Clement of Alexandria sees the Church as the mother who feeds milk to her children
Clement is firmly convinced that there is only one universal Church as there is only one God the Father, one divine Word and one Holy Spirit. He calls this church the virgin mother who feeds her children with the milk of the divine Word: O wondrous mystery! One is the father of all, one also the Logos of all, and the Holy spirit is one and the same everywhere and there is only one Virgin Mother; I love to call her the Church. This mother alone had no milk, because she alone did not become woman, but she is both virgin and mother, being undefiled as a virgin and loving as a mother; and calling her children to her she nurses them with holy milk, the Logos for the children (Paed.1,6,42,1). "O graduates of His blessed tutorship! Let us [by our presence] make complete the fair countenance of the Church, and let us as children run to our good Mother. and when we have become hearers of the Word, let us extol the blessed dispensation by which man is brought up and sanctified as a chi...