Forbes on Article XXVIII: Of the Lord's Supper

1. THE awful and tremendous mystery of the Sacra ment of our Lord’s most sacred Body and precious Blood, the holy of holies of the new law, the Shechinah of the Christian dispensation, is the subject of the Twenty-eighth Article. It begins by denying the low and grovelling conception of Zwingli, who maintained that the Supper was no more than a tessera, or sign of communion between man and man. Zwingli elimi nated all supernatural influence from the act. In the plainest sense he taught an entire absence of spiritual grace. The Article also denies the doctrine of (Eco- lampadius, who saw nothing more in the Eucharist than a symbol whereby one is bound to sacrifice for one’s neighbour, after the example of Jesus Christ, one’s body and blood, as baptism is a sign by which one binds oneself to give up one’s life for the faith which one professes. The Anabaptists also, seeking in their false enthusiasm to establish an abstract mo-

rality on the ruins of dogmatic faith, desired only to recognise in the Eucharist a symbol of the mutual de votion which Christians ought to have for each other.

2. The first positive statement of the Article is that it is “a Sacrament of our redemption by Christ’s death.” This is equivalent to the expression of Theo- doret, fjLVGTTjpiov awTi]piov*, or to that used by St. Augustine on the occasion of his mother’s death b, Sacr amentum pretii nostri.

” Insomuch as to such as rightly, worthily, and with faith receive the same, the bread which we break is a partaking of the Body of Christ, and likewise the cup of blessing is a partaking (in the edition of 1553 1 a communion7) of the Blood of Christ.” This expres sion, being the embodiment of Holy Scripture, must mean, of course, what God the Holy Ghost meant in Holy Scripture, and of that meaning the consent of the ancient Church is a better interpreter than any of us. The word Koivtovia everywhere in Holy Scrip ture means an actual participation or communion of that which is spoken of.

The Scripture word Koivvvia, as applied to the Body and Blood of Christ, means not only that we receive that Body and Blood, but that we become one Body and one Blood with Him, as St. Paul explains in 1 Cor. x. 17 : ” For we, being many, are one Bread.” On which Theophylact says : “He does not say, yLtero^??, but Koivcovia, a more excellent word, as if he would imply the closest union. What he says is of the act : a In 1 Cor. xi. 23. b Conf., ix. 36.

’ It is that which flowed from the side of Christ, and receiving of it we commemorate, that is, we are united to Christ. Are you not ashamed, 0 Corinthians, to return to the cup of idols, after that cup which hath delivered you from idols ? ’ ” St. Chrysostom also notes this difference : ” Why said he not participation ? Be cause he intended to express something more, and to point out how close are the unions ; in that we com memorate not only by participating and partaking, but also by being united. For as that Body is united to Christ, so also are we united to Him by this Bread c.” It will be seen, therefore, that the word “partaking” in the English translation is no adequate rendering of the Latin, which is the Scriptural communicatio.

This patristic explanation of the word Koiv&vta dis poses of the formula whereby Calvin endeavoured to steer a middle course between the Lutheran teaching on the one hand, and that of Zwingli and (Ecolampa- dius on the other. He taught that the Body of Christ is truly present in the Lord’s Supper, and that the believer partakes of it ; but he only meant that simul taneously with the bodily participation of the material elements, which in every respect remained what they were, and merely signified the Body and the Blood, a power emanating from the Body of Christ, which is now in heaven only, is communicated to the Spirit. Framed originally under the pressure of the confusions among the Reformed, this middle opinion made its way among them, and included many of the Lutherans

c Horn. xxiv. ; 1 Cor. x. 17.

themselves, as its advocates employed, without hesita tion, the expression that Christ is really present in the Eucharist, and His Body and Blood given to believers for participation. In England, in consequence of the great authority of Richard Hooker, who, in the gradual process of working himself out of Puritanism, had on this mysterious doctrine attained to Catholic feeling, while he adhered to Calvinistic definition, this view has obtained to an extent remarkable in view of its intrinsic inanity. It does not satisfy the letter of Scripture, which distinctly predicates the affirmative proposition, ” This is My Body.” It contradicts the testimony of the primitive Church, as we shall pre sently proceed to shew from a long catena of autho rities. It has exhibited its unsatisfactoriness in. never having been able to maintain an abiding existence, either rising into the Catholic doctrine, or, more com monly, degenerating into a bare Zwinglianism, and has only found favour with those who, unwilling to accept the profound mystery of the Holy Eucharist with all its consequences, are unable to bring themselves to an absolute denial of any presence of Christ, and, therefore, in this formula find a sop to the cravings of an intellect which dreads to carry to conclusions the premisses which in reason only lead to the acceptance of the Catholic doctrine.

The word Koivwvia disposes also of what has been termed the theory of virtualism or equivalence — a theory which proposes to attempt the impossible task of reconciling the high and mysterious expres-

sions of our Lord Himself, His holy Apostles, and the primitive Fathers, with such a view of the doctrine of the blessed Sacrament as practically amounts to the real absence of our Lord therefrom. A virtual Pre sence, as it is sometimes incorrectly called, means, when we examine it, a bestowal of the grace, efficacy, virtue, or influence of the atoning Death of our Lord. It sup poses the bread and wine to be equivalents for the absent Body and Blood, so that to partake with faith of the former is virtually and in effect as though we partook of the latter. The very Body and very Blood are supposed to be absent. They are not actually “given” or “taken.” They are neither present by consecration nor present in devout reception. Some what of this nature was that theory of a school of the Nonjurors, which owed its existence to John Johnson, the learned author of ” The Unbloody Sacri fice.” It was, that the Body of our Lord, which had been conceived by the Holy Ghost, and born of the Virgin Mary, had ascended into heaven, there to re main till the restitution of all things ; but that in the Divine mysteries, on consecration, the Holy Ghost de scended upon the gifts of bread and wine, which had been offered in sacrifice to God, and joining Himself with them, made them the Body and Blood of Christ in power and efficacy.

Moreover, it is not said in the Article that we are partakers of Christ, or of a grace from Christ, but the Bread which we break, i.e. the Bread which has been blessed and consecrated by our Lord’s words, ” This is

My Body/’ through the operation of the Holy Ghost, is the communion or participation of the Body of Christ ; and the Cup of Blessing, i.e. the Cup blessed by the words, ” This is My Blood/’ is the partaking of or communication of the Blood of Christ.

In adducing the following passages from the Fathers, I would only premise that I have selected such passages as contain the doctrine of the Real Objective Presence, — I mean that the Body and Blood of Christ are so sacramentally present in, or under, the consecrated Bread and Wine, that the Fathers either called the whole, the outward and the inward part together, or even the outward part alone, by the name of the in ward part, the Body and Blood of Christ. I have passed over all the passages (which are naturally far more numerous) in which the Fathers speak of our “receiving the Body and Blood of Christ/’ “that saving Body, Christ Himself;” that we ” eat His Body,” or “drink Blood from His side;” “receive Him and lay Him up in ourselves, and place the Saviour in our breasts.” All passages which speak only of the ” re ception” I have omitted.

St. Ignatius d, consecrated Bishop of Antioch by St. Peter, says of the Docetse who did not believe in the reality of our Lord’s Body : — ” They confess not that the Eucharist is the Flesh of our Saviour Jesus Christ, which suffered for our sins, which the Father in His mercy raised again.”

Justin Martyr, a disciple of Apostles, in giving an

d Ep. ad Smyrn.y n. 7.

account of the Christian worship to the Emperor : — ” We do not receive it as common bread, or as common drink, but in what way Jesus Christ our Saviour, being through the Word of God Incarnate, had both flesh and blood for our salvation, so also have we been taught that the Food, over which thanksgiving has been made by the prayer of the word which is from Him (from which [food] our blood and flesh are, by trans mutation, nourished), is the Flesh and Blood of Him, the Incarnate Jesus. For the Apostles, in their records which are called the Gospels, have delivered that Jesus so commanded them, that He, having taken bread and given thanks, said, ’ Do this in remembrance of Me. This is My Body/ And, likewise, having taken the cup and given thanks, He said, ’ This is My Blood c.’”

St. Irenseus, who says that he remembers the times of his youth with Polycarp (the disciple of St. John) better than recent things, argues against the Gnostics : — ” If the Lord belonged to another Father, how was it just that taking bread, of this our creation, He con fessed that it was His Own Body, and He affirmed that the mingled drink of the cup was His Own Blood f ?”

In the Harmony ascribed to Tatian or Ammonius, the words of the Gospel are paraphrased thus : — ” And then, having taken bread, and afterwards the cup of wine, He bare witness that it was His Body and Blood, and bade them eat and drink, for that it was a memo rial of His coming suffering and death g.”

e Apol., i. § 66. f iv. 33, 2. * Harm. iv. Evany.,

Bibl. Patr., ii. P. ii. p. 210, A.

Tertullian, on whose antiquity the Homily lays such stress, speaks to this effect : — ” The zeal of Faith might speak on this head all the day long, mourning that the Christian should come from the idols into the Church … that he should approach those hands to the Body of the Lord, which bestowed bodies on demons. Nor is this enough. It were a small matter that they should re ceive from other hands that which they defile, but they themselves also deliver to others that which they have defiled. Makers of idols are chosen into the ministry of the Church. Horrid sin ! The Jews laid violent hands but once upon Christ; these every day assault His Body. 0, hands worthy of being cut off ! Let them now consider whether it were said only in a figure, ’ If thine hand offend thee, cut it off/ What hands ought more to be cut off than those by which the Body qf the Lord is offended^ ?”

And here, in order of time, comes in the Greek inscription found at Autun, which is assigned to the second century, because, in A.D. 202, the Greek Church in France was laid desolate. The antiquity of this part of the inscription, and its testimony to ” the Divinity of our Lord, and the divine dignity of the Sacraments,” are recognised with satisfaction by Dr. Christopher “Wordsworth. As the inscription has only been known for these few years, but is of extreme value for the simplicity of the faith expressed by it, it is right to cite his words from his printed letter to Cardinal Pitra, the Benedictine editor1. The inscription relates to

b De Idol., § 8, p. 228, 0. T. » Spicil. Solesm., t. i. p. 563.

the two great Sacraments, and affirms only what all Catholic Christians must hold in common, the Real Objective Presence. ” Quam valida vero ad catholicam veritatem stabiliendam et ad hsereticam pravitatem de Christo Deo, de divina Sacramentorum dignitate, pro- fligandam, testimonia suppeditet non sine summa volup- tate videmus. Et hanc priorem inscriptionis partem antiquitus in marmore extitisse … pro comperto habeo.” Dr. Wordsworth does not say anything about the definite date of the inscription, but he believes it to be ancient, ” antiquitus.” The lines relating to the Holy Eucharist are: — “Receive the honey-sweet [food] of the holy things of the Saviour;” or, as others, “of the Saviour of the holy.” ” Eat, drink, having Jesus Christ, the Son of God, the Saviour, in thy hands.” The well-known anagram IXQT2 occurs at this same time, both in the Greek and Latin Church ; in the Greek, in a hymn ascribed to St. Clement of Alex andria ; in the Latin, in Tertullian. In St. Clement of Alexandria, as well as in this inscription, it is used in reference to the Eucharist k. It occurs in the recently discovered works attributed to St. Melito. It occurs also in Origen, St. Hilary, St. Ambrose, St. Optatus, Severian, Bishop of Gabala, the rival and enemy of St. Chrysostom, Sedulius, St. Paulinus, St. Augustine, St. Peter Chrysologus, St. Prosper, the African author of the De Promiss. Dei, and St. Cyril of Alexandria l. There can neither be a simpler nor a fuller statement

k See Dr. Pusey, Real Presence, p. 338, note.

of the Objective Presence of our Lord, God and Man, in the Holy Eucharist, received in the hands to be food to the faithful than in this inscription, which the Pro vidence of God has brought to light.

Author of the Carmina adv. Mar don m ; — ” From what creation suppose ye the Bread and Wine are, and must be confessed to be, His Body and Blood ? Proved not He Himself the Maker of the world by deeds ? And, at the same time, that He bare a Body of Flesh and Blood?”

Origen : — ” We, rendering thanks (ev^apiorrovvre^) to the Creator of the universe, eat the Bread, offered with thanksgiving (eu^aptcrrta?) and prayer over the things offered, which [bread] becometh, for the prayer’s sake, a certain Holy Bodij, which halloweth those who use the same with a sound purpose n.”

Note the reserve in this passage. The author is arguing with a heathen, to whom it was not right to expose the Mystery, and therefore uses reserve : — ” Ye who are wont to be present at the Divine Mysteries, know how, when ye receive the Body of the Lord, ye keep It with all care and veneration, lest any particle of It should fall, lest any of the consecrated gift should escape you. For ye believe yourselves guilty (and ye believe rightly) if any thereof fall through negligence ; but if ye use so great caution, and rightly use it, in preserving His Body, how do ye think it a less guilt to have neglected the Word of God than His Body ° ?”

m L. 5, op. Tertull. ” Cont. Cels., 8, c. 33.

