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In the case of the Christian religion, its constitutive believers or adherents are the apostles, who are also its only constitutive prophets, sages, and saints. But they, at least, are properly spoken of as constitutive and so not merely representative. For while they are indeed representative, in that they are constituted as apostles by Jesus Christ and derive their only authority from him, they are not merely representative because they derive their authority immediately from him rather than through the mediation of some still earlier representation. This means, in turn, that he himself is accessible as such, as Jesus Christ, finally, solely through their representation of him.

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