Introduction

In the beginning, God administrated. The entirety of creation is a miracle of organization, with God himself arranging all things by measure and number and weight (Wis 11:20). This marvelous order makes possible the very comprehensibility of the universe. God—who is Logos, or reason itself—has created an intelligible cosmos, which can be understood through the rational participation of humans in it. Rightly indeed did St. Thomas echo the sage words of Aristotle, the office of the wise is to order.¹ This ordering refers to being able to understand final ends or purposes, and to be capable of gauging the relative significances of each, particularly as they relate to the ultimate end of all things: God Himself. Yet before there can be an ordering, there must be a structure in place to facilitate such ordering. There can be no achievement without administration. In every case of a thing achieving its end, there is first the constitutive structures that make such attainment possible in the first place. The chief cause of the order inherent in the universe and in human nature is the government of God. One of the most perfect ways for a rational creature to imitate God is through the exercise of good governance and right ordering. When humans govern, they are performing a god-like activity. When they do it well they are imaging God Himself.

Such an ordering principle has been present from the very beginning, even before the Fall. Adam was called to superintend the garden and to name the animals according to their orders. The goodness of governance is then established in a twofold way, by being present in the prelapsarian state and most of all by reflecting the very being of God. Yet governance became problematic as rational creatures exercised their wills to enact disorder. They governed badly, first themselves and then the world with which they had been entrusted. In this sense proper government—both internal and external—become at the same time more important and immeasurably more difficult to achieve. From a Judeo-Christian perspective then, even given the reality of sin, governance and administration are both good and necessary for a flourishing human life.

Government can be divided into self-government and external government. While most would agree that self-government is a necessary and proper thing to have, in the ancient world it was considered the necessary precondition to good external government. Only the man who could rule himself could effectively rule others. This principle, articulated in the first book of Aristotle’s Politics and assumed as normative until the time of Machiavelli, has been abandoned in the modern world. No longer does there seem to be any connection with a person’s moral probity and his eligibility for rule. This is of course an effect of the disorder of sin combined with the intoxicating nature of power. This present book seeks to be an examination of how men and women in the Christian tradition attempted to balance goodness with power in their administration of the Church. Yet, for the followers of Christ does not such a combination seem doomed from the outset? A surface reading of the humility called for in the New Testament seems to preclude the exercise of power by Christians. Christians are called to meekness and deference, to serve rather than be served. It is the princes of the Gentiles who lord it over others (Mt 20:25). It would seem that the exercise of power is thereby forbidden to Christians. Yet Christ, the ordering principle of the whole universe, came to teach with authority and issue new commandments. He bequeathed significant power to his apostles to teach and to govern the Church of God. He even recognized the legitimacy of secular governments and their claims to obedience when it did not contradict the Gospel. Christians then find themselves in the seemingly anomalous situation of reconciling humility and leadership, service and authority. Such a harmony looks paradoxical, but like many other paradoxes in Christianity, it might be properly understood in the light of the workings of grace. The saints presented in this book are examples of the concord possible between the two concepts. Yet even beyond this one meets further issues.

One can level criticism from two different directions at any attempt usefully to connect Christianity with the exercise of administrative or governmental power. In the most mundane sense, administration is equated in the modern world with bureaucracy. The art of administration becomes reduced to the techne of bureaucracy, as so many other human arts have been diminished into pure mechanism. The massive proliferation of the administrative state is paralleled by astonishing bloat in both public and private institutions. Such developments deaden and flatten human life. Individuals are confronted by an army of nameless minor civil servants, observing arcane and unknown codes that seek to preserve their own petty spheres of power rather than to offer any real service to their constituents. Such a self-perpetuating bureaucratic vision is often parodied, but too often it hits uncomfortably close to the truth. Bureaucracy is a declension of the administrative art, for it takes something good and necessary and reduces it to self-serving ends. It is like a mock virtue that destroys the genuine virtue along with it, as so-called toxic masculinity has cast aspersions on fortitude or as puritanism has given a bad name to temperance. Much of modern society tries to adopt a baby with the bathwater mentality, whether it be a libertarian desire to destroy existing institutional structures wholesale or a Marxist attempt to abolish such bureaucracies as needless, self-perpetuating parasites. What is needed instead is a revaluation of the goodness and necessity of administration that will lay bare the real problems with a bureaucratic mindset.

