What are the fruits of our unity with Christ our head, and with each other as members of the one body?

St. Augustine says, “He descended for our sake, that we may ascend for His own sake. He alone descended and ascended, Him who said, ‘No one has ascended to heaven but He who came down from heaven’ (John 3:13). Should not those who have been made the children of God be able to ascend? Certainly they will ascend! This is what He promised us that we shall be, ‘like angels of God in heaven.’ So how can no one ascend except Him who descends? For it is one who descended and one who ascended. But what about the others? Their hope is that He descended that they may become one in Him and through Him, and will therefore ascend with Him. Here, the unity of the Church is manifested. Woe to those who hate unity and make for themselves segregated groups!

“We must journey on then, yet there is no need of anointing the feet, or looking out for beasts, or providing a vessel. Run with the heart's affection, journey on with love, ascend by charity. Why do you seek the way? Cleave unto Christ, who by Descending and Ascending has made Himself the Way. Do you wish to ascend? Hold fast to Him that ascends. For by your own self you cannot rise.

“For no man has ascended up to heaven, but He that came down from heaven, even the Son of Man which is in heaven. If no one ascends but He that descended, that is, the Son of

923 St. Augustine of Hippo, Lectures or Tractates on the Gospel According to St. John 13.17–18 (NPNF I/7:93) amended.

Man, our Lord Jesus, do you wish to ascend also? Be then a member of Him who Only has ascended. For He the Head, with all the members, is but One Man. And since no one can ascend, but he who in His Body is made a member of Him; that is fulfilled, that no man has ascended, but He that descended. He left His father and mother and was joined to His wife, so that ‘ the two may become one flesh ’ (Eph. 5:31). He left His mother also, the synagogue of which He was born after the flesh. He cleaved to His Wife, that is, to His Church …

“He showed that the marriage bond might not be dissolved: ‘Have ye not read,’ said He, ‘that God which made them at the beginning, made them male and female; and said, They two shall be in one flesh? What therefore God has joined together, let not man put asunder.’ And what is the meaning of ‘They two shall be in one flesh’? He goes on to say; ‘Wherefore they are no more two but one flesh.’ Thus ‘no man has ascended, but He that descended.’ For that you may know, that the Bridegroom and the Bride are One according to the Flesh of Christ, not according to His Divinity … that you may know then that this whole is One Christ, He said by Isaiah, ‘He has put on me a headdress as on a bridegroom and adorned me with ornaments like a bride’ (Isa. 61:10 LXX).”⁹²⁴