label> <input id="searchQuery" name="q" type="text" size="25" aria-labelledby="searchQueryLabel"/>  <label for="submitButton" id="submitButtonLabel" class="visually-hidden">Submit Search</label> <input id="submitButton" type="submit" name="sa" value="Search" aria-labelledby="submitButtonLabel"/> </form> <table summary="Spacer" cellpadding=0 cellspacing=0><tr><td height="2"></td></tr></table> <table summary="Tabs" cellpadding=0 cellspacing=0><tr> <td bgcolor="#ffffff"></td> <td class="tab"><a class="tab_color_on_beige" href="../"> Home </a></td> <td class="tab"><a class="tab_white_on_color" href="../cathen/index.html"> Encyclopedia </a></td> <td class="tab"><a class="tab_color_on_beige" href="../summa/index.html"> Summa </a></td> <td class="tab"><a class="tab_color_on_beige" href="../fathers/index.html"> Fathers </a></td> <td class="tab"><a class="tab_color_on_beige" href="../bible/gen001.htm"> Bible </a></td> <td class="tab"><a class="tab_color_on_beige" href="../library/index.html"> Library </a></td> </tr></table> </td> </tr></table><table summary="Alphabetical index" width="100%" cellpadding=0 cellspacing=0><tr><td class="bar_white_on_color"> <a href="../cathen/a.htm"> A </a><a href="../cathen/b.htm"> B </a><a href="../cathen/c.htm"> C </a><a href="../cathen/d.htm"> D </a><a href="../cathen/e.htm"> E </a><a href="../cathen/f.htm"> F </a><a href="../cathen/g.htm"> G </a><a href="../cathen/h.htm"> H </a><a href="../cathen/i.htm"> I </a><a href="../cathen/j.htm"> J </a><a href="../cathen/k.htm"> K </a><a href="../cathen/l.htm"> L </a><a href="../cathen/m.htm"> M </a><a href="../cathen/n.htm"> N </a><a href="../cathen/o.htm"> O </a><a href="../cathen/p.htm"> P </a><a href="../cathen/q.htm"> Q </a><a href="../cathen/r.htm"> R </a><a href="../cathen/s.htm"> S </a><a href="../cathen/t.htm"> T </a><a href="../cathen/u.htm"> U </a><a href="../cathen/v.htm"> V </a><a href="../cathen/w.htm"> W </a><a href="../cathen/x.htm"> X </a><a href="../cathen/y.htm"> Y </a><a href="../cathen/z.htm"> Z </a> </td></tr></table></div> <div id="mobilecity" style="text-align: center; "><a href="../"><img height=24 width=102 border="0" alt="New Advent" src="../images/logo.gif"></a></div>  <div id="mi5"><span class="breadcrumbs"><a href="../">Home</a> > <a href="../cathen">Catholic Encyclopedia</a> > <a href="../cathen/c.htm">C</a> > The Communion of Saints</span></div> <div id="springfield2"> <div class='catholicadnet-728x90' id='cathen-728x90-top' style='display: flex; height: 100px; align-items: center; justify-content: center; '></div> <h1>The Communion of Saints</h1> <p><em><a href="https://gumroad.com/l/na2"><strong>Please help support the mission of New Advent</strong> and get the full contents of this website as an instant download. Includes the Catholic Encyclopedia, Church Fathers, Summa, Bible and more  all for only $19.99...</a></em></p> <p>(<em>communo sanctorum</em>, a fellowship of, or with, the saints).</p> <p>The <a href="../cathen/05075b.htm">doctrine</a> expressed in the second clause of the ninth article in the received text of the <a href="../cathen/01629a.htm">Apostles' Creed</a>: "I <a href="../cathen/02408b.htm">believe</a> . . . the <a href="../cathen/07386a.htm">Holy</a> <a href="../cathen/03449a.htm">Catholic</a> <a href="../cathen/03744a.htm">Church</a>, the Communion of Saints". This, probably the latest, addition to the old Roman <a href="../cathen/04478a.htm">Symbol</a> is found in:</p> <div class="bulletlist"><ul><li>the Gallican <a href="../cathen/09306a.htm">Liturgy</a> of the seventh century (P.L., LXXII, 349, 597);</li><li>in some letters of the Pseudo-Augustine (P.L., XXXIX, 2189, 2191, 2194), now credited to <a href="../cathen/03135b.htm">St. Caesarius of Arles</a> (c. 543);</li><li>in the "De Spiritu Sancto" (P.L., LXII, 11), ascribed to <a href="../cathen/06019b.htm">Faustus of Riez</a> (c. 460);</li><li>in the "Explanatio Symboli" (P.L., LII, 871) of <a href="../cathen/11052a.htm">Nicetas of Remesiana</a> (c. 400); and</li><li>in two documents of uncertain <a href="../cathen/04636c.htm">date</a>, the "Fides Hieronymi", and an <a href="../cathen/01736b.htm">Armenian</a> confession.</li></ul></div> <p>On these facts critics have built various theories. Some hold the addition to be a protest against Vigilantius, who condemned the <a href="../cathen/05188b.htm">veneration</a> of the saints; and he connects that protest with Faustus in Southern Gaul and probably also with Nicetas in Pannonia, who was influenced by the "Catecheses" of <a href="../cathen/04595b.htm">St. Cyril of Jerusalem</a>. Others see in it at first a reaction against the separatism of the <a href="../cathen/05121a.htm">Donatists</a>, therefore an <a href="../cathen/01181a.htm">African</a> and Augustinian conception bearing only on church membership, the higher meaning of fellowship with the departed saints having been introduced later by Faustus. Still others think that it originated, with an anti-Donatist