The second issue is of more substance. Friedrich Nietzsche rejected the classical and Christian ethical position that all humans acted for happiness. He denies this and rather exalts power as the fundamental end of all human action. This contradicts Aristotle’s position that power can only ever have the nature of a means because it does not specify the nature of the object toward which it tends.² Thomas concurs with this. He denies that the final end of humans can be power alone, since power, outside of God, is always imperfect in bringing about its effects. Further, he states that power is able to be morally specified as either good or evil, depending on the intention. Indeed, some happiness might consist in the good use of power, which comes from virtue, rather than in power itself. Anticipating the objections of those who saw perfection in ruling others, Thomas clarifies himself further: Just as it is a very good thing for a man to make good use of power in ruling many, so is it a very bad thing if he makes a bad use of it.³ Yet Nietzsche, though going too far, was indeed on to something. Power is seductive and many people seek to maintain or increase it. This is just a simple fact about fallen human nature. Christ came to heal this tendency through his Kenosis, or his self emptying of glory, by taking a human nature and dying on the cross. Christianity at the same time knows that power is necessary and that it can be directed toward the good, while at the same time offering a sovereign remedy for the subtle temptations that power brings, through the example of God Himself and through His grace. It is just such a program that I intend to explore in this book, by investigating the saints of the Christian tradition, and by studying their responses to the problems of authority and administration from the perspective of grace building upon nature.

Chapter one studies the origins of Christianity and discusses how the infant Church providentially adopted the administrative mechanisms of the Roman state to achieve her mission. The concept of Romanitas combined the administrative skill of the ancient Romans with concepts of virtue necessary for a right ordering of the community. The early Church took these practices, as it also took many from the Hebrews and Greeks, and enriched them. Incarnational Christianity demanded a certain use of material goods for the sake of Christian worship and ministry. Here I examine the activities of four early popes, Damasus I, Leo I, Gelasius I, and Gregory I, and look at their pontifical administrations for examples of holy governance in action. Damasus used his skill to recover the prestige of the Holy See after the reign of a weak pope. He did this by focusing Christian devotion on the martyrs and tying these explicitly to the supervision of the pope. Leo the Great rose through the ranks of the Roman Church through a carefully balanced cursus honorum that allowed him to refine his natural talents for administration. In some of the darkest days of Roman history, his consummate skill saved both the city and the Church. Gelasius continued this tradition of strong leadership. It was under his rule that the clear distinction between the Church and the Roman imperial power was made. Finally, Gregory the Great leveraged the administrative achievements of all his predecessors, establishing a papal government whose perimeters would endure into the present day.

Gregory, who himself was a monk, presents a useful bridge to the next chapter, which looks at the monastic orders in the history of the Church and their particular contributions administrative genius. This chapter explores how the Christian concept of perfection can coexist with administration. It traces the movement from isolated spiritual virtuosos, like Anthony of the Desert, to those who began to organize monks into corporate bodies under the rule of spiritual superiors. The first great monastic founder was Pachomius, whose military training and Christian virtue was the first to turn the desert into a city. Basil modified the Pachomian solution in such a way as to emphasize wise moderation and open the spiritual benefits of the monastery to the broader world. In a very real way he humanized monasticism, building up a solid foundation from correct religious anthropology. The chapter then follows the importation of monasteries into the West, discussing the governance brought by John Cassian to Gaul and the peculiar conditions found in the Celtic world. Augustine, himself a diocesan bishop, proposed a novel form of urban monastery that would later be recognized as the canonical life. I lay a significant focus on Benedict and his Rule as an axial moment in the regularization of the monastic life. His administrative genius is characterized by harmony, moderation, and proper order. Benedict and his Rule need to be situated in their historical context in order to appreciate the numerous contributions of later Church leaders to extend it to Western monasteries. Such a propagation of the Rule was the result of many efforts over the course of centuries. The chapter continues with the constitutional and administrative revolutions created as a result of the Cluniac and Cistercian reforms. It ends with an example of administrative innovation in the order created by Angela Merici, an establishment that shows the perpetual creativity that can be generated by the response to grace while embedded in human nature and the long tradition of the Church.