St. Dionysius the Great, of Alexandria, who was consulted in most questions of moment by other Churches : — ” For I could not venture to renew from the beginning (i.e. to re-baptize) one who had heard the Eucharist, and joined in answering the Amen, and stood by the table, and stretched forth his hands to receive the Holy Food, and had received it, and for a long while had partaken of the Body and Blood of our Lord Jesus Christ P.” ” For I do not think that women, who are faithful and devout, would venture, in such a state, to approach the Holy Table, or to touch the Body and Blood of Christ”.”

St. Cyprian : — ” For how do we teach or provoke them to shed their blood in confession of the name, if, when about to engage, we deny them the Blood of Christ r.” ” Let us also arm the right hand with the ’ sword of the Spirit/ that it may boldly reject the deadly sacrifices, that, mindful of the Eucharist, the hand which has received the Lord’s Body, may em brace the Lord Himself, from Him to receive hereafter the reward of heavenly crowns8.” “Those mouths sanctified by heavenly food, after the Body and Blood of the Lord, loathed the profane contagion, and the relics of idol feasts V ” A violence is offered to His Body and Blood, and they sin more now against the Lord with hand and mouth, than when they were denying Him u.”

P Euseb. H. E. vii. 9. « Up. ad Basilid., can. 2. p. 114.

r Up. Ivii. ad Cornel. s Ep. Iviii. ad Thibarit., § 10. * De

Lapsis, § 2, p. 154, Oxf. Tr. tt Ibid., 11, p. 163.

See how St. Dionysius the Great, Origen, St. Cyprian, agree with the Inscription of Autun in speaking of communicants as having in their hands “the Body of Christ.”

Magnes : — ” For it is not a type of the Body, nor a type of the Blood, as some have blindly and idly said, but is in truth the Body and Blood of Christ x.” ” Through that union whereby I am united, the Holy with the earthly, I give Bread and Wine, commanding them to be My Body and Blood >”.”

Hipparchus and Philotheus, martyrs in the persecu tion of Maximian, about A.D. 297 : — ” Three years have now passed since we received Baptism in the Name of the Father, and of the Son, and of the Holy Ghost, from the hand of a priest of the true faith, whose name was James, and he gave us continually the Body of Christ and His Blood z.” When they had con verted James, Pyragrus, Rumono, and another, this same priest ” baptized them in the name of the Trinity, and imparted to them the Body and Blood of Christ.”

Eusebius, the historian: — ” On every day before the Sabbath [Friday] we make a remembrance of the Saviour’s Passion, through the fast which the Apo stles then first fasted, when the Bridegroom was taken from them ; on every Lord’s-day, quickened by the consecrated Body of the same Saviour’s Passion, and sealed in our souls by His precious Blood a.”

Mart., ii. 123. a De Pasch. in Mail Scriptt. Vett., i. 257.

St. James of Nisibis (one of the foremost of the Nicene Fathers, who had the gifts of miracles and prophecy) : — ” Abstain thou from all uncleanness, and then receive the Body and Blood of Christ, and care fully guard thy mouth, through which the King hath entered ; nor mayest thou, 0 man, any more bring forth through thy mouth words of uncleanness V “From that place where He kept the Passover, and gave His Body that they should eat, and His Blood that they should drink, He went away and departed thither with His disciples, where they took Him. When then His Body was eaten, and His Blood drunk, He was ‘counted among the dead.’ For our Lord with His own hands gave His Body for food, and when He was not yet crucified He gave His Blood for drink c.” ” When He had washed His disciples’ feet, He sat down at the table, and then gave them His Body and Blood d.”

St. Athanasius : — ” Thou wilt see the Levites (dea cons) bearing bread and a cup of wine, and placing them on the table; and so long as the supplications and prayers have not yet taken place, bare (-fyi\6s) is the bread and the cup ; but when the great and won derful prayers have been completed over it, then the Bread becometh the Body, the Cup the Blood of our Lord Jesus Christ6.” “Let us come to the consecra tion of the mysteries. This bread and this cup, so

b Serm. iii. § 2, p. 46, ed. Rom. c Serm. xiv. de PascTi.,

Eutycli. de Pasch. Mali Scriptt. Vett., ix. 625.

long as the prayers and supplications have not yet taken place, are bare elements, but when the great prayers and holy supplications have been sent up, the word cometh down into the bread and cup, and it becometh His Body f.”

Juvencus, a Spanish poet about A.D. 330, thus para phrases the history of the institution of the Lord’s Supper: — “When He said these things, He brake the Bread with His hands, and being broken He gave it to them, and having holily prayed, He taught His disciples that He gave them His own Body.” “Then the Lord taketh the cup, and it being filled with wine, He sanctifieth It with mighty words, and giveth It them to drink, and taught them that He had di vided His own Blood. And He saith, — “This Blood will remit the sins of the people, This My Blood drink ye &.’ ”

St. Julius, Bishop of Rome :— ” An inquiry concern ing Christ’s Blood and Christ’s Body [on occasion of the false accusation that St. Athanasius had broken a chalice] is carried on before an external judge, in the presence of catechumens, nay, worse than that, before heathens and Jews, who have so bad a name in regard to Christianity V

Council of Alexandria, A.D. 339: — “Our sanctuaries are now, as they have always been, pure, and ho noured only with the Blood of Christ, and His pious

h Ep. ad Eusel. in S. AtJi. Apol. ag. Arians, § 31.

worship1/’ “For to you only it appertains to have the first taste of the Blood of Christ, and to none besides. But as he who breaks a sacred cup is an impious person, much more impious is he who in suIts the Blood of Christ k.”

Julius Firmicus : — ” We drink the immortal blood of Christ ; to our blood is the Blood of Christ united ; this is the healthful remedy for thy wickedness1.”

St. Thecla, Maria, Martha, Maria, Ami, Persian martyrs under Sapor, A.D. 337, to the apostate priest, who, with a drawn sword, endeavoured to make them apostatize : — ” Is this that holy propitiatory Thing which we received from thy hands ? Is this the life- giving Blood which thou usedst to bring near to our mouthsm?”

St. Hilary : — ” If the Word was truly made Flesh, and we, through the food of the Lord, truly receive the Word made Flesh, how must He not be thought to abide in us by the way of nature, Who, being born Man, took to Himself the nature of our Flesh, now inseparable from Him, and, under the sacrament of the Flesh to be communicated to us, hath mingled the nature of His own Flesh with His Eternal Na ture11.” “Was He unwilling to suffer? but, before, He had consecrated the Blood of His own Body, which was to be shed for the remission of sins °.” ” What

Apol. ag. Ar., § 6, p. 20, 0. T. l De err. Prof, relig., p. 44.

m In S. Maruthas, Assem. Acta Mart., i. 125. n De Trin., viii. 13. 0 In Matt., c. 31, § 7.

Ll

frenzy didst thou exercise against the Church of Thoulouse ? The clergy were beaten with clubs ; the Deacons were crushed with boxing-gloves armed with lead ; and on Himself, as the holy will understand, on Christ Himself hands were laid P.”

Arian Council at Philippopolis : — ” Presbyters were dragged naked by him to the market-place, and (what must be said with tears and grief) he openly and pub licly profaned the consecrated Body of the Lord, hung to the necks of the priests q.” It is to be observed that they use the same phrase as Eusebius. It was then probably a received phrase. But to speak of the ” consecrated Body of the Lord,” must mean that that of which he speaks became such by consecration. ” Sinning profanely and atrociously against the Body of the Lord and His mysteries r.”

St. Damasus, ” learned in the Scriptures s : ” —

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St. Optatus : — ” For what is the Altar, but the Throne of the Body and Blood of Christ u ?” ” Where in had Christ offended you, Whose Body and Blood dwelt here at stated times ?”…” In this way ye

P c. Const. Imp., § 11. q Ap. S. Hil. Fragm., iii. 9.

r Ibid., § 23. • St. Jerome, Ep. xlviii. ad Pamm., n. 17.

t In Baronius, A. 381, n. 21, from Antiq. Inscrip. App., p. 1174, n. 2. u De Schism. Donat., vi. 1, p. 90, ed. Dupin.

have imitated the Jews ; they laid their hands on Christ on the Cross ; by you He was smitten on the Altar v.” “This great crime has been doubled by you, in that ye brake the chalices too, which bear the Blood of Christ x.”

St. Ephrem : — ” ’ Standing on their feet ! ’ because one sitting may not receive the living Body ; ’ and no stranger shall eat thereof/ because no one unbap- tized eateth of the Bodyy.” “This was fulfilled in our Lord, when in the Mount of Jerusalem He brake His Body and divided His Blood, and said, ‘This ye shall do for a remembrance of Me z.’ r’ ” Thou wilt not burn the hand which received a portion of Thy holy Body, together with the hand which smote Thee on Thy cheek, Thee, the Creator. The mouth which ate Thee will not howl, together with the mouth which spat on Thee, on Thy face &.” ” Whom Thou hast made meet to administer in the Sanctuary, and to distribute Thy Body and Thy Blood to Thy flock, may his pas ture be with Thy lambs V “He brake His Body before thee, and mingled His Blood and gave it theec.”

St. Basil : — ” Thou introducest higgling into spiri tual things and the Church, where we are entrusted with the Body and Blood of Christ d.” “Let him not bless either publicly or privately, nor distribute the

T Ibid., p. 91. x Ibid., c. 2, p. 92. r On Exod. xii.

t. i. p. 213. z In Isa. xxv. 26, t. ii. p. 61. a Can. 12,

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Body of Christ to others, nor perform any liturgical office ; but, satisfied with his rank, let him weep before the Lord, that his sin of ignorance may be forgiven him6.”

St. Gregory of Nyssa : — ” Wherefore also He who ever is, sets Himself before us as Food, that we receiving Him in ourselves, may become that which He is f.” The Bread, again, is up to a certain time common bread, but when the mystery shall consecrate it, it is called and becomes the Body of Christ e. ” Well do I believe that now, too, the bread, sanctified by the Word of God, is trans-made (/j,6Ta7roteio-0ai,) into the Body of God, the Word11.” “For both there [in the Lord’s Natural Body] the grace of the Word hallowed that Body, whose composition was from bread, and which itself, too, was in a manner bread ; and here [in the Sacrament], in like way, the bread (as the Apostle says) is hallowed by the Word of God and prayer, not through meat and drink passing on into the Body of the Word, but trans-made (/JLeraTroiovfievos) straight into the Body of the Word, as it was said by the Word, ‘This is My Body1!’”

St. Gregory of Nazianzum : — ” One of those who approach to the approaching God, and is accounted worthy of the holy station and order k.” “Whoever besides ministers about the holy Table of God, and approaches to the approaching God1.”

e Ep. cxcix. (Can. 2), Can. 27, p. 294. f In Secies, iii. 8.

Horn. viii. t. i. p. 456. » De Bapt. Christi, iii. 370. h Orat.

Catech., c. 37. i Ibid. k Orat. xxi. c. 7. l Orat. xlii. c. 26.

“And thou, wretched man, wilt thou boldly receive In thy palms the Mystic Pood, or God embrace With hands, wherewith thou hast dug up my grave m.”

Csesarius (brother of St. Gregory of Nazianzum) : — “He trampleth under foot God the Word, the Son of God, who, in covetous hands lifted up against his neighbour, receiveth fearlessly the Sacramental ele ments, accounting them like common bread and wine, which, in the eyes of the faithful mind, are contem plated, God n.” ” And yet we believe the Divine Revelation, that not as being equal or like, yet that still properly and fitly, It is the Divine Body which is consecrated on the holy Table, and is indivisibly distributed to the whole sacred band, and partaken of without ceasing to be °.”

St. Amphilochius (friend of St. Basil and St. Gregory of Nazianzum) : — ” He, the Father, is both greater and equal, greater than He who receives vinegar to drink, equal to Him who poureth out as wine His own proper blood, rov TO ol/ceiov olvo-^oovvros alpa p.”

Esaias Abbas : — ” If thou wiliest to take the Body of Christ, take heed that there be no anger or hatred in thy heart against any one q.”