meaning, in <a href="../cathen/01736b.htm">Armenia</a>, whence it passed to Pannonia, <a href="../cathen/06395b.htm">Gaul</a>, the British Isles, <a href="../cathen/14169b.htm">Spain</a>, etc., gathering new meanings in the course of its travels till it finally resulted in the <a href="../cathen/03449a.htm">Catholic</a> synthesis of <a href="../cathen/10285c.htm">medieval</a> <a href="../cathen/14580a.htm">theologians</a>. These and many other conjectures leave undisturbed the <a href="../cathen/15006b.htm">traditional</a> <a href="../cathen/05075b.htm">doctrine</a>, according to which the communion of saints, wheresoever it was introduced into the Creed, is the natural outgrowth of <a href="../cathen/13635b.htm">Scriptural</a> teaching, and chiefly of the <a href="../cathen/02258b.htm">baptismal</a> formula; still the value of the <a href="../cathen/05089a.htm">dogma</a> does not rest on the solution of that historical problem.</p> <div class="CMtag_300x250" style="display: flex; height: 300px; align-items: center; justify-content: center; "></div> <h2>Catholic doctrine</h2> <p>The communion of saints is the spiritual solidarity which binds together the <a href="../cathen/05769a.htm">faithful</a> on earth, the <a href="../cathen/14153a.htm">souls</a> in <a href="../cathen/12575a.htm">purgatory</a>, and the saints in <a href="../cathen/07170a.htm">heaven</a> in the organic unity of the same <a href="../cathen/10663a.htm">mystical body</a> under Christ its head, and in a constant interchange of <a href="../cathen/14336b.htm">supernatural</a> offices. The participants in that solidarity are called saints by reason of their destination and of their partaking of the fruits of the <a href="../cathen/12677d.htm">Redemption</a> (<a href="../bible/1co001.htm#vrs2">1 Corinthians 1:2</a> — Greek Text). The damned are thus excluded from the communion of saints. The living, even if they do not belong to the body of the <a href="../cathen/15073a.htm">true</a> <a href="../cathen/03744a.htm">Church</a>, share in it according to the measure of their union with Christ and with the <a href="../cathen/14153a.htm">soul</a> of the <a href="../cathen/03744a.htm">Church</a>. <a href="../cathen/14663b.htm">St. Thomas</a> teaches (<a href="../summa/4008.htm#article4">III:8:4</a>) that the <a href="../cathen/01476d.htm">angels</a>, though not redeemed, enter the communion of saints because they come under <a href="../cathen/08374c.htm">Christ's</a> power and receive of His <em>gratia capitis</em>. The solidarity itself implies a variety of inter-relations: within the <a href="../cathen/03744a.htm">Church</a> Militant, not only the participation in the same <a href="../cathen/05752c.htm">faith</a>, <a href="../cathen/13295a.htm">sacraments</a>, and government, but also a mutual exchange of examples, <a href="../cathen/12345b.htm">prayers</a>, <a href="../cathen/10202b.htm">merits</a>, and satisfactions; between the <a href="../cathen/03744a.htm">Church</a> on earth on the one hand, and <a href="../cathen/12575a.htm">purgatory</a> and <a href="../cathen/07170a.htm">heaven</a> on the other, suffrages, invocation, <a href="../cathen/08070a.htm">intercession</a>, veneration. These connotations belong here only in so far as they integrate the transcendent <a href="../cathen/07630a.htm">idea</a> of spiritual solidarity between all the children of <a href="../cathen/06608a.htm">God</a>. Thus understood, the communion of saints, though formally <a href="../cathen/04675b.htm">defined</a> only in its particular bearings (Council of Trent, Sess. XXV, <a href="../cathen/04670a.htm">decrees</a> on purgatory; on the invocation, veneration, and <a href="../cathen/12734a.htm">relics</a> of saints and of sacred images; on <a href="../cathen/07783a.htm">indulgences</a>), is, nevertheless, <a href="../cathen/05089a.htm">dogma</a> commonly taught and accepted in the <a href="../cathen/03744a.htm">Church</a>. It is <a href="../cathen/15073a.htm">true</a> that the <a href="../cathen/13120c.htm">Catechism of the Council of Trent</a> (Pt. I, ch. x) seems at first sight to limit to the living the bearing of the phrase contained in the <a href="../cathen/04478a.htm">Creed</a>, but by making the communion of saints an exponent and function, as it were, of the preceding clause, "the Holy <a href="../cathen/03449a.htm">Catholic</a> <a href="../cathen/03744a.htm">Church</a>", it really extends to what it calls the <a href="../cathen/03744a.htm">Church's</a> "constituent parts, one gone before, the other following every day"; the broad principle it enunciates thus: "every <a href="../cathen/12748a.htm">pious</a> and holy action done by one belongs and is profitable to all, through charity which seeketh not her own".