1. Preliminary note on method. “People of God” is a biblical term, recently brought to the fore again in the Second Vatican Council (Lumen Gentium, chs. i and ii). It characterizes the relationship between God and a certain group of men — Israel, the Church, humanity. “People” is of course a profane reality, part of the order of creation, produced by God like all primordial human realities. But this of itself does not justify the formation of the phrase “people of God” in scriptural and ecclesiastical language. For thi…