St. Ambrose : — ” So often as we receive the Sacra ments, which by the mystery of the sacred prayer are transfigured into Body and Blood, we shew forth the

[…]

Gall. vi. 98. ° Ibid., Int., pp. 127, 169. P Serm. adv

Arian. in Mali Script. Vett., iv. p. 10. q Reg. ad Monach., 50.

death of the Lord r.” ” What more noble than Christ, who in the Feast of the Church both ministers and is ministered 8 ?” ” Where His Body is, there is Christ V “And in the ministering of the Apostles is set forth the future distribution of the Body and Blood of the LordV “Where Christ, the Head of all, is daily consecrated v.” ” At the same time, it is shewn what sort of person he ought to be who ministereth to Christ. For, first of all, he must be free from the allurements of various pleasures, shun inward drowsiness of mind and body, that he may administer the Body and Blood

of Christ See what thou doest, O priest, and

touch not with feverish hand the Body of Christ x.” ” How in such hands wilt thou receive the all-holy Body of the Lord ? how wilt thou bear to thy mouth the Precious Blood, having in thine anger unlawfully shed so much bloody?” ” But if human blessing was of such avail as to change nature, what say we of the Divine Consecration itself, wherein the very words of our Lord and Saviour operate? For that Sacrament which thou receivest is consecrated by the Word of Christ. But if the word of Elijah was of so great power as to bring down fire from Heaven, shall not the Word of Christ avail to change the nature of the elements ? Of the works of the whole world thou hast read, — ’ He spake, and they were made ; He com-

’ De Fide, iv. 10. s De Cain et Abel, i. 5, § 19. ’ In Ps.

cxix. Serm. viii. § 48. u In S. Luc., 1. vi. § 84. v De Virg.y

i. 11, § 65. * De Vid., c. x. § 65. ? In Theodoret, Eccles. Hist., 1. v. c. xvii. t. iii.

I

manded, and they were created/ The word of Christ, then, which could make of nothing what (as yet) was not, cannot it change the things which are into that which they were not? For it is not a less thing to give new natures to things, than to change natures. But why use we arguments ? Let us use His own example, and build up the truth of the mystery by the example of the Incarnation. Did the wont of nature precede, when the Lord Jesus was born of a Virgin ? If we inquire for the order of nature, woman united with man was wont to bear. And this Body which we consecrate is from the Virgin. Why inquirest thou here for the order of nature in the Body of Christ, when, against nature, the Lord Jesus Himself was born of a Virgin ? True is the Flesh of Christ, which was crucified, which was buried ; true therefore is the Sacrament of that Flesh. The Lord Jesus Himself declares, ’ This is My Body/ Be fore the blessing of the heavenly words, another kind is named; after the consecration the Body is signi fied. He Himself saith, it is His Blood. Before con secration it is called other ; after the consecration it is named Blood. And thou sayest, Amen, i.e. it is true ; what the mouth speaketh, let the inward mind confess ; what the speech uttereth, let the affection feel z.” ” In that Sacrament Christ is : because it is the Body of Christ; it is not therefore bodily food, but spiritual. Whence, too, the Apostle saith of its type : — ’ Our fathers did eat spiritual meat, and did drink spiritual

1 De Myster., §§ 52—54.

drink/ For the Body of God is a spiritual Body ; the Body of Christ is the Body of the Divine Spirit a.”

Author of the De Sacramentis (a Bishop, and pro bably a disciple of St. Ambrose) : — ” The Altar is a figure of the Body, and the Body of Christ is on the Altar a.” “You say, perhaps, ‘my bread is common bread.’ But that bread is bread before the words of the Sacraments ; when the consecration is added, from bread it becomes the Flesh of Christ. How can that which is bread, be the Body of Christ ? By Consecra tion. And the Consecration, in whose words is it? The Lord Jesus’. For all the rest which had been said before is said by the priest ; praises are offered to God ; prayer is made for the people, for kings, for the rest. When the Venerable Sacrament is to be con secrated, the priest now no longer uses his own words, but he uses the words of Christ. So, then, the word of Christ consecrates the Sacrament. What is the word of Christ ? That by which all things were made. The Lord commanded, the heaven was made ; the Lord commanded, and the earth was made ; the Lord commanded, and the seas were made ; the Lord commanded, and all creatures were brought forth. Thou, seest, then, how powerful in working is the Word of Christ. If, then, there is such power in the Word of the Lord Jesus, that those things which were not should begin to be, how much more is it opera tive that the things which were should still be, and be changed into something eke f So, then, that I may

a De My tier. t § 58.

answer thee, it was not the Body of Christ before the Consecration, but after the Consecration I say to thee that now it is the Body of Christ — ‘He spake, and it was made ; He commanded, and it was created.’ Before it is consecrated, it is bread ; when the words of Christ are added, it is the Body of Christ. Then hear Himself saying — ’ Take and eat ye all of this, for this is My Body/ And before the words of Christ, it is a cup, full of wine and water ; when the words of Christ have operated, the Blood of Christ is caused to be there, which redeemed His people V ” So, then, not idly dost thou say, Amen, already thereb}^ confess ing in spirit that thou receivest the Body of Christ. The priest saith to thee — ’ The Body of Christ,’ and thou sayest, Amen, i.e. true c.”

St. Jerome : — ” God forbid that I should speak any thing unfavourable of these; for, succeeding to the Apostolic rank, with holy mouths they make Christ’s Body, through whom also we are Christians d.” ” But let us hear that the bread which the Lord brake and gave to His disciples was the Body of the Lord our Saviour, since He Himself said to them, ‘Take, eat; this is My Body ;’ and that the cup was that of which He said again, ’ Drink ye all of this ; for this is My Blood of the New Testament, which is shed for many.’ That is the cup of which we read in the Prophet — ‘I will receive the cup of salvation/ And in another place — ‘Thine inebriating cup, how good is it!’ If,

b Ibid., c. iv. § 14, 15 j c. v. § 23; § 25. c iv. 2, § 7.

d Ep. xiv. ad Heliod., § 8 ; comp. Hooker, v. 77, 2.

then, ’ the bread which came down from Heaven’ is the Lord’s Body ; and ’ the wine which He gave to His disciples is the Blood of the New Testament, which was shed for many for the remission of sins […] Nought richer than he who carries the Body of the Lord in a wicker basket, His Blood in a glass f.” ” What ails the minister of tables and of widows (the deacon), that he swells and lifts himself up above those (bishops and priests) at whose prayers the Body and Blood of Christ is made & ?”

Luciferian, quoted by St. Jerome : — Lucif. ” It is not the same thing to shed tears for sins, and to handle the Body of the Lord. It is not the same thing to fall at the feet of the brethren, and from on high to administer the Eucharist to the people ”

Jerome of Jerusalem : — ” Many of those in the world often experience workings of such grace and of the Holy Spirit; those, I mean, who assist at the altar, and who approach to partake of the mysteries of Christ. For on a sudden they are filled with tears and joy and gladness. Whence also the Christian is fully convinced that he doth not receive mere (\jri\ov) bread and wine, but in truth the Body and Blood of the Son of God, sanctified by the Holy Ghost ”

Theophilus, of Alexandria: — “Nor do we call the bodily substance vanity, as he (Origen) thinketh (fall ing, in other words, into the doctrines of Manichaeus),

e Up. cxx. ad Hedib., § 2. f Ep. cxxv. ad Rust., § 20.

[…]

1 Comm. Christian, util., Gall. vii. 52U.

lest the Body of Christ also should be subject to vanity, through the eating whereof we, being satiated, daily ruminate on His words, ’ Unless a man eat My Flesh, and drink My Blood, he has no part in Me V ”

St. Gaudentius, of Brescia: — “Himself then the Creator and Lord of Nature, who ’ bringeth forth bread from the earth/ of bread again (for He both can, and hath promised), makes His Own Body ; and He who of water made wine, makes also wine of His Own Blood k.” “That you may not think that to be earthly, which has been made heavenly through Him who passeth into it, and made it His Body and Blood.” … . ” When He reached forth the consecrated Bread and Wine to His disciples, He said, ’ This is My Body ; this is My Blood.’ Let us believe Him Whom we have believed. Truth cannot lie.”. ..”But that He appointed the Sacraments of His Body and Blood to be offered in the form of Bread and Wine, there is a twofold reason l.”

St. Isaac the Great: — “I beheld that her cup was mingled, and instead of wine it was full of Blood, and instead of bread, a Body was placed for her in the midst of her table. I saw the Blood and trembled ; and the Body; and fear seized me ; and she [Faith] made a sign to me, ‘Eat, and be silent; drink, child, and scrutinize not.3 … She shewed me a Body slain, and placed thereof between my lips, and cried to me sweetly, ’ See what it is thou art eating.’ She gave

l Epist. Pasch., A. 401, § 11; ap. S. Jerome, Ep. xcvi. i. 564. k De Pasch., tr. ii. B. P. v. p. 946. 1 Ibid., p. 947.

the pen of the Spirit, and bade me subscribe ; and I took, I wrote, and I confessed, < This is the Body of God V”

St. Paulinas, of Nola, friend of St. Ambrose and St. Augustine, wrote as part of an inscription for an altar, under which a piece of the Cross was to be placed : —

[…]

St. Maruthas (a very great man, a friend of St. Chry- sostom) : — ” Now as often as we approach to the Body and Blood, and take It in our hands, we believe that we embrace the Body, and that we are of His Flesh and His Bones, as it is written. For Christ did not call it a type and a likeness, but that in truth ’ This is My Body, and this is My Blood V ” And so St. Maruthas, in his Liturgy, paraphrases our Lord’s words of Consecration : — ” Jesus took bread into His holy hands, and giving thanks to the Father, blessed, sancti fied, brake, and divided to the disciples, and said, Take eat, believe and be certain, and so proclaim and teach, that this is My Body which is broken for the salvation of the world, and to those who eat It and believe in Me, giveth expiation of sins and life eternal °.” And in like way he paraphrases the words of Consecration of the Cup.

We now come to the testimony of the great St.

m Serm. de Fide ap. Assem. Bibl. Or., t. i. p. 220. ” Comm.

Lcang. in Assem., i. 179. ° In Renaudol. Lilurg. Or., ii. 263.

Augustine : — ” For on this account it seemed good to the Holy Spirit, namely, that for the honour of so great a Sacrament, the Lord’s Body should enter the mouth of a Christian previously to other food p.” ” And when the Apostle said this, the discourse was upon the subject of those who, treating the Lord’s Body like any other food, took it in an undiscriminating and negligent way. If, then, this man is rebuked who does not discriminate, that is, see the difference of, the Lord’s Body from other meats, how must he be damned, who, feigning himself a friend, comes to His Table a foeq!” “Christ was carried in His Own Hands, when commending His Own Body, He said, “This is My Body/ For that Body He carried in His Own Hands r.” ” That Bread which ye see on the Altar, sanctified by the Word of God, is the Body of Christ. That Cup, rather what the Cup holds, sanctified by the Word of God, is the Blood of Christ s.” ” For the Blood of Christ hath a loud voice on earth, when, on receiving It, all nations answer, Amen V

St. Chrysostom :— ” 0 marvel ! 0 love of God for man ! He who sitteth aloft with the Father, is at that hour held in the hands of all, and giveth Himself to those who will, to enfold and embrace u.” ” For when they were eating and drinking, He took bread, brake it, and said, ‘This is My Body which is broken for

P Up. liv. ad Januar., § 8. 1 In S. Joh., Horn. Ixii. § 1.

r In Ps. xxxiii. [xxxiv.] Serm. . n. 10. s Serm. 227, in Die

Pasch., iv. l Cont. Faust., xii. 10, t. viii. p. 231. u De Sa-

cerdot., iii. 5, i. 382.

you for the remission of sins/ The initiated know what I mean : and again, the Cup, saying, ’ This is My Blood, which is shed for many for the remission of sins.’ And Judas was present when Christ said this. This is the Body which thou, O Judas, didst sell for thirty pieces of silver ; this is the Blood for which, a little before, thou madest that shameless compact with the reckless Pharisees x.” ” The same who adorned that Table, adorneth this too now. For it is not man who maketh what lieth there to become the Body and Blood of Christ, but Christ Himself who was crucified for us y.” ” For indeed His Body is set before us now ; not His garment only, but even His Body ; not for us to touch It only, but also to eat, and be

filled Believe, therefore, that even now it is that

Supper, at which He Himself sat down. For This is in no respect different from That. For neither doth man make This and Himself the Other, but both This and That is His own work. When, therefore, thou seest the Priest delivering It unto thee, account not that it is the Priest that doeth so, but that it is Christ’s Hand that is stretched out… . For He that hath given the greater, i.e. hath set Himself before thee, much more will He not think scorn to distribute unto thee of His Body. Let us hear, therefore, both priests and subjects, what we have had vouchsafed to us; let us hear and tremble. Of His Own Flesh He hath granted us our fill ; He hath set before us Himself sacrificed z.”