</p> <p>In this vast <a href="../cathen/03449a.htm">Catholic</a> conception <a href="../cathen/12652a.htm">rationalists</a> see not only a late creation, but also an ill-disguised reversion to a lower religious type, a purely mechanical process of <a href="../cathen/08573a.htm">justification</a>, the substitution of impersonal moral value in lieu of personal responsibility. Such statements are met best, by the presentation of the <a href="../cathen/05089a.htm">dogma</a> in its Scriptural basis and its <a href="../cathen/14580x.htm">theological</a> formulation. The first spare yet clear outline of the communion of saints is found in the <a href="../cathen/08646a.htm">"kingdom of God"</a> of the <a href="../cathen/14389b.htm">Synoptics</a>, not the individualistic creation of Harnack nor the purely <a href="../cathen/05528b.htm">eschatological</a> conception of Loisy, but an organic whole (<a href="../bible/mat013.htm#vrs31">Matthew 13:31</a>), which embraces in the bonds of charity (<a href="../bible/mat022.htm#vrs39">Matthew 22:39</a>) all the children of <a href="../cathen/06608a.htm">God</a> (<a href="../bible/mat019.htm#vrs28">Matthew 19:28</a>; <a href="../bible/luk020.htm#vrs36">Luke 20:36</a>) on earth and in <a href="../cathen/07170a.htm">heaven</a> (<a href="../bible/mat006.htm#vrs20">Matthew 6:20</a>), the <a href="../cathen/01476d.htm">angels</a> themselves joining in that fraternity of <a href="../cathen/14153a.htm">souls</a> (<a href="../bible/luk015.htm#vrs10">Luke 15:10</a>). One cannot read the <a href="../cathen/11460a.htm">parables</a> of the kingdom (<a href="../bible/mat013.htm">Matthew 13</a>) without perceiving its corporate nature and the continuity which links together the kingdom in our midst and the kingdom to come. The nature of that communion, called by St. John a fellowship with one another ("a fellowship with us"--<a href="../bible/1jo001.htm#vrs3">1 John 1:3</a>) because it is a fellowship with the Father, and with his Son", and compared by him to the organic and vital union of the vine and its branches (<a href="../bible/joh015.htm">John 15</a>), stands out in bold relief in the Pauline conception of the mystical body. Repeatedly <a href="../cathen/11567b.htm">St. Paul</a> speaks of the one body whose head is Christ (<a href="../bible/col001.htm#vrs18">Colossians 1:18</a>), whose energizing principle is charity (<a href="../bible/eph004.htm#vrs16">Ephesians 4:16</a>), whose members are the saints, not only of this world, but also of the world to come (<a href="../bible/eph001.htm#vrs20">Ephesians 1:20</a>; <a href="../bible/heb012.htm#vrs22">Hebrews 12:22</a>). In that communion there is no loss of <a href="../cathen/07762a.htm">individuality</a>, yet such an interdependence that the saints are "members one of another" (<a href="../bible/rom012.htm#vrs5">Romans 12:5</a>), not only sharing the same <a href="../cathen/02599b.htm">blessings</a> (<a href="../bible/1co012.htm#vrs13">1 Corinthians 12:13</a>) and exchanging good offices (<a href="../bible/1co012.htm">1 Corinthians 12:25</a>) and <a href="../cathen/12345b.htm">prayers</a> (<a href="../bible/eph006.htm#vrs18">Ephesians 6:18</a>), but also partaking of the same corporate life, for "the whole body . . . by what every joint supplieth . . . maketh increase . . . unto the edifying of itself in charity" (<a href="../bible/eph004.htm#vrs16">Ephesians 4:16</a>).</p> <div class="CMtag_300x250" style="display: flex; height: 300px; align-items: center; justify-content: center; "></div> <p>Recent well-known researches in <a href="../cathen/08042a.htm">Christian epigraphy</a> have brought out clear and abundant <a href="../cathen/12454c.htm">proof</a> of the principal manifestations of the communion of saints in the early Church. Similar evidence, is to be found in the <a href="../cathen/01637a.htm">Apostolic Fathers</a> with an occasional allusion to the Pauline conception. For an attempt at the formulation of the <a href="../cathen/05089a.htm">dogma</a> we have to come down to the Alexandrian School. <a href="../cathen/04045a.htm">Clement of Alexandria</a> shows the "gnostic's" ultimate relations with the <a href="../cathen/01476d.htm">angels</a> (<a href="../fathers/02106.htm"><em>Stromata</em> VI.12.10</a>) and the departed <a href="../cathen/14153a.htm">souls</a> (<a href="../fathers/02108.htm"><em>Stromata</em> VIII.12.78</a>); and he all but formulates the <em>thesaurus ecclesiae</em> in his presentation of the vicarious <a href="../cathen/09736b.htm">martyrdom</a>, not of Christ alone, but also of the <a href="../cathen/01626c.htm">Apostles</a> and other <a href="../cathen/09736b.htm">martyrs</a> (<a href="../fathers/02104.htm"><em>Stromata</em> IV.12.87</a>). <a href="../cathen/11306b.htm">Origen</a> enlarges, almost to exaggeration, on the <a href="../cathen/07630a.htm">idea</a> of vicarious <a href="../cathen/09736b.htm">martyrdom</a> (Exhort. ad martyr., ch. 1) and of communion between <a href="../cathen/09580c.htm">man</a> and <a href="../cathen/01476d.htm">angels</a> (De orat., xxxi); and accounts for it by the unifying power of <a href="../cathen/12677d.htm">Christ's Redemption</a>), <em>ut caelestibus terrena sociaret</em> (In