Chapter three discusses a concentrated period of Church history in the twelfth century that has been referenced by the name of the Gregorian Reform. The papacy had fallen upon hard times in the 900s and early 1000s and needed to be recalled from its nadir. For this a wholesale administrative revolution was necessary so as to undergird the grand theoretical claims of the reformers. Initially reform was in the hands of lay rulers, but gradually the Church emancipated herself from such domination. The first strong pope in 200 years was Leo IX. It was under his rule that a thoroughgoing reform of the Roman See took place. Leo reinvigorated the ancient practice of synodality, placing the papacy as the visible center of the reforming movement. He was the first pope to undertake extensive travel with the purpose of reinforcing papal prerogatives. In order to reform the Curia, he gathered leading intellectual lights from all of Europe, placing them in critical positions to effect reform at the heart of the Church. These men were given the ecclesiastical title of Cardinal as personal vicars of the pope, enabling them to execute administrative reforms in his name. This office became critical to the life of the Church, both in guaranteeing the freedom of papal election while at the same time offering universal representation. Gregory VII, who gave his name to the whole of the reform movement, was a man caught between theory and practice. He strove mightily to implement the high-minded ideals advanced by his coterie, and was the initiator of many key administrative innovations. During his reign he saw the dispatch of powerful legates to carry his papal authority to the corners of Europe, as well as an increasing emphasis on the city of Rome as the center of the Christian world. Finally, there is an analysis of the papacy of Urban II, who did so much to bring the hard work of Leo IX and Gregory VII to fruition.

Following this examination of monastic and papal administration, chapter four is given over to a detailed study of one of the singular achievements in Church history—namely, the foundation and constitutions of the Friars Preachers. First, I discuss the difficulty of inserting a new form of apostolic itinerant preaching into the institutional life of the Church in the twelfth century. Founders such as Norbert, Dominic, and Francis creatively interacted with the canonical and administrative traditions of the Church to avoid heresy and insert themselves within institutional Christianity, all for the good of souls. All the pieces needed for such an institutional transformation began to fall into place around 1200, with the election of Innocent III. For all his administrative brilliance, Innocent knew that unless reform of governance was accompanied by a revolution in holiness, it would result in a dead letter. It was Dominic of Caleruega who drew all these disparate threads together and fashioned the constitutions of the Friars Preachers as a comprehensive, prudential, and enduring testament to administrative genius. Once again, however, the founder had the support of brilliant subordinates. In particular, I focus on the fifth Master of the Order, Humbert of Romans. It was this prescient leader who led the Dominicans through one of their worst crises, one that threatened the very existence of the mendicant movement itself. It was Humbert’s prudential and foresightful governance, using the tools bequeathed to him by Dominic, that righted the ship and oriented the Preachers as a fundamental order in the Church even up to the present day.

However well administration and sanctity pair together, they are not always necessarily found united. Chapter five examines several saints who were failed administrators, a fact that does not detract from their holiness, but rather helps to throw in relief how governance is quite a difficult art. Simply because a person is holy does not guarantee good administration. Sanctity may deepen the virtues and talents necessary to governance, but it cannot build where there is no natural and practical aptitude. Here we can see lamentable episodes in Church history of people like the cunning Theophilus of Alexandria misusing the authority of the Church for ambitious ends. In the case of St. Cyril of Alexandria, we can see how even a saint can misuse authority, and that consummate skill in administration, if not prudentially deployed, can easily be frustrated. Yet Cyril matured during his lifetime, and a contrast grew that distinguished his actions from those of his predecessor. Such problems can be compounded when considered at the level of the papacy. Poor papal governance can lead to drastic problems within the Church on earth, and even saintly popes can be terrible administrators. The lamentable events of 1054 in Constantinople provide a case study in terrible governance, on part of both the Greeks and Latins. The events of the life of Peter Celestine show that possession of piety and holiness is no guarantee of success, and that to simply entrust complex governance to a person because of his recognized sanctity is fraught with peril. Coming to realize the depth of his own inability, Celestine resigned the papacy within six months of his election. His reign had been a total disaster. Notwithstanding his holiness, he was utterly unequal to the task demanded of him. Finally, Francis of Assisi throws into sharp relief the Christian paradox of leadership. He vividly demonstrates the difficulty of reconciling humility and the exercise of power. All through his life, in his attempts to govern his new order, Francis was never able to square this circle, an inability which caused serious chaos among his followers for a century.

The final chapter is an examination of the most critical office of governance in the Christian Church—namely, that of the bishop. Ambrose presents an ideal model for understanding the early Christian episcopacy. Though his immediate elevation to the office was stunning, he nevertheless brought with him long experience in the imperial service. In him native talent commingled with grace, producing an astonishingly effective and sanctifying administrative structure. Using Ambrose as a blueprint, I analyze the reign of the retiring scholar Edmund of Abingdon, in thirteenth-century England. His shy temperament cloaked the characteristics of a born administrator and leader. Humble and honest, Edmund knew his shortcomings, and attracted trusted and competent subordinates to rule the Church in England. His success was manifested in the reign of his protege, Richard de Wych, who was also later canonized. I conclude by returning to Ambrose’s diocese over 1,000 years later, in the person of Charles Borromeo. By analyzing both his work in successfully concluding the Council of Trent and his active efforts as the reforming Archbishop of Milan, it becomes apparent how examples from the New Testament and the lives of early holy bishops might be incarnated in every age.