7 In S. Matt., Horn. 1. § 3.

” That Table at that time was not of silver, nor that cup of gold, out of which Christ gave His disciples His Own Blood: but precious was everything there, and awful, for that they were full of the Spirit a.” ” Purer than what sunbeam should not that hand be, which is to sever this Mesh, the mouth that is filled with spiritual fire, the tongue that is reddened by that most awful Blood b ?” “I would give up my life rather than impart of the Lord’s Blood to the unworthy ; and will shed my own blood rather than impart of such awful Blood contrary to what is meetc.” “I say now, if even a man’s garment be what one would not ven ture inconsiderately to touch, what shall we say of the Body of Him who is God over all, spotless, pure, asso ciate with that Divine Nature, the Body whereby we are, and live ; whereby the gates of hell were broken down, and the sanctuaries of Heaven opened? How shall we receive This with so great insolence ? Let us not, I pray you, let us not slay ourselves by our irre verence, but with all awfulness and purity let us draw nigh to It ; and when thou seest It set before thee, say thou to thyself, ’ Because of this Body am I no longer earth and ashes, no longer a prisoner but free ; because of This I hope for heaven, and to receive the good things therein, immortal life, the portion of angels, converse with Christ; this Body, nailed and scourged, was more than death could stand against ; this Body the very sun saw crucified, and turned aside his beams; for This, both the veil was rent in that

ft Ibid., § 3. b Horn. Ixxxii. § 5. c Ibid., § 6.

moment, and rocks were burst asunder, and all the earth was shaken. This is even that Body, the blood stained, the smitten, out of which gushed the saving fountains, the one of blood, the other of water, for all the world d.’” “And these things thou doest when thou hast enjoyed the Table of Christ, on that day on which thou hast been counted worthy to touch His Flesh with thy tongue. “Whosoever thou art then, that those things be not so, do thou purify thy right hand, thy tongue, thy lips, which have become a threshold for Christ to tread upon e.” ” For it is in no common manner that our lips are honoured when they receive the Lord’s Body f.” ” And then, thus scrupulous as thou art in this little matter, dost thou come with soiled soul, and thus dare to touch It ? And yet the hands hold It but for a time, whereas into the soul It is received entirely8.”

Council of Carthage (under Aurelius), A.D. 398 or 401 : — ” That if need compel, the Deacon ma}7”, in the presence of the Presbyter, at his bidding, deliver to the people the Eucharist of the Body of Christ h.”

Philo Carpasius, of Cyprus, A.D. 401 :— ” These (the deacons) bear the Body of Christ and His Blood, the Head of the Church ».”

Apostolical Constitutions, doubtless a very ancient and authoritative workJ : — “Those who bestow upon

d In 1 Cor. x. 16, Horn. xxiv. §7. e Horn, xxvii. § 7.

f Rom. xxx., 2 Cor. xiii. 12. * On Ephes. i., Horn. iii.

” c. 38. i In Cant., c. 37. j See Dr. Pusey on the Heal Presence, pp. 605 — 8.

you the Saving Body and the Precious Blood k.” ” Let the Deacons after the prayer, some attend exclusively to the offering of the Eucharist, ministering to the Lord’s Body with fear1.”

St. Cyril, of Alexandria : — ” What is the cause and efficacy of the mystical Eucharist ? Why do we re ceive It within us ? Is it not that It may make Christ to dwell in us corporeally also by participation and communion of His Holy Flesh m.” ” We shut to the doors, and Christ appeareth to us all visibly and invisibly — invisibly as God, and visibly again in the Body, and He permitteth and giveth us to touch His Holy Flesh. For according to the grace of God, we approach to the participation of the mystical Eu charist, receiving Christ in our hands, that we too may firmly believe that He hath truly raised His own Temple n.” “If any one should dare to say that the Word of God was transformed into the nature of the Body, one might very reasonably object to him, that He, on giving His Body, did not rather say, ‘Take, eat, this is My Divinity which was broken for you/ and ’ This is — not My Blood, but rather — My Divinity, which is shed for you/ But since the Word, being God, hath made the Body, born of a woman, His Own, without undergoing any alteration or change, how was it not right and true that He said to us, ’ Take, eat, this is My Body?’ For being Life, as God, He made it both Life and Life-giving0.” “I hear that

k ii. 33. ! 1. ii. c. 57. m On St. John xv. 1, 1. x. c. 2.

n Ibid., in xx. 16. ° Adv. Nest., iv. 5. t. vi. pp. 118, 119,

M m

they say that the mystic Eucharist is unavailing for blessing, if a portion of it remain to the next day. They are mad who say this. For Christ is not altered, nor shall His Holy Body be changed; but the power of the Eucharist and the life-giving grace is abid ing in it p.”

St. Isidore, of Pelusium : — ” If our God and Savi our, being made Man, gave the Holy Ghost to be the completion of the Divine Trinity, both as being, in the invocation of Holy Baptism, numbered together with the Father and the Son as freeing from sins, and as, upon the Mystical Table, making the common bread the Very Body of His own Incarnation V’ &c. ” The fine linen that is spread out underneath the ministry of the Divine gifts, is the ministration of Joseph of Arimathea. For as he, having wrapped the Body of the Lord in fine linen, committed to the tomb that Body, through which our whole race has gained the fruit of the resurrection, so we, consecrating the shew- bread upon fine linen, find undoubtedly the Body of Christ, gushing forth for us with that incorruptibility, which He whom Joseph attended to the tomb, the Saviour Jesus, rising from the dead bestowed1*.”

Theodotus, Bishop of Antioch, died A.D. 427: — ” As the king himself and his image are not two kings, neither are the Yery Personal Body of Christ, (avrb TO Xpicrrov <rwfj,a TO evvrroo-TaTov) , which is in heaven, and the Bread, the antitype thereof, dis-

P Ep. ad Calosyr., t. vi. P. 2, p. 365. •« 1, i. Ep. 109, ad

Marathon., p. 34. r 1. i. Ep. 123, p. 38.

tributed to the faithful by the priests in the churches, two bodies.” Thus he asserts the identity of the Body of Christ in heaven and on the altar, and yet, in that he speaks of the antitypes, distinguishes the outward and inward parts.

Paulinus, the Deacon : — ” Honoratus also, priest of the Church at Vercellse, when he had laid himself down to rest in the upper part of the house, heard three times the voice of one calling him, and saying to him : ’ Arise, make haste, for he is now about to depart/ He, going down stairs, offered to the Saint the Body of the Lord s.”

Eusebius, of Alexandria : — ” Be early then in the Church of God, approach the Lord, confess to Him thy sins, repent with prayer and a broken heart, abide during the Divine and Holy Eucharistic service, com plete thy prayer, on no account leaving before the dismissal. Behold thy Lord, divided in pieces and distributed and not expended; and if thou hast thy conscience clean, approach and communicate of the Body and Blood V

St. Maximus, of Turin : — ” Fitly then, and as though for a sort of fellowship, was it appointed that the martyrs should be buried there, where the Lord’s death is daily celebrated, as He Himself saith : ’ As often as ye do this, ye do shew forth My death, till I come.’ So should they who died for His Death rest under

the mystery of His Sacrament. Fitly, I say, and as though for a sort of fellowship, is the tomb of him who was slain placed there, where the Lord’s slain Body is placed, that they whom the cause of one suffering had bound with Christ, the sanctity of one place might unite u.”

Theodoret : — ” Do not we, enjoying the holy Myste ries, communicate with the Lord Himself, whose Body and Blood we say they are ? For we are all partakers of that one Bread. How can we communicate with the Lord through His precious Body and Blood, and again with devils through meat offered to idols v ?”

As the “meat offered to idols” is something orally received, ” through which” idolaters communicated with devils, so, plainly by force of the contrast, ” the Body and Blood” was orally received, ” through which they communicated with Christ.”

While Theodoret states, that ” after the consecration the mystic symbols do not depart from their own nature, for they remain in their former substance, and figure, and form, and can be seen and touched as be fore*;” he adds, “but in thought they are conceived, and believed, and adored as being those things which are believed x.” Moreover, he distinctly says, ” we call the mystic fruit of the vine, after the consecration, the Lord’s Blood.” … “Thou knowest that God hath called Bread His own Body ?,” assuredly not untruly nor unreally.

u Serm. 73, de Sanctis, pracip. S. Cyprian. v In 1 Cor. x. 16, 17, iii. 228. x Dial. ii. t. iv. p. 126, Sch. r Dial, i., Ib. p. 25.

Theodotus, of Ancyra (he took a prominent part against Nestorius in the Council of Ephesus) : — “He who then drew the Magi with unspeakable might to holiness, hath now also to-day gathered together this joyous assembly : He, no longer laid in the manger, but lying on this saving Table. For that manger was the mother of this Table. For that cause did He lie in that [manger], that on this [table] He might be eaten, and might to the faithful become Saving Food’.”

St. Peter Chrysologus : — ” The woman touched His raiment, and was healed, and was freed from her long weakness. Wretched we, who daily handle and re ceive the Body of the Lord, and are not healed of our wounds a.” “Let Christians, who daily touch the Body of Christ, hear how much medicine they can take from the Body Itself, when the woman seized all her health from the hem only of Christ b.” ” Himself is the Bread, which, sown in the Yirgin, leavened in the Flesh, kneaded in His Passion, baked in the fur nace of the Sepulchre, laid up in Churches, placed on the altars, provides heavenly Food daily for the faith ful0.” “He is Himself the Bread which cometh down from Heaven : … . which is daily brought to the Table of the Church for heavenly Food : which is broken for the forgiveness of sins, which feeds and nourishes them who eat It to life everlasting : this Bread we daily ask to be given to us, until we enjoy

z Horn, in Nativ. Dom. in Cone. Eph., p. 3, c. 9. a Serm. 33. b Ibid. 34. c Ibid. 67.

It wholly in that endless dayd.” “He transmitted His Body to the Table of the Church, that It might be heavenly Flesh for the nations to eat unto salva tion6.” “I grieve, truly do I grieve, when I see that the Magi poured gold around the cradle of Christ, and I see that Christians have left empty the Altar of the Body of Christ f.”

St. Proclus : — “By such prayers then they looked for the descent of the Holy Ghost, that by His Divine Presence, He might make and declare the Bread of fered for sacrifice, and the wine mingled with water, that very Body and Blood of our Saviour Jesus Christ ; which takes place no less even until now, and shall take place unto the end of the world g.”

St. Leo : — ” Since the Lord says, ’ Except ye eat the Flesh of the Son of Man, and drink His Blood, ye have no life in you/ ye ought so to communicate of the holy Table as to doubt nothing of the truth of the Body and Blood of Christ ; for by the mouth is that received which is by faith believed; and vainly is Amen answered by them who dispute against what they receive h.” ” They neither learn by hearing, nor understand by reading, what in the Church of God is so concordantly in the mouth of all, that not even by tongues of babes is the truth of the Body and Blood of Christ in the Sacrament of the Communion passed over in silence ”

d Serm. 71. e Ibid. 95. f Ibid. 103. * Tract, de

[…]

et Pleb. Const., § 2.

St. Nilus : — “A leaf of paper made of paprrus and size, is called mere (ln\b$) paper, but when it receives the signature of the Emperor, it is (as is well known) called Sacra. So conceive with me also of the Divine Mysteries, that before the Intercession of the Priest, and the descent of the Holy Ghost, the oblations are mere (-tyi\ov) bread and common (/cotvov) wine; but that, after those dread invocations, and the coming of the Adorable, Good, and Life-giving Spirit, the Obla tions, laid on the Holy Table, are no more mere (L\OV) bread and common (KOLVOV) wine, but the Pre cious and Immaculate Body and Blood of Christ, the God of all, ’ purifying from all iniquity’ those who communicate with fear and great longing k.” ” Then [the Angels] dispersed hither and thither over the whole holy House, co-operating, each of them, with the Bishops, Priests, and all the Deacons, there pre sent, who were administering the Body and venerable Blood, they aided and strengthened them V ” Let us not approach to that Mystic Bread, as to mere bread (tyi\x apra). For It is the Flesh of God; Flesh Venerable, and Adorable, and Life-giving. For It quickens men dead in sinsm.”

St. James, of Sarug : — ” From what time He took it [the bread] and called it His Body, it was not bread, but His Body, and they ate it, marvelling ; eating His Body, and He lay with them at the table, and drinking His Blood, and hearing the

k 1. i. Ep. 44. i L ii. Up. 294. m 1. iii. Up. 39.

voice of His teaching n.” Again, on the Real Pre sence : — ” Our Lord divided His Body with His own Hands at the table, and who dareth to say now that it was not His Body? He said, ‘This is My Body/ and who averreth it not? If any aver it not, he is no disciple of the Apostolate. The Apostles averred it, and whilst He was alive, and lay at table with Him, they ate Him.” He adds the reason : — ” Faith stoops not to questionings. She knows how to accredit : to scrutinize she never learnt. The chosen disciples were anxious to hold true what the Son said ; not, to scruti nize or ask as shameless ones. The bread which He brake, and called His Body, they knew to be His Body : and so they accounted it, as if in very deed its Blood were trickling °.”

After stating the Supper of the Lord to be a Sacra ment of our redemption by Christ’s death, the Article proceeds, ” Insomuch that to those who rightly, wor thily, and with faith receive the same, the Bread which we break is a partaking of the Body of Christ.”