Levit., hom. iv) and the force of charity, stronger in <a href="../cathen/07170a.htm">heaven</a> than upon earth (De orat., xi). With <a href="../cathen/02330b.htm">St. Basil</a> and <a href="../cathen/08452b.htm">St. John Chrysostom</a> the communion of saints has become an obvious tenet used as an answer to such popular objections as these: what, need of a communion with others? (Basil, <a href="../fathers/3202203.htm">Epistle 203</a>) another has <a href="../cathen/14004b.htm">sinned</a> and I shall atone? (Chrysostom, Hom. i, de poenit.). <a href="../cathen/08459b.htm">St. John Damascene</a> has only to collect the sayings of the Fathers in order to support the <a href="../cathen/05089a.htm">dogma</a> of the invocation of the saints and the <a href="../cathen/04653a.htm">prayers for the dead</a>.</p> <p>But the complete presentation of the <a href="../cathen/05089a.htm">dogma</a> comes from the later Fathers. After the statements of <a href="../cathen/14520c.htm">Tertullian</a>, speaking of "common <a href="../cathen/07465b.htm">hope</a>, <a href="../cathen/06021a.htm">fear</a>, <a href="../cathen/07131b.htm">joy</a>, sorrow, and suffering" (<a href="../fathers/0320.htm"><em>On Penance</em> 9-10</a>); of <a href="../cathen/04583b.htm">St. Cyprian</a>, explicitly setting forth the communion of merits (<a href="../fathers/050703.htm">De lapsis 17</a>); of St. Hilary, giving the Eucharistic Communion as a means and symbol of the communion of saints (in <a href="../bible/psa064.htm#vrs14">Psalm 64:14</a>), we come to the teaching of <a href="../cathen/01383c.htm">Ambrose</a> and <a href="../cathen/02084a.htm">St. Augustine</a>. From the former, the <em>thesaurus ecclesiae</em>, the best practical test of the reunion of saints, receives a definite explanation (<a href="../fathers/34061.htm"><em>On Penance</em> I.15</a>; De officiis, I, xix). In the transcendent view of the <a href="../cathen/03744a.htm">Church</a> taken by the latter (<a href="../fathers/1302.htm"><em>Enchiridion</em> 66</a>) the communion of saints, though never so called by him, is a <a href="../cathen/10733a.htm">necessity</a>; to the <em>Civitas Dei</em> must needs correspond the <em>unitas caritatis</em> (De unitate eccl., ii), which embraces in an effective union the saints and <a href="../cathen/01476d.htm">angels</a> in <a href="../cathen/07170a.htm">heaven</a> (<a href="../fathers/1801036.htm"><em>Enarration on Psalm 36</em>, nos. 3-4</a>), the just on earth (<a href="../fathers/14083.htm"><em>On Baptism</em> III.17</a>), and in a lower degree, the sinners themselves, the <em>putrida membra</em> of the mystic body; only the declared <a href="../cathen/07256b.htm">heretics</a>, <a href="../cathen/13529a.htm">schismatics</a>, and <a href="../cathen/01624b.htm">apostates</a> are excluded from the <a href="../cathen/14074a.htm">society</a>, though not from the <a href="../cathen/12345b.htm">prayers</a>, of the saints (Serm. cxxxvii). The Augustinian concept, though somewhat obscured in the <a href="../cathen/05075b.htm">catechetical</a> expositions of the Creed by the <a href="../cathen/03610c.htm">Carlovingian</a> and later <a href="../cathen/14580a.htm">theologians</a> (P.L., XCIX, CI, CVIII, CX, CLII, CLXXXVI), takes its place in the <a href="../cathen/10285c.htm">medieval</a> synthesis of <a href="../cathen/11768d.htm">Peter Lombard</a>, <a href="../cathen/02648c.htm">St. Bonaventure</a>, <a href="../cathen/14663b.htm">St. Thomas</a>, etc.</p> <p>Influenced no <a href="../cathen/05141a.htm">doubt</a> by early writers like <a href="../cathen/08257a.htm">Yvo of Chartres</a> (P.L., CLXII, 6061), <a href="../cathen/01036b.htm">Abelard</a> (P.L. CLXXXIII, 630), and probably <a href="../cathen/01298a.htm">Alexander of Hales</a> (III, Q. lxix, a, 1), <a href="../cathen/14663b.htm">St. Thomas</a> (Expos. in symb. 10) reads in the neuter the phrase of the Creed, <em>communio sanctorum</em> (participation of spiritual goods), but apart from the point of grammar his conception of the <a href="../cathen/05089a.htm">dogma</a> is thorough. General principle; the merits of Christ are communicated to all, and the merits of each one are communicated to the others (ibid.). The manner of participation: both objective and intentional, <em>in radice operis, ex intentione facientis</em> (<a href="../summa/5071.htm#article1">Supplement 71:1</a>). The measure: the degree of charity (Expos. in symb., 10). The benefits communicated: not the <a href="../cathen/13295a.htm">sacraments</a> alone but, the superabundant merits of Christ and the saints forming the <em>thesaurus ecclesia</em> (ibid. and Quodlib., II, Q. viii, a. 16). The participants: the three parts of the <a href="../cathen/03744a.htm">Church</a> (Expos. in symb., 9); consequently the faithful on earth exchanging merits and satisfactions (<a href="../summa/2113.htm#article6">I-II:113:6</a>, and <a href="../summa/5013.htm#article2">Supplement 13:2</a>), the <a