In the end this book hopes to draw out the key virtues necessary for elucidating a clearer connection between administration and holiness. It does so through an analysis of the lives and actions of the holy members of the Church charged with such responsibilities. I seek to restore the idea that sanctified holiness is not only possible for those charged with governance of the Church of Christ, but rather is a fulfillment and type of Christus Rector omnium—Christ, the ruler of all. Power is a means; it can be used for good or for ill. Serious temptations arise when fallen humans try to exercise it, yet one should not thereby despair of its proper use—that is, when it is subordinated to truth and the common good. It should always be remembered that, in spite of her grumbling, St. Martha made the divine colloquy between Mary and Christ possible. Without her oikonomia, her attention to right order and to hospitality, such a meeting could not have been contemplated. Her resignation to her tasks and her humble, practical, and unstinting service to Christ permits Mary to enjoy the better part. It is good to remember that Martha is a saint right alongside Mary. Administration is very often a burden to those entrusted with it but, considered in the light of Christ’s revelation, this creation of order in the midst of chaos is what makes great achievement possible: Just as Martha gave us Mary, so did Ambrose bequeath us Augustine, and Dominic paved the way for the success of Thomas Aquinas. The key for all these holy administrators was not to make governance and end in itself, but a necessary precondition and means for the achievement of the reign of Christ Himself.

1 This statement is critical to all of St. Thomas’ thought. He recalls it at the beginning of both of his Summae. It comes originally from Aristotle, Metaphysics, 1.2 (982a18). It appears in his works no fewer than eleven times.

2 A position established ably by Plato and Aristotle, and elucidated by Cicero in Tusculan Disputations, book 5.

3 Thomas Aquinas, Summa Theologiae, I-II, q. 2, a. 4, ad. 2.

Chapter 1

Christianitas and Romanitas

In the years following the Resurrection, Christ’s disciples carried his gospel throughout the Roman empire and beyond. In every city a handful of converts eventually included numerous households, which then developed into local churches. By the year 100 we find monarchical bishops in each town with a Christian population, assisted by deacons and a rapidly expanding presbyterate. Christianity was to find a ready home in the burgeoning cities of the Mediterranean, among a populace hungry for spiritual nourishment in the midst of civil religion devoid of substance. The new faith brought with it a strict code of conduct, a distinct way of worshipping God, and—in particular—novel ideas for organizing the community. These three aspects were meant to work in unison for the salvation of all: morality, cult, and organization were intended to orient the Church toward its eternal destination. Such development required the careful shepherding of many different graces, talents, and tendencies, all amid plagues and persecutions. In particular, Christians directed their attention to the three mightiest cities of the empire—namely, Alexandria in Egypt, Antioch in Syria, and the center of the world itself, Rome.¹

God willed to become incarnate in the heart of a deeply rooted Hebrew culture that was then experiencing a fruitful interaction with the world of Greek thought, all within the political and legal order of the Roman empire. These three cultural wellsprings were what the infant Christian Church would channel into the mighty river of Western civilization. From the Hebrews she received the scriptures, along with concepts of ethical righteousness, cultic worship, and a linear vision of history. From the Greeks came an intellectual foundation upon which to understand and connect the revelation of God to the realities of the earth. For the earliest Christians, their first language of scripture and preaching was, for the most part, Greek. Hellenistic culture was the good soil in which Christianity was to root. Yet for our present purposes I want to address the contributions and genius of the Latin peoples, offering reasons as to why the third city—Rome—was so critical in mapping divine providence and the unfolding of Christ’s mission.

Rome had neither the revelation granted to the Hebrews nor the heights of intellectual achievement attained by the Greeks. If one were to look at the city in the centuries before Christ, there was little to recommend it as a place of world-historical importance. The little town on the Tiber River constantly found itself situated among more powerful neighbors, be it the Etruscans to the north, the Hellenistic kingdoms of the south, or the menacing trading civilization of Carthage across the sea. Yet Rome ultimately found itself at the center of the drama of the West. This is apparent geographically, for the peninsula of Italy extends itself into the center of the Mediterranean, acting as both a bridge and a barrier between Europe and Africa. At the same time, it lies at the midpoint between the East and West. With Spain and the Holy Land at opposite ends of the sea, Rome found itself conveniently situated for the mission that Virgil would later famously bestow upon it:

Roman, remember by your strength to rule

Earth’s peoples—for your arts are to be these:

To pacify, to impose the rule of law,

To spare the conquered, battle down the proud.