Admitting the distinction of a Sacrament being generally necessary, necessitate medii and necessitate prce- cepti, and holding that the Holy Eucharist is thus necessary on the latter ground p, it will be seen that to a beneficial reception, everything must be done which is necessary to secure on man’s part the sub jective appropriation of the work of Christ. If Christ

n Serm. 66, de Pass. Horn, in Antirrhet., 2, cap. 9, p. 46, S.Ephr. Opp. Syr. t. ii. 0 Ibid., c. 12, p. 50. P Lugo. De Euch., Dist. iii. § 11.

on the cross be the Objective Atonement, Christ in the Holy Mysteries rightly, worthily, and with faith re ceived is its subjective appropriation. The import ance of these words cannot be exaggerated. First, the sacrament must be received rite, all that the Church requires in the way of previous preparation of repentance, according to the present discipline of the Church, must be gone through. ” Let a man ex amine himself, and so let him eat of that bread.” He must interpose between his sins and the Holy Mys teries such means as the Church has laid down in different times, to secure a prosperous approach. This has varied in different times. The penitential Canons shew this in the early Church ; in the modern Roman and Greek Church alike auricular confession is obliga tory before Communion in case of every mortal sin ; whereas the Anglican Church admits all on contrition, with the practice of confession in case of an unquiet con science, and of consequent scruple or doubtfulness, viz. whether a person should or should not communicate.

And next it must be received digne. This applies to the inward disposition of the heart. Not till a man is really contrite for his sins is he justified in approaching the Lord’s Body. Confession and absolution without a hearty sorrow for sin, springing, at least, from de testation of its foulness, will not avail to destroy the past. We must repent for the love of Jesus, because we have offended the kindest and tenderest of friends, the Spouse and Lover of our immortal souls. Charity is the form of contrition. The supernatural love of

God is that which gives life to the sorrow for the past, which otherwise would work death, as the Apostle bears witness. Hence true sorrow for sin is lifelong, and hence, in spite of the fullest faith in the ordinances of grace and the fulfilment of the Lord’s promises, the cry of the penitent Christian is still “Amplius lava me ab iniquitate mea,” and he dies crying to his Master, ” Dimitte nobis debita nostra.”

The question of ” with faith” shall be treated more at length as we proceed in considering the Article.

The doctrine of the real objective Presence being certainly true, as being contained in our Blessed Lord’s own words, “This is My Body;” and attested by the whole Christian Church from the times of the Apostles q, it follows that some sort of change must have taken place as to the elements through consecration. ” Be fore,” as St. Athanasius says, ” bare (fyikbs) is the Bread and the Cup ; but, upon consecration, the Bread becometh the Body ; the Cup, the Blood of our Lord Jesus Christ1.”

This change was, in the oldest time, expressed by the simplest terms8; […] or, in prayer to God, […] The Liturgy of St. Chrysostom, and others following him, use the words, ” changing by Thy Spirit.” There are also other more emphatic, yet

i See Dr. Pusey, ” The Real Presence of the Body and Blood of our Lord Jesus Christ the Doctrine of the English Church;” and “The Defence of the Bishop of Brechin.”

r See ahove, p. 511. 8 See Dr. Pusey, pp. 252—254.

rare words, occurring once or twice only in each father who used them, […] trans- […] “transfer*.”

Against any of these, the English Church has never made any exception ; but only to a specified sense of the word ” transubstantiate,” which is popularly taken, not as implying a change in the ovala, or ” essence,” of a material thing, but the desition of the material substances of which that creature of God is composed. The word, “substance,” “substantially,” came to have stress laid upon it through the heresy of Berenger. That talented, bountiful, but vain-glorious and dis honest man, used the terms of the Church in an unreal sense. He made no difficulty in professing that ” the Bread of the Altar, after consecration, is the very Body of Christ, which was born of the Yirgin, which suffered on the Cross, which sitteth at the right hand of the Father ; and the Wine of the Altar, after it is consecrated, is the true Blood, which flowed from the side of Christ u.” But he meant, (as he explains him-

once by St. Gregory of Nyssa, and once by Theodoret, translating St. Ambrose; /ieTacrro^eiJco once in the same passage of St. Greg. Nyss. ; p«ra#vtyJ$M and neraa-Kevafa, each once by St. Chrysostom; ” trans figure” twice by St. Ambrose; “trausfero” iu the Gallican Sacramentary.

u This was in the Council of Lateran, 1078. (See Martene and Durand, Thes. Nov. Anecd., iv. 103.) Berenger states that the con- lession was accepted by Gregory VI., as clearing him from heresy at a convention of Bishops, on All Saints’ Day [A.D. 1078]; that in a Council in the following Lent this amended form was substituted : ” I believe in my heart and confess with my mouth, that the Bread and Wine, which are placed on the Altar, are, by the mystery of holy and by the words of our Redeemer, substantially converted into

self,) only by representation x ; he assailed impetuously the belief, that the Body of Christ, which is at the

the irue and proper and life-giving Body and Blood of Jesus Christ our Lord; and are, after consecration, the true Body of Christ, which was born of a Virgin, and which, offered for the salvation of the world, hung upon the Cross, and which sitteth on the right hand of the Father, and the true Blood of Christ, which was shed from His side, not only by the sign and virtue of the Sacrament, but in its own proper na ture, and the truth of its substance.” (Ib. 104.) Berenger, after explain ing these words away in his own fashion, says that he declined accept ing them as an exposition of his meaning, understanding that the Pope was satisfied with his own statement, but that finding he was required to own, and “did own, prostrate on the ground, that” he “had up to that time erred, in that when” he ” said of the sacrifice of the Church, that ’ the Bread and Wine consecrated on the altar are the Body and Blood of Christ/” he “had not added, […] This he recanted. (Ib., pp. 108, 109.)

• The following statements, from his second answer to Lanfranc, are pure Calvinism, but they agree with what Lanfranc says of him at an earlier period : — ” Not seen are the Body and Blood of Christ, which are laid up in heaven, because if before the time of the restitution of all things thou layest down that the Flesh of Christ can, (I say not, be seen by the bodily eyes,) but be anywhere upon the earth, thou dost against the prophecy of David, against the Apostle Peter, against his co- Apostle Paul, against all authentic Scripture. But thou dost lay down, that the Flesh of Christ, being called down (devocatam\ is, before the time of the restitution of all things, present, when thou assertest that the faithful receive nothing else from the altar except the Flesh and Blood of Christ (sensualiter), which is so against the grounds of faith, that none of the faithful ought to think that he receives to the refreshment of his soul ought save the Flesh of his Lord God, whole and entire. Yet not called down from heaven, but abiding in heaven, which no reason allows to take place by the mouth of the body ; but that it should be done by that most enlarged devotion of the heart, cleansed to see God, is hindered by no indignity, by no difficulties; to which, i.e. to the devotion of the heart, to the gaze of the soul, St. Ambrose necessarily draws you, (will you, nill you,) in the book wherein he exhorts to receive the Sacrament of the altar.” (Bereng. de S. Coena adv. Lanfr., pp. 157, 158, ed. Neander.)

right hand of God, is brought down thence so as to be present here ?. He rejects contemptuously the belief of

” Christ the Lord requires of thee, that thou shouldest believe that by His most pitying love towards the human race, it was wrought that He shed His Blood, and, by so believing, shouldest wash thee from all sin by His Blood (sanguine for sanguinem) ; He requires that, having ever in memory that same Stood of Christ, thou shouldest place the life of thy inner self in it, as a viaticum to accomplish the journey of this life, as thou settest the life of thy outer self in external food and drink.” Then, after speaking of Baptism, ” He requires that through the bodily eating and drinking, which takes place through the outward things, the bread and wine, thou admonish thyself of the spiritual eating and drinking, which takes place in the mind from the Body and Blood of Christ, while thou refreshest thyself in thy inner self with the Incarna tion and Passion of the Lord, that according to the humility whereby the Word was made Flesh, and the patience whereby He shed His Blood, thou form the life of thy inner self with what humility thou oughtest, be eminent in what patience thou oughtest, that thou acquiesce in them, rejoice in them, as, in thy outer self, thou acquiescest in thy food and drink. For thou hast no reason to shrink from eating bread and drink ing wine, because it is, as St. Ambrose says in this very treatise on the Sacraments, ’ a wonted and known creature.’ But making an inference from the washing, which takes place in regeneration through the Blood of Christ, in the refreshment of the altar, he says, as thou hast received the likeness of death, so thou drinkest the likeness of His precious Blood.” (Ibid., pp. 222, 223.) Lanfranc had charged him with this, in his answer to the recantation of the confession, to which he swore at the Council of Rome : — ” Thou boldest that the bread and wine of the Lord’s table, at the consecration, remain, as to the substance, immoveable. That is, that they were bread and wine before consecra tion, and are bread and wine after consecration, and that they are therefore called the Flesh and Blood of Christ, because they are cele brated in the Church in memory of the crucified Flesh, and of the Blood shed from His side, that we, being thereby admonished, may ever have in mind the Passion of the Lord, and, so bearing it in mind, may un ceasingly crucify our flesh with its vices and affections.” Lanfranc well adds, ” If these things be true, the Sacraments of the Jews were better and Diviner than the Sacraments of Christians.” (B. P. xviii. 775, fin.)

y See in note x. He had said in his former book, ” Who caa either

Lanfranc in an actual substantial Presence, which he repeatedly calls by a scoffing term, (of which he knew that it did not express that belief,) ” portiuncula carnis et sanguinis z.” The term ” substantialiter,” which he complains of being required to add to his confession at the Synod at Rome, was necessary to prevent evasion, in that he confessed that the Bread

conceive by reason, or grant that by miracle it could come to pass, that bread is broken in the Body of Christ, which [Body], after the Resur rection, is perfect with entire incorruptibility, and, unto the time of the restitution of all things, remains in heaven indevocable” (B. P. xviii. 770, in Lanfr. de Corp. Dom., c. 17.) Lanfranc answers, “As to this, that thou opposest the incorruption of the Lord’s Body, and that, until the Day of Judgment, it cannot be called down (devocari) from heaven, as a ground of impossibility to our faith, whereby we believe that He is truly eaten by His faithful, thou either dost not understand our faith, or understanding it, strivest, by expounding it amiss, to deprave it to thy own destruction. For we in such wise believe that our Lord Jesus Christ is truly and healthfully eaten by those who receive wor thily, as to hold most assuredly that He exists in the heavenly places, undefiled, uncorrupt, uninjured/’

z The phrase occurs so often in his second book against Lanfranc, as evidently to have been a favourite term of reproach with him. He uses it also twice in his answer to Adelmann : ” Mine, or rather the cause of the Scriptures, stood thus, that the Bread and Wine of the Lord’s table, is not sensualiter, in a way cognisable by the senses, but intellectually, not by absumption, but by assumption, is changed, not into a portiuncula carnis against the Scriptures, but, according to the Scriptures, into the whole Body and Blood of Christ.” And ” it is not the opinion but the insanity of Paschasius and the vulgar, that in the altars a portiuncula of the Flesh of the Lord is now, too, broken with the hands, is now, too, crushed by the teeth of the outer man.” (Epist. Purgator. c. Almann in Martene and Durand. Thes. Nov., t. iv. p. 111.) His meaning under the term portiuncula must be, that whereas, according to his own opinion, he fed on Christ whole and entire, at the right hand of God, only a portiuncula of His Body and Blood could be present under the consecrated species. He calls it ” particula carnis Christi” (lb.)

and “Wine were the Body and Blood of Christ, but only as reminding us of them. It was the conviction of his contemporaries that this was his heresy % and the

a Adelmann states to Berenger what was said of him, both in Italy and Germany, that he seemed to think ” of the Body and Blood of Christ, immolated daily on the holy Altars throughout the earth, otherwise than the Catholic faith holds ; viz., (to use their words of thee) that there is neither true Body of Christ nor true Blood, but a certain figure and similitude.” (Ep. ad Bereng., B. P. xviii. 438.) Berenger, in his answer, evades this by saying that he “was never a Manichsean; i.e. that he believed that the Body of Christ was true and human.” He adds, ” When I grant that anything is given [dari, Mab.] to become the Body of Christ, then, since Christ had only a true Body, I must grant that it becomes the true Body of Christ. But I grant that the Bread and Wine of the Altar, after consecration, become, according to the Scriptures, the Body and Blood of Christ ; and therewith I cannot but grant that the Bread and Wine are made to faith and intellect the true Body and Blood of Christ.” Distinguishing the res sacramentorum from the sacramenta, he says: — “it is true nevertheless that the true Body of Christ is set forth on the very Table, but spiritually true to the inner man; that in it [the Table] the Body of Christ is spiritually eaten uncorrupted, uncontaminated, unattrite, by those only who are mem bers of Christ.” (Epist. Purg. c. Almann., p. 110.) See also ab. note x. Hugo, Bishop of Langres, writes to him, ” Thou sayest, speaking too largely, * In this Sacrament the Body of Christ is in such wise, that the nature and essence of the Bread and Wine is not changed/ and thou makest the Body, which thou hadst said was crucified, intellectual, wherein it is most evident that thou confessest it incorporeal.” ( Tract, de corp. et sang. Christi cont. Berengar., B. P. xviii. 417.) Abbot Durand treats the explanation of the Berengarians as mere colouring of their heresy. [Satan] “has persuaded some to think, and with cunning whis pers to convey to others, that nothing in the Sacraments of the Lord is done according to truth, but rather that everything is enacted in figure and likeness. Who, cunningly to free themselves of the suspicion of heresy, and to shew their agreement with the Lord’s teaching, cloak themselves with this cunning act, and so, tampering, colour their dogma of profane novelty, as to say that the Bread and Wine, which are brought to the altar, after consecration too, remain what they had been, and so are, in a manner, the Body and true Blood of Christ, not