href="../cathen/14153a.htm">souls</a> in <a href="../cathen/12575a.htm">purgatory</a> profiting by the suffrages of the living and the intercession of the saints (<a href="../summa/5071.htm#article0">Supplement 71</a>), the saints themselves receiving <a href="../cathen/07462a.htm">honour</a> and giving intercession (<a href="../summa/3083.htm#article4">II-II:83:4</a>, <a href="../summa/3083.htm#article11">II-II:83:11</a>, <a href="../summa/4025.htm#article6">III:25:6</a>), and also the <a href="../cathen/01476d.htm">angels</a>, as noted above. Later <a href="../cathen/13548a.htm">Scholastics</a> and post-Reformation <a href="../cathen/14580a.htm">theologians</a> have added little to the <a href="../cathen/14698b.htm">Thomistic</a> presentation of the <a href="../cathen/05089a.htm">dogma</a>. They worked rather around than into it, defending such points as were attacked by <a href="../cathen/07256b.htm">heretics</a>, showing the religious, <a href="../cathen/05556a.htm">ethical</a>, and social value of the <a href="../cathen/03449a.htm">Catholic</a> conception; and they introduced the distinction between the body and the <a href="../cathen/14153a.htm">soul</a> of the <a href="../cathen/03744a.htm">Church</a>, between actual membership and membership in desire, completing the theory of the relations between church membership and the communion of saints which had already been outlined by <a href="../cathen/11262b.htm">St. Optatus of Mileve</a> and <a href="../cathen/02084a.htm">St. Augustine</a> at the time of the <a href="../cathen/05121a.htm">Donatist</a> controversy. One may regret the plan adopted by the <a href="../cathen/13548a.htm">Schoolmen</a> afforded no comprehensive view of the whole <a href="../cathen/05089a.htm">dogma</a>, bur rather scattered the various components of it through a vast synthesis. This accounts for the fact that a compact exposition of the communion of saints is to be sought less in the works of our standard <a href="../cathen/14580a.htm">theologians</a> than in our <a href="../cathen/05075b.htm">catechetical</a>, <a href="../cathen/01618a.htm">apologetic</a>, pastoral, and even ascetic literature. It may also partly explain, without excusing them, the gross misrepresentations noticed above.</p> <h2>In the Anglo-Saxon Church</h2> <p>That the Anglo-Saxons held the <a href="../cathen/05075b.htm">doctrine</a> of the communion of saints may be judged from the following account given by <a href="../cathen/09270c.htm">Lingard</a> in his "History and Antiquities of the Anglo-Saxon Church." They received the practice of venerating the saints, he says, together with the rudiments the <a href="../cathen/03712a.htm">Christian religion</a>; and they manifested their devotion to them both in public and private worship: in public, by celebrating the anniversaries of individual saints, and keeping annually the <a href="../cathen/06021b.htm">feast</a> of All-Hallows as a <a href="../cathen/14133a.htm">solemnity</a> of the first class; and in their <a href="../cathen/12275b.htm">private devotions</a>, by observing the instructions to worship <a href="../cathen/06608a.htm">God</a> and then to "<a href="../cathen/12345b.htm">pray</a>, first to <a href="../cathen/15464b.htm">Saint Mary</a>, and the holy apostles, and the <a href="../cathen/07386a.htm">holy</a> <a href="../cathen/09736b.htm">martyrs</a>, and all <a href="../cathen/06608a.htm">God's</a> saints, that they would intercede for them to <a href="../cathen/06608a.htm">God</a>". In this way they learned to look up to the saints in <a href="../cathen/07170a.htm">heaven</a> with feelings of confidence and affection, to consider them as friends and protectors, and to implore their aid in the hour of distress, with the hope that <a href="../cathen/06608a.htm">God</a> would grant to the <a href="../cathen/11562a.htm">patron</a> what he might otherwise refuse to the supplicant.</p> <p>Like all other <a href="../cathen/03712a.htm">Christians</a>, the Anglo-Saxons held in special veneration "the most holy mother of <a href="../cathen/06608a.htm">God</a>, the perpetual <a href="../cathen/15458a.htm">virgin</a> <a href="../cathen/15464b.htm">Saint Mary</a>" (Beatissima Dei genitrix et perpetua virgo.-Bede, Hom. in Purif.). Her praises were sung by the <a href="../cathen/13497b.htm">Saxon</a> poets; <a href="../cathen/07595a.htm">hymns</a> in her <a href="../cathen/07462a.htm">honour</a> were <a href="../cathen/09304a.htm">chanted</a> in the public service; churches and <a href="../cathen/01362a.htm">altars</a> were placed under her patronage; <a href="../cathen/10338a.htm">miraculous</a> cures were ascribed to her; and four annual feasts were observed commemorating the principal events of her mortal life: her nativity, the <a href="../cathen/01541c.htm">Annunciation</a>, her <a href="../cathen/03245b.htm">purification</a>, and <a href="../cathen/02006b.htm">assumption</a>. Next to the Blessed Virgin in the devotion was Saint Peter, whom Christ had