1 Corinthians 12:17Meaning & Commentary from the Church Fathers

Since he pointed to the difference of the members, mentioning feet, hands, eyes, and ears, and thereby suggested the thought of lower and higher dignity, see how he again consoles and shows that this is profitable. A body is especially a body because its members are many and different. If they were all one, they would not make up a body. Therefore he says: "And if they were all one member, where would the body be?" (1 Cor 12:19). He says this later, but now he expresses something still greater. In that case there would not only be no body, but there would be no other members either: "If the whole were hearing," he says, "where would be the sense of smell?" Then, since his hearers could still be troubled, he does here what he did above.

Since he mentioned the eye and the foot, the ear and the hand, and presented them reasoning about elevation and abasement, the Corinthians might naturally fall again into sorrow instead of consolation. Therefore he now shows that it is useful and necessary for the gifts to be diverse.

For if the whole body were one member, where would the other members be? Are you not ashamed to reject so many members and exalt only yourself?

Let the very form of your body and the actions of its members teach you. Will any part of your body demand for itself the function of another? For example, will the eye demand the function of the mouth, or the mouth the function of the eye? Will the hand demand the function of the feet, or the foot that of the hands? More than this, the hands themselves, right and left, in most cases perform different functions. If you change the function of each, this will be contrary to nature. You would sooner deprive the whole man of activity than change the use of the bodily parts. For example, you would begin taking food with the left hand and use the right as the left, gathering up the remnants of food, unless necessity required it (cf. 1 Cor 12:12; Rom 12:4-5).

If the whole body should have only one member, even the most honorable one, it would undoubtedly be useless, since it would lack the other members.

What the members are in the body, Christians are among themselves. Bodily members compose the body. So also Christians compose a spiritual body. The members in the body are joined and are one body. So also Christians are spiritually joined and are one spiritual body. The members in the body are joined and bound together by sinews. So also Christians are joined and bound together by faith, spirit, and love. The members in the body do not harm one another. So also Christians must not offend one another or harm one another. The members in the body are at peace and in agreement with one another. So also among Christians there must be peace and concord. The members in the body help one another and defend one another. So also Christians must help one another and defend one another.

To explain the actions and mutual relations of the members of the Church, the Apostle points to the actions and relations of the members of the human body. Through this comparison, he clarifies the need for mutual care, cooperation, and even dependence among the members of the Church.

Having spoken of the unity of the source of the gifts of grace, and wishing to bring the Corinthians into concord and unity. Since they envied one another over the unequal miraculous gifts of grace they had received, the Apostle Paul explains to them the necessity of a firm union among the members of the Church in the one Christ Jesus. He does so by the likeness of the bodily organism, whose common good is secured only by the unity of all the body's members and by our common care for them, despite their diversity and the differing degrees of their relative dignity. "For as the body is one and has many members, and all the members of that one body, being many, are one body, so also is Christ" (1 Cor 12:12). That is, so also is the Body of Christ, which is the Church (Saint Chrysostom).

Most directly, his comparison of the Church with the body expresses this thought: as the members of the body, though many, make up one body, so the bearers of gifts of grace, as members of the Church of Christ, must through love make up one whole. Each serves the common life of the Church with his own gift. A second essential thought flowing from this comparison is the teaching that all gifts are equally necessary and equal in worth for the fullness of the Church's life. This remains true despite their apparently sharp difference, corresponding to the difference among bodily members. Each member performs its own particular function and has the common purpose of serving the benefit of the whole body.

When the matter concerns dogmas, Mysteries, or the sacred hierarchy, beware lest you appear as a worker whom the Lord did not send into His vineyard. If He by Whom "the whole body" of the Church, "supplied and knit together by joints and ligaments, grows with the increase of God" (Col 2:19), has not appointed you as the eye or mouth of this body, do not appropriate the special duties of these members for yourself. The hand, or another member, cannot say to the eye or mouth: I will fulfill your function. Yet there are duties that are foreign to no member of the body, such as preserving life and turning away danger. The life of the spiritual body is love, just as, conversely, "he who does not love abides in death" (1 Jn 3:14). Good works are manifestations of spiritual life.

This desire to reach toward the higher members leads to the abolition of the lower ones, and this leads to the body's disorder and common ruin. If such a desire were satisfied, all would have to be made, for example, into eyes or hearing, the nobler members. Then the whole body would become an eye or hearing. What would that resemble? "If the whole body had only one member, even the most sufficient one, it would without doubt be good for nothing, being deprived of the other members" (Theodoret). "Since he pointed to the difference of the members, mentioned feet, hands, eyes, and ears, and thereby suggested the thought of lower and higher dignity, see how he again consoles and shows that this is profitable. A body is especially a body because its members are many and different.