Catechism of the Council of Trent says, that the cor-

naturally, but figuratively. But if this great perverseness be anywise admitted, that in the mysteries of the Lord there be believed to be no truth, but a shadoivy falsehood is alone maintained, what remains but that the whole teaching of the Christian profession perish ?” ( De corp. et sang. Dom., P. i., Bibl. P. xviii. 420.) “God forbid that we should be joined in like faithlessness with men so perverted, and from the truth itself averted, and in the Holy Communion of the Lord’s Body and Blood, we should confess aught less than the Catholic Church throughout the whole world preaches; in which there is, in truth, as true Flesh of Christ and true Mood as Christ Himself is truthful, Who first sanctified them, and gave to His own thereafter the autho rity and form of sanctifying them by His own power.’* (Ib., P. ii. p. 421.) ” It being understood that thou didst extol John Scot [Erigena], con- demnest Paschasius, boldest things contrary to the common faith of the Church, a sentence of condemnation was promulgated against thee, depriving thee of the communion of the Holy Church, which thou busiedst thyself to deprive of its Holy Communion.” (Lanfranc (to Berenger) de corp. et sang. Dom., c. 3, B. P. xviii. 765.) ” Berenger, of Angers, formed a heresy after his own name, and contrary to Evangelic truth, presumed to deny the truth of the Body and Blood of the Lord ; asserting that, in the sacrifice of the Lord, the Bread and Wine are not really or essentially, but figuratively only, converted into the Body and Blood of the Lord. Pope St. Leo IX. then diligently examined the heresy by the general judgment of a synod, and, after examination, condemned it by a synodal judgment. Berenger himself he deprived of the com munion of the Church, which he by his assertions wished to deprive of the communion of the Lord’s Body and Blood. Then he summoned him to be heard at the then approaching synod, to be held on the next September at Vercella3. The Apostolicus by synodal judgment condemned the opinion of Berenger, and the book of John Scotus on the Body of the Lord, under anathema, and confirmed the faith, which all Catholics have hitherto had and still have, of the truth of the Body and Blood of the Lord.” ” At the General Synod at Tours, Berenger anathematized under oath his own heresy, and under the same oath promised that he would thenceforth keep the common faith of the holy Church, as to the truth of the Body and Blood of the Lord.” (Auct. de Berengarii damnatione multiplici (written A.D. 1088, the year of Berenger’s death) in Cone. xi. 1425, ed. Col.) Of the Joannes Scotus, whom Berengcr

or THE LORD’S SUPPER. 545

rection of this error was the object of the definition of

professed himself ready to vindicate, Ascalinus says that he argued vehemently against the Real Presence. “I see that John Scotus strains with every nerve and his whole intent to this alone, viz., that this which is consecrated on the Altar is neither truly the Body nor truly the Blood of Christ. This he endeavours to establish from works of the Fathers, which he explains perversely : as the prayer of St Gregory, ’ Let Thy Sacraments, O Lord, perfect in us what they con tain, that what we act in figure, we may receive in real trnth.’ In ex pounding this the aforesaid John, among other things contrary to the faith, says, ’ these things are done in (specie) appearance, not in truth.’” Theodosius, in his letter to Henry I. of France, states the heresy to be that they [Bruno, Bishop of Angers, and Berenger, of Tours] maintain that the Body of the Lord is not so much a body as a figure and shadow of the Lord’s Body. (Cone. xi. 1437, Col.) Guitmund alone says that some of his disciples ascribed to him ” impanation.” In answer to Roger, who mentions the common belief, “Berenger and those who follow him assert that the Eucharist of the Lord is not truly and substantially the Body and Blood of the Lord, but is only called so, because it is a sort of shadow and figure significant of the Body and Blood of the Lord,” Guitmund says, that as far as he could extract from some Berengarians, ” some say that there was nothing whatever of the Body and Blood of the Lord in that Sacrament, but that they are only shadows and figures. But gome, ceding to the right reasons of the Church, yet not receding from their folly, that they may seem to be in some measure with us, say that the Body and Blood of the Lord are there really contained but in a hidden way, and that they may be received (so to speak) impanated. And this they say is the more subtle mind of Berengarius himself.” (De corp. et sang. Christi veritate in JSuch., L.i. B. P. xviii. 441.) Undoubtedly Berenger often veiled his attack on the doctrine of the Real Presence, under the sem blance of an attack on the belief that that which decayed was the Body of Christ. The then belief of some (e.g. of Guitmund himself) that the Holy Eucharist did not nourish, and that the consecrated elements never decay (Guitmund, ib., L. ii.), which the Roman Church has aban cloned, gave him an advantage in this respect, in that some of his opponents shrunk back from an evident truth. But no one, I think, who knows Berenger’s utter dishonesty, can doubt that this was but a veil of his real attack. The expression, too, of horror at his blas-

N n

the Council of Lateranb. And, accordingly, the Canon uses the word, ” is transubstantiated/’ but the whole stress is on the Eeal Presence. “cThe Same is the Priest and the Sacrifice, Jesus Christ, Whose Body and Blood in the Sacrament of the Altar are truly contained under the species of Bread and Wine ; the Bread being transubstantiated into the Body, and the Wine into His Blood, that for the perfecting of the mystery of unity, we may receive of His, what He received of ours [Flesh and Blood].” In the writings against Berenger, “truly” and “essentially” are used as equivalent to “substantially d.”

Lanfranc, when appealing against Berenger to the

phcmies (See Cone. Brion. Cone. xi. 1430, Cone. Paris., ib., 1436) is not jikely to have been elicited, had there been a reverent acknowledgment of the Heal Presence.

b ” Another means remains by which we may investigate the judgment of the Church on matters of faith, viz., the condemnation of the con trary doctrine and opinion : but it is a known fact that so universally diffused and disseminated throughout the Universal Church at all times, and so unanimously received by all the faithful, was the belief of the Real Presence of Christ’s Body in the Holy Sacrament of the Eucharist, that when, five hundred years since, Berengarius dared to deny it, asserting that it was only a sign of Christ’s Body, he having been promptly condemned by the unanimous voice of the Council of Vercellee, convoked by the authority of Leo IX., anathematized his heresy; sub sequently returning to the same impious madness, was condemned by three other Councils, one held at Tours, the other two at Eome, of which latter two, one was convened by Nicholas II., the other by Gregory VII. ; the same sentence was afterwards confirmed by Innocent III. in the great Council of Lateran; and the faith of the same truth was subsequently more openly declared and established by the Councils of Florence and Trent.” (Cat. Rom., p. ii. c. 4, qu. 29.)

c Cone. Lat., iv. can. 1. d See above, note a.

faith of the Church throughout the world, uses no other language than we should use now. What he affirms of Latins, Greeks, Armenians, and all who are called Christians, he might have affirmed of us now. ” If that is true which thou believest and supportest as to the Body of Christ, false is that which is believed and supported thereon by the Church throughout the world. For all who rejoice in being, and being called, Christians, glory that they receive in this Sacrament the true Flesh of Christ and His true Blood, both taken from the Virgin. Ask all who have received any knowledge of the Latin language and of our letters. Ask Greeks, Armenians, or any Christians whatsoever, of whatsoever nation, — they attest with one mouth, that this is their faith e.”

It is self-evident that the English Article does not go directly against the Council of Lateran : (1.) be cause the term ” transubstantiatio” is a subordinate part of the Lateran Canon ; (2.) because, (as we shall

e Adv. Bereng., c. 22, B. P. xviii. 776. In like way we should all subscribe to Ascalin’s protest to Berenger : ” With Paschasius and other Catholics, I am not only minded, but with veneration I receive that the Very Body and Very Blood are taken by the faithful on the Altar under the species of Bread and Wine.” (Epist. ad Bereng. in Cone. xi. 1434, Col. Again, “We ought not to wonder or doubt that God can effect, that this which is consecrated on the Altar, is by the virtue of God the Holy Ghost, and the ministry of the Priest, united to that Body, which our Redeemer took of the Virgin Mary, (since each is a corporeal substance, each is visible,) if we remember that we our selves are compacted of a corporeal and incorporeal, of a mortal and im mortal substance ; if, lastly, we firmly believe that the Divine and Human Nature met in One Person. Let dust and ashes unfold to me the explanation of the first and second, and then let it think that it suffices to make clear the first.” (Ib., 1435.)

see hereafter) even of the statement in which it occurs, our Article does not even touch upon the most im portant part, the change “into the substance of the Body and Blood of Christ;” (3.) because there is ground to think that two entirely distinct meanings, and those not having the slightest bearing upon one another, have been given to the word ” substance.”

The solution of what difficulty remains will be found in the meaning attached to that word. Does the word mean natural substance ? the component parts, the constitutive principles which chemistry makes known to us, or is it the subtle essence, subsistence, the ova la, which corresponds to personality in men and angels ? This can only be determined by a com parison of the Article with other documents of the Church, and with the context of the Article itself.

I. The other document of the Church in which the doctrine of Transubstantiation is treated of is the Black Rubric at the end of the Communion Service, the history of which forms a significant commentary on our exposition.

It is well known that a declaration in form like this, but containing a mighty and vital difference, was, with out the consent of the Church, and apparently without any authority but that of the Privy Council, appended to King Edward’s Second Book. It had apparently been discussed among the bishops, and no deter mination come to, and at last, before publication, it was put out and bound up with that edition of the Prayer-book.

It disappeared from the Prayer-book of Queen Eliza beth, and was not taken in by King James.

At the last revisal in Charles the Second’s time, to meet as far as possible the scruples of the Puritans, on their petition, it was agreed f that the Declaration should be for the first time assumed into the Prayer- book by competent authority as we should now hold, but a total and radical change was made before it was deemed orthodox and admissible. The courtiers of King Edward had denied that there was any ” real or essential presence there being of Christ’s natural flesh and blood.” The divines of King Charles could not assent to this, so they altered the words, into “any corporal presence of Christ’s natural flesh and blood.” The emphatic word here is ” corporal/’ which is a very different thing. Heal or essential implies the quidditas or substantia of the Schoolmen j corporal, one of the qualities of the same.

Now in this document we find that it is not the metaphysical ova La that we are concerned with, but the natural substance. “The Sacramental Bread and Wine remain still in their very natural substances.” Natural substance here is equivalent to the cfrvcris, or natura, of Pope Gelasius and Theodoret.

II. The context of the Article further confirms this interpretation.

Four results are said to spring from it. Four con comitants are in the tenor of the Article said to attend

’ Cardwell’s Confer., p. 322.

upon Tran substantiation. 1. That it cannot be proved by Holy Writ ; 2. that it is repugnant to the plain words of Scripture ; 3. that it overthroweth the nature of a Sacrament ; 4. that it has given occasion to super stition.

1. and 2. Now it is perfectly clear, that so far from the fjieTa/BoXr) in the Holy Sacrament being improbable on the grounds of the letter of Scripture, it is the sacra mental theory which comes nearest to that letter ; for our Lord did not say, ’ This is joined with My Body/ or ’ this signifies My Body/ or ’ this represents My Body/ or ‘this has the power and efficacy of My Body/ but “This is My Body/’ It is evident that the letter of Holy Bible alludes to a deep inward mysterious change, whereby what was bread is called, and is, Christ’s Body.

“The Bread and the Wine is not TUTTO? of the Body and Blood of Christ. God forbid. But it is the very (avro) deified Body of that very (avrov) Lord, who said, This is of Me, not the type of the Body, but the Body, and not the type of the Blood, but the Blood *.”

Yet the plain words of Scripture, in that they freely use the word “bread” to describe the Blessed Sacrament after consecration, go against the desition of the siynum therein.

3. The Article does not charge Transubstantiation with the common incorrect argument thaif,it contra-

diets the senses, but that it overthrows the nature of a Sacrament. Now this greatly helps us in ’ our view that it is not the abstract theory of a change, but the incorrect physics which are condemned. Such a change only is excepted against, as would involve a physical desition of what before existed in such wise, that the visible sign of That which is invisible should have no real existence.