chosen for the leader of the Apostles and to whom he had given the <a href="../cathen/08631b.htm">keys</a> of the <a href="../cathen/08646a.htm">kingdom of Heaven</a>, "with the chief exercise of judicial power in the <a href="../cathen/03744a.htm">Church</a>, to the end that all might <a href="../cathen/08673a.htm">know</a> that whosoever should separate himself from the unity of <a href="../cathen/11744a.htm">Peter's</a> <a href="../cathen/05752c.htm">faith</a> or of Peter's fellowship, that man could never attain <a href="../cathen/01061a.htm">absolution</a> from the bonds of <a href="../cathen/14004b.htm">sin</a>, nor admission through the gates of the <a href="../cathen/08646a.htm">heavenly kingdom</a>" (Bede). These words of the <a href="../cathen/02384a.htm">Venerable Bede</a> refer, it is <a href="../cathen/15073a.htm">true</a>, to <a href="../cathen/12260a.htm">Peter's successors</a> as well as to Peter himself, but they also evidence the veneration of Anglo-Saxons for the Prince of the Apostles, a veneration which they manifested in the number of churches dedicated to his memory, in the <a href="../cathen/12085a.htm">pilgrimages</a> made to his <a href="../cathen/14773b.htm">tomb</a>, and by the presents sent to the church in which his remains rested and to the <a href="../cathen/02581b.htm">bishop</a> who sat in his chair. Particular honours were paid also to Saints <a href="../cathen/06780a.htm">Gregory</a> and <a href="../cathen/02081a.htm">Augustine</a>, to whom they were chiefly indebted for their <a href="../cathen/08673a.htm">knowledge</a> of <a href="../cathen/03712a.htm">Christianity</a>. They called <a href="../cathen/06780a.htm">Gregory</a> their "foster-father in Christ" and themselves "his foster-children in <a href="../cathen/02258b.htm">baptism</a>"; and spoke of <a href="../cathen/02081a.htm">Augustine</a> as "the first to bring to them the <a href="../cathen/05075b.htm">doctrine</a> of <a href="../cathen/05752c.htm">faith</a>, the <a href="../cathen/02258b.htm">sacrament of baptism</a>, and the <a href="../cathen/08673a.htm">knowledge</a> of their heavenly country". While these saints were <a href="../cathen/07462a.htm">honoured</a> by the whole people, each separate nation revered the memory of its own apostle. Thus <a href="../cathen/01233d.htm">Saint Aidan</a> in Northumbria, <a href="../cathen/02578a.htm">Saint Birinus</a> in Wessex, and Saint Felix in East Anglia were <a href="../cathen/05188b.htm">venerated</a> as the protectors of the countries which had been the scenes of their labours. All the saints so far mentioned were of foreign extraction; but the Anglo-Saxons soon extended their devotion to men who had been born and <a href="../cathen/05295b.htm">educated</a> among them and who by their <a href="../cathen/15472a.htm">virtues</a> and <a href="../cathen/15753a.htm">zeal</a> in propagating <a href="../cathen/03712a.htm">Christianity</a> had merited the honours of <a href="../cathen/07386a.htm">sanctity</a>.</p> <div class="CMtag_300x250" style="display: flex; height: 300px; align-items: center; justify-content: center; "></div> <p>This account of the devotion of the Anglo-Saxons to those whom they looked up to as their friends and protectors in <a href="../cathen/07170a.htm">heaven</a> is necessarily brief, but it is amply sufficient to show that they believed and <a href="../cathen/09397a.htm">loved</a> the <a href="../cathen/05075b.htm">doctrine</a> of the communion of saints.</p> <h2>Protestant views</h2> <p>Sporadic <a href="../cathen/05525a.htm">errors</a> against special points of the communion of saints are pointed out by the <a href="../cathen/14388a.htm">Synod</a> of <a href="../cathen/06377b.htm">Gangra</a> (<a href="../cathen/09609c.htm">Mansi</a>, II, 1103), <a href="../cathen/04595b.htm">St. Cyril of Jerusalem</a> (P.G., XXXIII, 1116), <a href="../cathen/13393b.htm">St. Epiphanius</a> (ibid., XLII, 504), <a href="../cathen/02018a.htm">Asteritis Amasensis</a> (ibid., XL, 332), and <a href="../cathen/08341a.htm">St. Jerome</a> (P.L., XXIII, 362). From the forty-second proposition condemned, and the twenty-ninth question asked, by <a href="../cathen/09725a.htm">Martin V</a> at <a href="../cathen/04288a.htm">Constance</a> (<a href="../cathen/04736b.htm">Denzinger</a>, nos. 518 and 573), we also <a href="../cathen/08673a.htm">know</a> that <a href="../cathen/15722a.htm">Wyclif</a> and <a href="../cathen/07584b.htm">Hus</a> had gone far towards denying the <a href="../cathen/05089a.htm">dogma</a> itself. But the communion of saints became a direct issue only at the time of the <a href="../cathen/12700b.htm">Reformation</a>. The <a href="../cathen/09438b.htm">Lutheran churches</a>, although commonly adopting the <a href="../cathen/01629a.htm">Apostles' Creed</a>, still in their original confessions, either pass over in silence the communion of saints or explain it as the <a href="../cathen/03744a.htm">Church's</a> "union with <a