(Aeneid VI.1151–1154)

Yet how far all that seemed from the mud and thatch huts clustered on the Palatine hill eight centuries before. Rome had to carve out a precarious existence, constantly fighting against those who coveted its prime location. While struggling to survive, it also had to resolve its internal politics, finally rejecting the tyranny of petty monarchs and establishing a constitutional rule of law that remains an exemplary political model to the present day. The men of Rome were farmer-soldiers, whose patient perseverance and unwillingness to allow setbacks to dishearten them produced the astonishing achievements of a Roman civilization that eventually stretched from the Atlantic to the Persian gulf, and from the gates of Scotland to the Sahara desert. They were a practical people: builders, lawyers, organizers, military planners, and that most down-to-earth of all professions, farmers. Their society had been in existence for over half-a-millennium before they began to produce native literature and philosophy. They lived in the shadow of the magnificent Greeks and, finding that Hellenistic philosophical speculations lined up well with their familial and social morality, they became the students of Athens. Indeed, they appropriated Greek thought much better than did their Hellenic forbears. At least in the early days, the Romans attempted to live according to the outline of the virtues developed by the Greeks. One could even say that the Romans practiced what the Greeks preached.

As a constitutional republic, Rome valued above all else the work of administration and recognized the supreme dignity of the law. Aristocratic men were trained from birth in the effective running of the city and its holdings, moving from position to position so that when they took their places in the senate, they would have experience in the many diverse ways of governing the Roman people. Romanitas for them was a badge of honor, indicating the Roman approach to doing things, and it was deeply embedded in the social character of the community. Such a concept (first coined by the Christian writer Tertullian around 200 AD) involved a number of different ideas. From their military ideals came the virtues of courage and steadfastness, particularly in defense of the city and the family. Their agricultural nature added to the concept a sense of hard work and prudence. Furthermore, Romans were expected to carry themselves with honor, which betokened the virtue of gravitas, a combination of a sense of personal dignity and public temperance. All of this was leavened by a certain greatness of soul, called magnanimity by the Greeks, which encouraged generosity and good leadership. Finally, the concept of piety was characteristic of the Roman relationship to family, to the broader society, and to religious duties. This reinforced the idea of gratitude for what one did not himself create or even merit, and it engendered serious respect for the customs and practices of one’s ancestors. A good Roman was expected to demonstrate piety to the state, whether in public or in military service. Piety toward one’s family—and particularly one’s parents—was also critical to the Roman system. Finally, one was to observe with rigor the many duties to the gods of the state. All three levels of piety were necessary for the smooth operation of society.

This dedication to Romanitas meant that the speakers of the Latin language were eventually able to overcome their more powerful neighbors. While from a historical perspective Rome seemed often on the verge of total defeat, its courage and tenacity served to get it through many dark days. Roman law was renowned for its justice and equity. For one thing, it was public law, common to the community and not personal, beholden to tyrannical whims. Further, it was flexible, being able to adapt to changing conditions, particularly in reference to the tensions between social classes. Given their practical mindset, the most significant development of the legal system was the rise of a professional class of lawyers and commentators who refined and glossed the tradition, ensuring the ongoing validity of the Roman system in the face of the grave challenges that confronted society through the centuries. These jurists were called prudentes, from whence we arrive at the term ‘jurisprudence,’ or the lively integration of the intellectual virtue of prudence with the developing civil law of a society. Their work would remain one of the cardinal contributions of Roman civilization to the world (indeed, codified by Justinian in the sixth century AD, it will become the basis for nearly every legal system in the modern age). Further flexibility was introduced by the rise of customs that abandoned rigid formalism in favor of empowering magistrates with the ability to modify the harsh letter of the law—that is, to balance strict justice with equity. This was done by broadening the idea of law to include those precepts common to all nations, a concept that robustly informed the development of our understanding of the natural law. Romans also understood the necessity of pursuing the common good as opposed to merely private goods. As Roman history progressed, former enemies became allies and eventually citizens, especially as they realized that Rome governed them better than they could have governed themselves. In this way, almost by accident, the Roman republic gained an empire.