There is no argument so strong against this abuse of the Scholastic theory of Transubstantiation as the natural one, connected with the thought of its de stroying the nature of a Sacrament, derived from the controversies of the fifth century with regard to the Natures and Person of our Lord. The Monophysite heretics wished to teach that our Lord’s Body was now changed into a Divine substance, and they illus trated it by the supernatural change of the sacramental symbols. This was met in the face by Orthodoxus :— ” You are taken in the net which you have woven ; the mystic symbols do not, after consecration, depart from their own nature; they continue in the former essence and shape, and are visible and palpable as before; but in thought they are conceived, and be lieved, and adored, as being those things which are the objects of faith h.”

The same assertion is made by Pope Gelasius in his treatise De Dudbus Naturis, a tractate which, though doubted by some Horn an theologians, is quoted by St. Fulgentius only nine years after its publication,

h Tlieodoret, Eranistcs.

and therefore must be genuine. An indirect argument like this stands on the ground of circumstantial evi dence, which, though hardly a safe guide where none other exists, adds indefinitely to certainty when it operates in confirming direct testimony. Granting the existence of that whole class of authors who admit that in the Holy Eucharist there is an earthly and a heavenly nature, this incidental argument comes in with tremendous power, nothing having been less in the mind of the authors at the time, than to make any declaration on the subject, so vexed in after times, i.e. the desition of the signum in the Holy Eucharist.

And yet if this analogy is quoted for the continued existence of the signum, it is only just that it should be extended to that which is supplied by the similitude of the entire doctrine of the Incarnation. Given that our Lord exists in two natures, there is but one Divine personality which determines the mode of existence of tho’se natures. Analogically, therefore, given that the two natures remain in the Blessed Sacrament, the per sonal existence of it must be Divine, and therefore the soul will not rest in the outward sign, but will rise to the thought of the Thing signified, and dwell therein by faith and loving contemplation. It is as a result of this that the Fathers, when they speak of the Holy Sacrament, speak of it only by the name of the in ward part.

4. The last assertion is that the coarse view of Tran- substantiation has given rise to many superstitions. This goes very much to enforce what has been said

above. People would not have asserted that any honour was superstitious which was paid to the Presence of our Lord in the Sacrament, but they would say that it was superstitious to use the blessed Sacrament for pur poses for which it never was intended, and which have never been sanctioned by the Church; for example, it would be superstitious to bury the Sacrament with the dead, or to mix It with ink for the purpose of signing the condemnation of a heretic, as was done in the case of the Synod of Rome in 648, in the matter of the Monothelites.

Again, it would not be superstitious to believe, that as in the case at Bolsena, (assuming the circumstance to be true,) our Lord attested the truth of His pre sence in the Sacrament by an appearance of blood ; but it would be superstitious to believe that that appearance was physical, that it was our Lord’s Blood, and as such be received. And so, it would be superstitious to be lieve that those appearances of Christ as a little child in the Sacrament, which have been said from time to time to have been vouchsafed to God’s servants, was the actual body of our Lord in its natural condition.

All that the letter of the Article denies, is that by virtue of the words of consecration such a change takes place in the proportions and conditions of the elemental substances now mentioned, that the same component parts which before made up the forces of bread, now make those of flesh and blood. This is not the case even as to human food. Bread and Wine are commuted into flesh and blood; but the same physical

component parts are not present in each *. Much less have we any occasion to think of anything so earthly, under the name ” substance,” i.e. ” essence” of Bread and Wine, since it is confessed on all hands that ” our Saviour Himself ever sitteth at the Eight Hand of the Father in heaven, according to His natural mode of existence,” while He is ” sacramentally present with us by His own substance,” not in any carnal way, but “by that mode of existing, which although we can hardly express in words, we may, through thought illumined by faith, understand to be possible to God V And here it is of moment to draw attention to an other important change in our present Article. Bishop Geste, who said of the Article, ” that it was of mine owne pennynge,” (that is, obviously so much of it as was new in the final revision), caused to be struck out all mention of the terminus ad quern, i.e. “into the

’ The following analysis of the component parts of wheat, flesh, and blood, has been furnished to me by an eminent physiologist : —

Oxygen

Hydrogen

Carbon

Nitrogen

Sulphur

Phosp. Lime and Magnesia

Pot. and Soda, (Phosp., &c.)

Chlor. Soda

Iron (Ox. and Phosp.)

Silicon

k Cone. Trid., Sess. xiii. c. 1.

“Wheat,

Flesh,

Blood,

0-75 (potass)

(Salt in bread)

(?) occasional

(?)

o-oo

accidental from

husks.

substance of Christ’s Body and Blood ;” and restricted the rejection of the word Transubstantiation to the terminus a quo, “the change of the substance of the Bread and Wine.” This alteration is much stronger than if the words which he omitted had never stood ; for the omission was a deliberate act. It shews evi dently that of the former complex explanation ” the change of the substance of bread and wine into the substance of Christ’s Body and Blood/’ the only point excepted against was a change in the substance of Bread and Wine.

It remains to consider what the Article means as to this, which alone remains as a difficulty.

Substanti<2 is manifestly, by the force of term, some one thing. It concerns us not so far, whether it be material or immaterial ; only it may be observed that we do not know what matter itself is. Chemistry, whose employment is the analysis of the compound objects of which our senses are cognisant, has (at least as represented by one of its most eminent discoverers J) set aside the idea that matter is compounded of atoms. He says, “To my mind a, or the nucleus, vanishes, and the substance consists of the powers, or m. And, indeed, what notion can we form of the nucleus, in dependent of its powers? All our perception and know ledge of the atom, and even our fancy, is limited to the ideas of its powers. What thought remains, on which to hang the imagination of an a, independent

of the acknowledged forces ? Now the powers we know and recognise in every phenomenon of the creation, the abstract matter in none; why, then, assume the existence of that, of which we are ignorant, which we cannot conceive, and for which there is no philo sophical necessity?”

All which we know of are certain ” forces.” AVhat is the unity which holds them together we know not. But one thing cannot, at the same time and in the same sense, be many things. The substanti^ of bread and wine cannot be what we mean by the physical substances, i.e. all those component parts which are united in it. This is but to say that we use a singular and a plural in different senses. Every crumb of a piece of bread would, if detached, have its own sub- stantia ; but also every crumb of a piece of bread would have in it all those things which the whole has — oxygen, hydrogen, nitrogen, &c. And the component parts, or, as we popularly call them, substances, can not be the same as substance. “Substance” is some thing beyond them. St. Thomas says that ” substance is discerned by the intellect alone, and not by sense.” But these component parts of bread may, by analysis, be made discernible by sense. Now what those who, believing our blessed Lord’s Presence in the Sacrament of the Altar, alone desiderate, is, not to be required to believe what, in things of which the senses are cognisant, would contradict them. The Catechism of the Council of Trent meets these difficulties by saying, that ” the Eucharist is, after consecration, called bread,

because it has the appearance, and still retains the quality, natural to bread, of supporting and nourishing the body”1. It says that this natural quality is retained, not that it is restored by the creation of fresh raateria, or by the bringing back of the old miraculously, or by any other miracle, which the explanations of the Schoolmen presupposed. All Christians must believe any miracle which comes to them by authority. But no authority is alleged for these. They are only opinions of the Schoolmen, and those, mutually con tradictory. This ” natural power of nourishing,” of which our senses are cognisant, is the only remaining property of natural substances, which the Anglican formularies can include, when they speak of the ” bread and wine remaining in their natural substances,” i.e. that they have all the characteristic properties which our senses can discern. Those formularies do not refer to any abstract questions about “substance.”

But now even natural philosophy comes in to our aid. It is pretty well agreed that material bodies con sist of a number of unextended forces. ” Some of these forces are permanent, others are visible; for while the substance remains the same, the phenomena are perpetually varying. Each body, therefore, may be considered to be a collection of changeable forces, re sulting from the activity of a great substantial force. It is evident that the shifting forces may be looked upon as qualities, emanating and radiating from a central force, which is the permanent source of them m P. ii. c. 4, q. 38.

all, and which is the substance. It is also clearly conceivable, that these forces should remain after the central force or substance is gone11.”

Wow this is just the distinction which was needed. We do not at all understand what the ova-la or substan- tia of anything is. We can conceive that it is, not what it is. It seems, according to these last explanations, to be that, which constitutes a thing what it is, that which lies at the bottom of its being. It is deeper and more recondite than anything which affects our senses, even than those forces which “naturally support and nourish our bodies.” If this be so, the question is at an end. There is but one belief as to the presence of Christ, that He, “our Saviour, Who now sitteth at the right hand of the Father in heaven according to His natural mode of existence, is yet present to us by His substance sacramentally °.” The question has relation only to the Bread and Wine, what the Homan Church means by the ” substantial* which it affirms to cease to remain, and we by the “substances” which we affirm to remain. If “substance” means no more than its Greek equivalent, ova la, “essence;” and if the term, ” is transubstantiated,” means no more than those old words, “becomes,” “is;” and if, by it, the Roman Church only means to guard with greater accuracy our blessed Lord’s words, ” This is My Body,” not contra dieting anything which we know by experience, not basing a theology upon a supposed illusion of our

n Dalgairns, “The Holy Communion,” App., note F., p. 423. 0 Cone. Trid., 1. c.

senses, but only asserting that that “quidditas” (what ever it be) whereby the bread was bread, is removed, leaving all those forces of which alone we are cogni sant, then, God be thanked, Who has said to a great mountain which stood between us, ” Be thou a plain.” There is nothing in such a statement which, our Article denies, or which could form a difficulty to any soul, which believed the blessed Presence of our Saviour, of His Body and His Blood.

” The Body of Christ is given, taken, and eaten, in the Supper, only after an heavenly and spiritual manner.” One cannot exaggerate the importance of the words given, taken, and eaten. ” The Body of Christ,” — observe how completely the Article adopts the old nomenclature ; it does not say the Sacrament of the Body of Christ, but Corpus Christi, the Body of Christ, shewing that what was in a partial way de scribed in the beginning of the Article, from its effects as a partaking of the Body, is objectively the Body itself. “The Body of Christ” is first given, that is, by the Priest, or rather by the Great High-Priest, through the ministry of His earthly representative. It is next taken, first into the hand of the communicant, there fore the Body is something external to him who takes it; it is objective and independent of anything in him. It is Christ’s Body before he takes it. It is given to him in what the Priest gives him, and that, the Article says, is the Body of Christ. The heavenly and spi ritual manner applies equally to all the three. It is given in a heavenly and spiritual manner, for the

whole action is supernatural. It is taken in a heavenly and spiritual manner, for we have here to do with the order of grace, not the order of nature. It is eaten after a heavenly and spiritual manner, for “It is the Spirit that quickeneth, the flesh profiteth nothing.” The explanation of the term ” only/’ is best left to its author, Bishop Geste.

Yet once more, the words, ” The Body of Christ is given, taken, and eaten, only after a spiritual and heavenly manner,” contain the doctrine of an Objec tive Presence. For it is said not only given and re ceived, which might imply something which takes place within the soul only, but given, taken, and eaten, which implies an external act on the part of the person receiving. The “taking” and ” eating” are two dis tinct acts Q.

i It is vain to say, as some have said, that this has no force. The very arguments used to disprove its force add to it. It has been said (and these are the strongest cases which they can produce) that even Calvin says, ” Nihil dubito quin et Ipse vere porrigat et ego accipiam.” Accipio, in Calvin’s sense, is “receive,” not “take.”

The formula of the Conference at Poissy (1561), — ” Confitemur Jesum Christum in coena nobis offerre, dare, et vere exhibere substantial!) sui corporis et ?anguinis, operatione Spiritus sancti, et nos recipere et edere spiritualiter et per fidem verum illud corpus quod pro nobis mortuum est” (quoted from Hospiniau, Hist. Sacram., ii. p. 520), — was not a genuine, “reformed” statement, but a form in which the reformed statement had been re-moulded by the Roman Catholic theologian Despense. It has also an important qualification at the close, which Beza supplies in his account of the Conference. — (Histoire Ecclesi- astique des Eglises Reformees, t. i. p. 382, ed. 1841.) Nothing could be more hollow than this attempt to state the Calvinistic doctrine, so that it might pass with the Queen Mother and the French politicians and the Galilean divines.