href="../cathen/08374c.htm">Jesus Christ</a> in the one <a href="../cathen/15073a.htm">true</a> <a href="../cathen/05752c.htm">faith</a>" (<a href="../cathen/09438b.htm">Luther's</a> Small Catechism), or as "the congregation of saints and <a href="../cathen/15073a.htm">true</a> believers" (Augsburg Confession, ibid., III, 12), carefully excluding, if not the memory, at least the invocation of the saints, because Scripture "propoundeth unto us one Christ, the Mediator, Propitiatory, <a href="../cathen/12407b.htm">High-Priest</a>, and Intercessor" (ibid., III, 26). The <a href="../cathen/12710a.htm">Reformed churches</a> generally maintain the <a href="../cathen/09438b.htm">Lutheran</a> identification of the communion of saints with the body of believers but do not limit its meaning to that body. <a href="../cathen/03195b.htm">Calvin</a> (Inst. chret., IV, 1, 3) insists that the phrase of the Creed is more than a definition of the <a href="../cathen/03744a.htm">Church</a>; it conveys the meaning of such a fellowship that whatever benefits <a href="../cathen/06608a.htm">God</a> bestows upon the believers should mutually communicate to one another. That view is followed in the Heidelberg Catechism, emphasized in the Gallican Confession, wherein communion is made to mean the efforts of believers to mutually strengthen themselves in the fear of <a href="../cathen/06608a.htm">God</a>. <a href="../cathen/15772a.htm">Zwingli</a> in his articles admits an exchange of <a href="../cathen/12345b.htm">prayers</a> between the faithful and hesitates to condemn <a href="../cathen/04653a.htm">prayers for the dead</a>, rejecting only the saints' intercession as injurious to <a href="../cathen/08374c.htm">Christ</a>. Both the Scotch and Second Helvetic Confessions bring together the Militant and the Triumphant Church, but whereas the former is silent on the signification of the fact, the latter says that they hold communion with each other: "nihilominus habent illae inter sese communionem, vel conjunctionem".</p> <p>The double and often conflicting influence of <a href="../cathen/09438b.htm">Luther</a> and <a href="../cathen/03195b.htm">Calvin</a>, with a lingering memory of <a href="../cathen/03449a.htm">Catholic</a> <a href="../cathen/11330a.htm">orthodoxy</a>, is felt in the <a href="../cathen/01498a.htm">Anglican</a> Confessions. On this point the Thirty-nine Articles are decidedly <a href="../cathen/09438b.htm">Lutheran</a>, rejecting as they do "the Romish Doctrine concerning Purgatory, Pardons, Worshipping and Adoration as well of Images as of Relics, and also Invocation of Saints", because they see in it "a fond thing, vainly invented, and grounded upon no warranty of Scripture, but rather repugnant to the Word of God". On the other hand, the Westminster Confession, while ignoring the Suffering and the Triumphant Church, goes beyond the <a href="../cathen/03198a.htm">Calvinistic</a> view and falls little short of the <a href="../cathen/05075b.htm">Catholic doctrine</a> with regard to the faithful on earth, who, it says, "being united to one another in <a href="../cathen/09397a.htm">love</a>, have communion in each other's <a href="../cathen/06553a.htm">gifts</a> and <a href="../cathen/06689a.htm">graces</a>". In the <a href="../cathen/15156a.htm">United States</a>, the <a href="../cathen/10237b.htm">Methodist</a> Articles of Religion, 1784, as well as the Reformed Episcopal Articles of Religion, 1875, follow the teachings of the Thirty-nine Articles, whereas the teaching of the Westminster Confession is adopted in the Philadelphia Baptist Confession, 1688, and in the Confession of the Cumberland Presbyterian Church, 1829. <a href="../cathen/12495a.htm">Protestant</a> <a href="../cathen/14580a.htm">theologians</a>, just as <a href="../cathen/12495a.htm">Protestant</a> confessions, waver between the <a href="../cathen/09438b.htm">Lutheran</a> and the <a href="../cathen/03198a.htm">Calvinistic</a> view.</p> <p>The <a href="../cathen/03459a.htm">cause</a> of the perversion by <a href="../cathen/12495a.htm">Protestants</a> of the traditional concept of communion of saints is not to be found in the alleged lack of Scriptural and early <a href="../cathen/03712a.htm">Christian</a> evidence in favour of that concept; well-informed <a href="../cathen/12495a.htm">Protestant</a> writers have long since ceased to press that argument. Nor is there any force in the oft-repeated argument that the <a href="../cathen/03449a.htm">Catholic</a> <a href="../cathen/05089a.htm">dogma</a> detracts from <a href="../cathen/08374c.htm">Christ's</a> mediatorship, for it is plain, as <a href="../cathen/14663b.htm">St. Thomas</a> had already shown (<a href="../summa/5072.htm#article2">Suppl., 72:2, ad 1</a>), that the ministerial mediatorship of the saints does not detract from, but only enhances, the magisterial mediatorship of Christ. Some writers have traced that perversion to the <a href="../cathen/12495a.htm">Protestant</a> concept of