early 5th century

Augustine: the mixed body, the visible and the invisible Church

Augustine's ecclesiology took shape in the controversy with the Donatists. Catholicity is presence throughout the earth, unity is the bond of love, apostolicity is the succession of bishops, especially in Rome; holiness: in this life the wheat cannot be separated from the tares, the Church is a "mixed body," perfect only at the end of time. Lane considers Augustine the first to formulate the doctrine of the "invisible church": the boundaries of the true church are known to God alone, many who seem to be outside it are within, and vice versa. But, as Lane and Pelikan stress, for Augustine the invisible Church lies entirely within the catholic one, and salvation takes place only in the empirical Church. Berkhof sees here a dualism of the predestinarian and the churchman, and Harnack three uncoordinated definitions of the Church.