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Nearly every one of these idioms have direct precedents in the Hebrew Bible; those that do not certainly have parallel imagery to an Old Testament institution or theological convention. The early Christians drew upon the OT as a foundational literature and it is no wonder that the same idioms found their place in the new group. This was not much different, insofar as the use of the OT was foundational, from that role in the synagogue.
Apostolic Fathers as [[Clement of Rome]] uses used several metaphors for the Church as demonstrated in a section of 2 Clement 14. He described it as "the first Church" (''ek tes ekklesias tes protes''), the "spiritual one, created before the sun and the moon." Further, he calls it the "church of life" that is also the "body of Christ," a body which is the female as Christ is the male. It is not for now, the present, but has existed since the beginning (''anothen'').
So the Christian literature reports of both an immanent and transcendent view of the Christian community. The Church is not only at work in the world but has a supernatural reality as well. Operating often in an hostile environment, the members endure for the mission of the divine body, the Christian community.