the <a href="../cathen/03744a.htm">Church</a> as an aggregation of <a href="../cathen/14153a.htm">souls</a> and a multitude of units bound together by a community of <a href="../cathen/05752c.htm">faith</a> and pursuit and by the ties of <a href="../cathen/03712a.htm">Christian</a> sympathy, but in no way organized or interdependent as members of the same body. This explanation is defective because the <a href="../cathen/12495a.htm">Protestant</a> concept of the <a href="../cathen/03744a.htm">Church</a> is a fact parallel to, but in no way causative of, their view of the communion of saints. The <a href="../cathen/15073a.htm">true</a> cause must be found elsewhere. As early as 1519, <a href="../cathen/09438b.htm">Luther</a>, the better to defend his condemned theses on the <a href="../cathen/12260a.htm">papacy</a>, used the clause of the Creed to show that the communion of saints, and not the <a href="../cathen/12260a.htm">papacy</a>, was the <a href="../cathen/03744a.htm">Church</a>: "non ut aligui somniant, credo ecclesiam esse praelatum . . . sed . . . communionem sanctorum". This was simply playing on the words of the <a href="../cathen/04478a.htm">Symbol</a>. At that time <a href="../cathen/09438b.htm">Luther</a> still held the traditional communion of saints, little dreaming that he would one day give it up. But he did give it up when he formulated his theory on justification. The substitution of the <a href="../cathen/12495a.htm">Protestant</a> motto, "Christ for all and each one for himself". In place of the old axiom of <a href="../cathen/07521c.htm">Hugh of St. Victor</a>, "Singula sint omnium et omina singulorum" (each for all and all for each--P.L., CLXXV. 416), is a <a href="../cathen/09324a.htm">logical</a> outcome of their concept of justification; not an interior renovation of the <a href="../cathen/14153a.htm">soul</a>, nor a veritable regeneration from a common Father, the second Adam, nor yet an incorporation with Christ, the head of the mystical body, but an essentially individualistic <a href="../cathen/01115a.htm">act</a> of fiducial <a href="../cathen/05752c.htm">faith</a>. In such a <a href="../cathen/14580a.htm">theology</a> there is obviously no room for that reciprocal action of the saints, that corporate circulation of spiritual <a href="../cathen/02599b.htm">blessings</a> through the members of the same <a href="../cathen/05782a.htm">family</a>, that domesticity and saintly citizenship which lies at the very core of the <a href="../cathen/03449a.htm">Catholic</a> communion of saints. Justification and the communion of saints go hand in hand. The efforts which are being made towards reviving in <a href="../cathen/12495a.htm">Protestantism</a> the old and still cherished <a href="../cathen/05089a.htm">dogma</a> of the communion of saints must remain futile unless the <a href="../cathen/15073a.htm">true</a> <a href="../cathen/05075b.htm">doctrine</a> of justification be also restored.</p> <div class='catholicadnet-728x90' id='cathen-728x90-bottom' style='display: flex; height: 100px; align-items: center; justify-content: center; '></div> <div class="pub"><h2>About this page</h2><p id="apa"><strong>APA citation.</strong> <span id="apaauthor">Sollier, J.</span> <span id="apayear">(1908).</span> <span id="apaarticle">The Communion of Saints.</span> In <span id="apawork">The Catholic Encyclopedia.</span> <span id="apapublisher">New York: Robert Appleton Company.</span> <span id="apaurl">http://www.newadvent.org/cathen/04171a.htm</span></p><p id="mla"><strong>MLA citation.</strong> <span id="mlaauthor">Sollier, Joseph.</span> <span id="mlaarticle">"The Communion of Saints."</span> <span id="mlawork">The Catholic Encyclopedia.</span> <span id="mlavolume">Vol. 4.</span> <span id="mlapublisher">New York: Robert Appleton Company,</span> <span id="mlayear">1908.</span> <span id="mlaurl"><http://www.newadvent.org/cathen/04171a.htm>.</span></p><p id="transcription"><strong>Transcription.</strong> <span id="transcriber">This article was transcribed for New Advent by William G. Bilton, Ph.D.</span> <span id="dedication">In memory of Sister Ignatia, OSH.</span></p><p id="approbation"><strong>Ecclesiastical approbation.</strong> <span id="nihil"><em>Nihil Obstat.</em> Remy Lafort, Censor.</span> <span id="imprimatur"><em>Imprimatur.</em> +John M. Farley, Archbishop of New York.</span></p><p id="contactus"><strong>Contact information.</strong> The editor of New Advent is Kevin Knight. My email address is webmaster <em>at</em> newadvent.org. Regrettably, I can't reply to every letter, but I greatly appreciate your feedback — especially notifications about typographical errors and inappropriate ads.</p></div> </div> <div id="ogdenville"><table summary="Bottom bar" width="100%" cellpadding=0 cellspacing=0><tr><td class="bar_white_on_color"><center><strong>Copyright © 2023 by <a href="../utility/contactus.htm">New Advent LLC</a>. 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