Home › Glossary › Letter C

corpus mysticum

Latin Phrases
Pronunciation

Understanding ARPABET Pronunciation

Want to hear it? Click the Listen button to hear the browser speak the word using text-to-speech!

The pronunciation guide uses the ARPABET phonetic system—the same system used in speech recognition and text-to-speech applications.

Vowel Examples:
AE1 = cat, bat
EH1 = bed, head
IY1 = see, me
OW1 = go, boat
UW1 = boot, do
Stress Numbers:
0 = no stress (unstressed)
1 = primary stress (loud)
2 = secondary stress (medium)
Example:
AH0 TH IY1 N AH0
= a-THEE-na (Athena)

The stressed syllable (marked with 1) is pronounced louder and clearer than others.

Quick Definition

The mystical body; originally referring to the Eucharist and later to the Church as the spiritual body of Christ.

Detailed Definition
Corpus mysticum evolved in medieval theology to describe the Church as the living, spiritual body of which Christ is the head and believers are members. In poetry, it appears in devotional verse, religious allegory, and modern poems exploring community, belonging, and spiritual unity. Poets draw on it to articulate a vision of human solidarity that transcends the individual, imaging the beloved, the nation, or humanity itself as a single living, mystical body.
Example
Example in poetry:
St. Paul's image of the Church as the body of Christ, developed in his letters, is the theological source of corpus mysticum, and it pervades Christian poetry from the medieval period onward; John Donne's sermons and devotional poems draw on corpus mysticum — the individual soul finding its meaning only as a member of the larger spiritual body; Gerard Manley Hopkins's poem "As Kingfishers Catch Fire" has a corpus mysticum dimension — each self fully itself, yet all selves united in the act of Christing the world; A contemporary poet writing about community solidarity — the way a protest movement, a neighborhood, or a choir becomes something greater than its parts — might invoke corpus mysticum; Eliot's "Little Gidding" culminates in a vision of corpus mysticum — the community of the dead and the living united in the fire of divine love
Additional Notes
Corpus mysticum underwent a complex theological evolution. Originally, in the ninth century, corpus mysticum referred to the consecrated Eucharist — the body of Christ present in the sacrament — while corpus verum (the true body) referred to the historical body of Christ. Over time, through a process described by the historian Ernst Kantorowicz in The King's Two Bodies, the terms shifted: corpus mysticum came to refer to the Church as a social body, and corpus verum to the Eucharist. Students should note that this terminological history is relevant to any poetry that draws on body imagery in a theological or political context: the body politic, the body of the Church, and the sacramental body are all related through this tradition. Related terms include the body politic, communitas (the community of belonging), and the Pauline image of the body with many members.
Also Known As
the mystical body mystical body of Christ the body of the Church
Skip to main content