The Nature of the Mystical Body by Ernest Mura (review)

384 BOOK REVIEWS all the harmony of the static order but adds to it the dimension of movement in time and space. Most important of all, evolutionary research, with its accentuation of trends, tempo, direction, progress, and modes of evolution, can conduce to new insights into the existence and providence of God. In the contemporary view of the universe, in which order succeeds order in a most orderly way, the activity of the Creator must be recognized as necessary, not only to keep His creation in existence, but to guide the continuance of the dynamic order toward its eventual consummation. Considerations along these lines are developed clearly and cogently. One cannot but wonder, however, why the author drew so sparingly, in his final chapters, on the cosmic vision so inspiringly portrayed by Teilhard de Chardin. · CYRIL VoLLERT, S. J. St. Mary's College St. Marys, Kansas The Nature of the Mystical Body. By ERNEST MuRA, tr. from the French by M. Angeline Bouchard. St. Louis: B. Herder Book Co., 1963. Pp. 293 The merit of this book is that it gathers together in one volume discussions of the seven kinds of union in the Mystical Body between Christ and His members, unifies the multiplicity by one principle, and deepens understanding of that principle. The book is divided into two parts, with two sections, or " articles," to the second part. In the first the author gives forty-four pages of exegesis of the doctrine of St. Paul as derived from our Lord's teaching and from his experience with the faith given him so dramatically. Fr. Mura reveals an awareness of modem methods of reading Scripture scientifically, by giving the development of St. Paul's thought according to the best chronology of his epistles. A characteristic of the exegesis is both an absence of the melodramatic, " It used to be thought St. Paul meant, but ..." and a courteous disagreement . with some exegesis on the implied grounds that the Church has not said definitively. For example, on Genesis 3 :15, interpreted as containing "implicitly the entire dogma of the Mystical Body" ... of "Jesus and the faithful," the author notes: "This generally accepted exegesis would find its confirmation in St. Paul's interpretation of the promise made to Abraham: Gal. 3 :16; Gen. 22:18. Thematically, the presentation of the Pauline thought seems faultless." The unifying principle of the second part is stated on pages 65-68. The multiple principles of unity between Christ and His members are gathered under the principle of Christ's supernatural efficient causality. Juridical BOOK REVIEWS 385 unity, moral unity, union through efficient causality, sacramental union, union in the Holy Spirit, union through exemplary causality and through final causality-of all these principles of unity the most important one, the one that more than any other accounts for the mysterious reality of the total Christ, is the principle of efficient causality. Around the principle of supernatural efficient causality, of the life-giving action of Christ the Savior and His members, can be grouped all the other principles of unity, whether because they are the presupposed conditions, or the means of applying the vital influx of Christ, or because they are its necessary consequence and complement. In chapters devoted to discussion of each kind of unity, the author demonstrates his basic thought, bringing the whole together in a thorough analysis of what St. Thomas meant by calling Christ and His members "a mystical person" (Ilia., q. 48, a. fl, ad 1). Somewhere between calling the Mystical Body a supernatural union, as Fr. Mura develops at length in the Introduction, and falling into the error of those who would make a physical unity of the whole Christ, many stand who intue that there is something more than moral about the union of Christ and the faithful. The author asks two questions: 1) Do the Head and the members have a common being, a common subsistence? 2) Can we attribute to the same subject or person (supposit) what Christ does and what His members do? His conclusion: "Through grace Jesus is the subsistence of his Mystical Body." Following Fr. Chardon (La Croix de Jesus, c. 1), the author opts for the...