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The Church Is One
A. S. Khomiakov, in Birkbeck, 1895
Chapter 2
The Church visible, or upon earth, lives in complete communion and unity with the whole body of the Church, of which Christ is the Head. She has abiding within her Christ and the grace of the Holy Spirit in all their living fulness, but not in the fulness of their manifestation,1 for she acts and knows not fully, but only so far as it pleases God.
Inasmuch as the earthly and visible Church is not the fulness and completeness of the whole Church which the Lord has appointed to appear at the final judgment of all creation, she acts and knows only within her own limits; and (according to the words of Paul the Apostle, to the Corinthians, 1 Cor. v. 12) does not judge the rest of mankind, and only looks upon those as excluded, that is to say, not belonging to her, who exclude themselves. The rest of mankind, whether alien from the Church, or united to her by ties which God has not willed to reveal to her, she leaves to the judgment of the great day. The Church on earth judges for herself only,2 according to the grace of the Spirit, and the freedom granted her through Christ, inviting also the rest of mankind to the unity and adoption of God in Christ; but upon those who do not hear her appeal she pronounces no sentence, knowing the command of her Saviour and Head, ‘not to judge another man’s servant’ (Rom. xiv. 4).
Notes
- Во всей ихъ жизненной полнотѣ, но не въ полнотѣ ихъ проявленій. On the true meaning of the last word Samarin wrote: — Je n’ai rien à redire à ‘Selbstoffenbarung,’ mais décidez vous-même si ‘Erscheinung’ ne serait pas plus exact dans le sens que donnait Kant au mot ‘Erscheinung’ en l’opposant à l’idée d’essence (das Ding an sich). Samarin, Correspondence with von Rahden, p. 108. — [W. J. B.]
- Церковь же земняя судитъ талько себѣ. I have translated this quite literally, rendering the dative case, себѣ by ‘for herself.’ Baroness von Rahden translates the passage, ‘Die irdische Kirche richtet nur auf ihrem eigenen Gebiete.’ — [W. J. B.]