While one can certainly see behind many of these developments the sophisticated virtue ethics of thinkers such as Socrates, Plato, and Aristotle, the Romans embodied these philosophical ideas in a practical way that served to provide a stable foundation for the whole of their society. Summed up in the concept of Romanitas, this was the very soul of their civilization. When it broke down, as it did spectacularly in the last republican century (133–44 BC), the results were devastating. Indeed, even under the empire, poets and playwrights cast longing glances toward the Romanitas of the past, which had by then been replaced by the moral enormities of the emperors, the wolfish dependencies of the lower classes, and the virtual disappearance of serious efforts to reform the Roman character. Indeed, the self-controlled practices of such marginalized groups as the young Christian movement were in a certain sense a living rebuke to the Romans, who had abandoned the commitment to virtue alive in previous generations. For a long time, ethical systems such as Christianity were to exercise as much of a repulsion as an attraction for imperial-age Romans.

Like a moth to a flame, the early Church gravitated toward Rome. The center of a worldwide empire and home to over a million souls, it was logical that missionary efforts would concentrate on such a prize. Indeed, it was the destination of Peter the Apostle, who perhaps arrived in Rome as early as 42 AD, but certainly took up residence here after the Council of Jerusalem in the year 50 when he established himself across the Tiber in the foreign quarters around the Vatican hill and Trastevere. It was not only Peter but also Paul, the Apostle to the Gentiles, who had said, I must also see Rome (Acts 19:21). As a result, the two most prominent members of the young Church converged on the imperial city, and there met their respective martyrdoms. This double Apostolicity established Rome as one of the epicenters of the Christian world, a fact repeatedly recognized by the early Fathers and Councils of the Church. The providential nature of these events is evident in that the Church, at once both Jewish and Greek, was now also—permanently and ineffaceably—Roman in character. Christianity wove the best of these cultures together. Like three legs of a stool, without Athens, Jerusalem, or Rome, the Catholic Church and Western civilization itself would have fallen. Rome provided a fertile field for sowing the word of God. Converts streamed into the Roman Church from all social classes, including from senatorial families and even the imperial household. While subjected to periodic persecution, for the most part Christianity was left largely unhindered for the first 200 years of its existence, and during this time converts abounded as did the creation of the foundations for the mighty works of faith that would be reared in the future. As Rome became Christian, Christianity became more Roman. This process of inculturation was part of the Incarnational character of the Church itself. It took the existing good of a culture and leavened it with the yeast of the Gospel. Just as Christianity bore marks of its Hebrew heritage and its Hellenistic upbringing, so too did the infant Church take into itself the genius of the Roman people.

The real Christian revolution in the ancient world was the recognition of the material body as critical to human dignity. Countless are the ancient religions that pursued spirituality to the detriment of the corporeal. From dualisms like Gnosticism that professed bodily life to be evil, to Eastern religions that viewed all of material existence as suffering, there were a surfeit of spiritual answers to the problems of the human condition. Christianity too affirmed the reality and superiority of the spiritual, but also confessed the goodness of the material world as a necessary corollary. The body was the nexus for the soul’s salvation. Only graced works performed by embodied human persons were meritorious before God. The governance of bodies was therefore a key matter for moral consideration. Further, the Church taught that the ordinary ways in which grace was granted were material—namely, water, bread, wine, oil, human bodies. From the beginning Christianity’s spiritual mission was mediated in and through an incarnational, material, and bodily reality. This had a marked effect on Christian social attitudes. The Church was to preside over humans in the wayfaring state—that is, bodies and souls together striving for salvation. It was to be a physical, visible community of faith whose most precious rituals were material and bodily. Unlike the ancient cultic religions, Christianity embraced material charity as a privileged mode of spiritual striving. It was to be the custodian of the offerings of the faithful who laid up treasure in heaven by endowing the Church upon earth.² All of these realities are intrinsic to the nature of the Christian Church, as much an earthly and material thing as it is a heavenly and spiritual one. To teach and to rule the Christian people meant not only the perfection and training of souls, but of human persons who are unified composites of body and soul made in the image and likeness of the one, true God who became flesh to save and redeem humanity, in both body and soul. Spiritual direction was certainly understood to be a noble and necessary good (as it is in nearly all world religions), but the administration of the material and bodily life of Christians was likewise understood—rightly—to be not only good, but necessary, meritorious, and holy. As the Romans understood perfectly, it is of no use to know military theory inside and out if your soldiers are starving on the eve of