The accurate language of this clause is further illus trated by what was deliberately rejected on revision. In the Articles of 1553, there had been a sentence in these terms : — ” Forasmuch as the truth of man’s nature requireth that the body of one and the self-same man cannot be at one time in diverse places, but must needs be in one certain place : therefore the Body of Christ cannot be present at one time in many and diverse places. And because (as Holy Scripture doth teach) Christ was taken up into heaven, and there shall con tinue unto the end of the world, a faithful man ought not either to believe or openly to confess the real and bodily presence (as they term it) of Christ’s flesh and blood in the Sacrament of the Lord’s Supper.” In the Parker Latin MS. of 1563, the following clause was here added, but struck out in the Synod : — ” Christus, in ccelum ascendens, corpori suo immortalitatem dedit, naturam non abstulit ; humane enim nature verita- tem (juxta Scripturas) perpetuo retinet, quam uno et definite loco esse, et non in multa, vel omnia simul

[…]

loca difFundi, oportet. Quum igitur Christus in coelum sublatus ibi usque ad finem seculi permansurus, atque inde, non aliunde, (ut loquitur Augustinus,) venturus sit, ad judicandum vivos et mortuos, non debet quis- quani fidelium, et carnis ejus et sanguinis, realem et Corporalem (ut loquuntur) prsesentiam in Eucharistia vel credere vel profiteri r.” The dogmatic importance of these deliberate rejections must not be undervalued.

The clause in the Article which we are consider ing, contains first the fact that the subject we have treated of is the Body of Christ in the Supper. And all the assertions made concerning it are that its mode of existence is absolutely supernatural. What is heavenly and spiritual cannot be liable to the laws of physics. It is something emphatically mysterious. The relation of the Body of Christ to the species of Bread and Wine is so wondrous that the mind fails to grasp it, and only dares to use language with re gard to it which has been sanctioned by the Church. Thus we may properly say without figure that the Body of Christ is fed upon, but only in an improper sense may we say that it is broken, according to the words —

” ]S”ulla rei fit scissura Signi tantum fit fractura.”

All these matters find their ultimate term in the diffi cult question whether it can be said that Christ is locally in the Sacrament s, ” of which we may in brief

s St. Tno’., quso-t. 75, art. 1, and 76, art. 5.

lay down, that the Body of Christ, if it be compared with the form of bread, is not in them as in a place, because as the substance of bread is not said to be in its accidents as in a place, so neither does the Body of Christ which succeeds to it under those accidents. But, if the Body of Christ be compared with the place of the species, it can be so compared in two ways ; either as the Body of Christ according to itself, or as denominated by and invested with the species. In this second consideration, the Body of Christ may be said to be in that circumscribed place, not properly, but improperly, and secimdum quid; for as, by reason of the species, we in an improper sense say it is seen and handled, because the species are seen and handled, so, for the same reason, we may improperly say that, because the species are circumscribed by space, It also is. Lastly, if the substance of the Body of Christ ac cording to itself be compared to place, it is not said to be in place physically and in a circumscribed fashion or quantitatively; for although it be there properly, yet it is not by a circumscription ubi, because the res ubicata corresponds with the parts of space by its own parts, and in this sense St. Thomas denies that the Body of Christ is locally in this sacrament V

We proceed to consider ” the means whereby the Body of Christ is received and eaten.”

The words of the Article must, both (1) on account of the literal meaning, and (2) in reference to the con text, be confined to the subjective act of communi-

eating. The passage does not mean that Faith makes the difference between its being the Body of the Lord, or not the Body of the Lord which is received and eaten ; it does not mean that Faith is that which makes the distinction between a real presence and a real absence of the Body of Christ: but it means that the condition of reception on the part of the re cipient, according to Christ’s ordinance and the inten tion of the Church, — that is, for the spiritual good of the said recipient, — is Faith.

Observe the words “received and eaten.” These, in their literal sense, are essentially subjective. They describe what is necessary on the part of the commu nicants to a beneficial partaking, and they mean no more, for we must now compare the words with the preceding clause of the Article. The preceding clause has stated the supernatural and mysterious nature of the whole transaction. ” The Body of Christ is given, taken, and eaten in the Supper/’ — there is the whole action, — after a Heavenly and Spiritual manner, in a way that transcends the senses, in the order of grace and not in the order of nature ; and Bishop Geste, the author of the Article, tells us that his own insertion of the word “only” does not militate against the objectivity of the Presence. But when we come to consider the office of Faith in the matter, there is a remarkable omission. It is asserted that the whole action is Heavenly and Spiritual, by avouching that the Body is given, taJien, and eaten; when we speak of Faith it is said merely that it is received and eaten.

The word “given” is the differentia between the two statements, and in the word ” given” there is bound up the whole question of the reality and objectivity of the Presence.

This view of the real meaning of the Article is sup ported by the response in the Scottish Communion Office at the awful moment of reception. The com municant is directed to answer to the words of the mi nister, “Amen.” What does this mean? It means what it meant in the ancient Church, from which the custom is derived. In the early Church the earliest words were alone, ” the Body of Christ, the Blood of Christ,” to which the faithful assented ” Amen.” The disciple of St. Ambrose gives the interpretation, ” So then not idly dost thou say Amen, already thereby confessing in spirit that thou receivest the Body of Christ. The Priest sayeth to thee, the Body of Christ, and thou sayest Amen, i.e. true. What thy tongue eonfesseth let thy affections retain u.”

The statement in the Article is in perfect harmony with the language of the ancient Church. It would be unnatural if in the glowing language of Liturgies and Fathers the high office of Faith should not be fully recognised.

When, in 1661, the words ” with faith” were added to the words ” draw near” in the English office, the apparent source from which they were taken was the Liturgies of Armenia, Jerusalem, St. Chrysostom, and St. Basil. All say, ” Approach with the fear of God,

u De Sacr.. 1. iv. c. iv.

5G6 ARTICLE XXVIII.

and faith and love.” The love is omitted in the Ar menian. What was this but to say to the people, It is by Faith that you will profitably partake of these holy mysteries.

And this again is most emphatically set forth in the Confession of the Eucharistic Faith, which, in va rious forms, is so prominent in the Liturgies of Egypt and Ethiopia x. As for example : —

“The holy, precious, living, and very Body of our Lord and Saviour Jesus Christ, which is given for re mission of sins and life eternal to those who receive it with faith. Amen.

” The holy, precious, life-giving, and very Blood of our Lord and Saviour Jesus Christ, which is given for remission of sins, and eternal life to those who receive it with faith. Amen.

” This is the Body and Blood of Emmanuel, in very truth. Amen. I believe, I believe, I believe, hence forth and for evermore. Amen.

“This is the Body and Blood of our Lord and Sa viour Jesus Christ, which He took of the holy and pure Virgin Mary… .

” I believe, I believe, I believe that His Divinity was not divided from His humanity, no, not for an hour, nor the twinkling of an eye. He gave Himself for us to salvation, remission of sins, and life eternal, to those who receive them (the Body and Blood) with faith. I believe, I believe, I believe, henceforth and for ever.”

x Kenaudot, vol. i. p. 520.

This is only the richest specimen of a class of these Confessions. For another, taken from the Coptic Li turgy of St. Basil, vide Neale’s ” Introduction to His tory of the Eastern Church.” So also in the Western Church y. From the Leonine Sacramentary, take the following: — ” Adesto qusesumus Domine plebi tua) ; ut quse sumsit fideliter, et mente sirnul et corpore, te pro- tegente, custodiat.”

So also St. Gregory : — ” Da nobis … ut sancta tua … semper fideli mente sumamus2.”

This language of primitive antiquity bears witness to the fact that faith is the appointed instrument for reception of that which (in the sublime words which the ancient Liturgy of the “West, embodying, as we may believe, the tradition of the Apostles, has not feared to put in juxtaposition with the very words of the divine Consecrator,) is emphatically Mysterium Fidei.

The necessity of the office of Faith in devout recep tion must be ever present in our view. It is indeed Jlf/sterium Fidei in ways and senses far beyond what the course of controversies has elicited, or indeed what our mind can ever exhaust. If ever faith have an office in our approaches to God, it is when we kneel before His altar.

” The Sacrament of the Lord’s Supper was not by Christ’s ordinance reserved, carried about, lifted up, or worshipped.”

The Latin version here is suggestive. Hitherto the

568 AllTICLE XXVIII.

rendering of the term “Lord’s Supper” has been Ccena Domini; here, as in the preceding clause touching Transubstantiation, we have the ancient word Eu- charistia, Evxapio-ria*. And it is necessarily used not for the ceremony, but for the Divine Gift; that which was the result of consecration ; the ” Elements,” as they are popularly termed by a phraseology in which the common language has preserved a sense of the un speakable mysteriousness of that most august Sacra ment15.

The Article does not prohibit the practices men tioned, but merely states that the reservation, circum- gestation, elevation, and adoration of the Sanctissimum is no part of Christ’s institution. ” Such ceremonies may be, and are, omitted without breaking our Lord’s enactment touching the Eucharist. The Church might leave them out, and yet leave the whole of His institu tion untouched. So much is really the whole amount of the prohibition, as far as the sentence is con cerned c.”

That the Sacrament of “the Eucharist/’ as the Latin Articles term it, was not by Christ’s ordinance reserved is admitted on all hands. The Council of Trent asserts that ” it was instituted that it might be received d,” but the Church has from the earliest times reserved the Holy Sacrament, regarding it as a most precious pledge from heaven and the miracle of divine love.

[…]

St. Justin Martyr says, that after celebration, the Eu- charistic Elements were sent by the hands of the Dea cons to those not present6. A touching instance of this is recorded in the act of the martyrdom of St. Lucian f. In the second century it was the custom for Bishops to send It as a token of peace and unity g. That the Eucharist was reserved in the Church under both kinds from the fourth century, is proved by St. Chrysostom in his letter to Pope Innocent h, where the Saint describes the outrages of the soldiers in the church of Constantinople. At Nola It was kept in a golden casket1, which was laid up in the sanctuary. And this is probably the meaning of what Anastasius writes in his Life of Pope Nicholas, ” Fecit autem ut in Basilica Salvatoris — cruces de argento purissimo quse pendent ante figuram substaiitiae carnis ejusdem Dni. N. J C.k”

St. Basil not only mentions that in times of persecu tion the faithful were constrained to take the Com munion into their own hands, and that the solitaries in the desert had to have recourse to the same prac tice, but mentions that it was the ordinary use of the Church of Alexandria, and asks, ” Ought they not to believe that That which they carry home1 in their

e ApoL, i. 68, p 52, Oxf. Tr. f Act. 8. Luc. ap. Sur.

£ Ep. Irencei ad Victor, ap. Euseb. H. E., v. c. 24.

h Ep. ad Innocent., PP. apud D. Constant., t. i. p. 783. i Amb., Up. iv. n. 4. k Vide Ducange.

hands, is the Same Thing which they receive in church at the hands of the Priest m.” This custom, which was universal, is believed to have lasted till the Papacy of Hormisdas, A.D. 514, and to have been retained even longer in the East. It was also reserved in long journeys by land and by sean. The custom lasted till the Crusades0.

Becket carried It round his neck on the occasion of his going in search of Henry II. When the ordeal by fire was proposed to be resorted to, to test whether the Pope was right in excommunicating Savonarola, his friend, Fr. Dominic, who was to make the fiery trial, held It in his hand.

Anciently the Sacrament was reserved at the con secration of bishops and at the ordination of priests, to be consumed by them during the forty days after the ceremony p, and it was frequently buried with the dead q.

So also for the communion of infants and of the sick, and for the Missa Pr&sanctificatorum both in the Homan, Greek, and Milanese Churches. In fact, till

[…]

m JSp. cclxxxix. ad Ces. Pat.

n S. Amb., de Mort. Sat. ; S. Greg., Dial., iii. 37, &c.

P Ord. Romanus, Epist. Fulbert ad Erhard.

1 S. Greg., Dial., ii. 24.

the thirteenth century, we have distinct evidence that in different ways, sometimes in a ciborium, sometimes suspended over the altar enveloped in veils, some times in tabernacles in the form of a dove, some times in aumbries beside the altar, sometimes along with images and relics of the saints, sometimes under baldachins, and sometimes in towers a few feet from the high altar, the blessed Sacrament was reserved with great dignity and honour. The practice of re serving the blessed Sacrament for the sick has ob tamed in the Scottish Church, by an unwritten tra dition, since the days of the Non-jurors.

The carrying about of the Blessed Sacrament in solemn procession is a ceremony of the Western Church. It does not exist in the orthodox Eastern Church, nor in the English Church; neither do any of the Eastern heretical Churches practise it. It is impossible to fix the exact date of the commencement of the practice. On the one hand, the opinion of those who would maintain that it took its rise in Pavia in 1404, on the authority of Donatus Bossius, a jurisconsult of Milan r, is contradicted by history ; on the other hand, that of those who make it syn chronize with the authorization of the Festum Corporis Christi by Urban IV. in 1264, is confuted by the silence of Durandus writing in 1286. It is, however, alluded to in documents of the Church of Chartres, 1339 : of Sens, 1320 ; of Tournay, 1323. Cassander maintained that it is certain that the Feast was not

r Chron. a Miindi init. ad an. 1492.

instituted by Urban IY. for the exposition of the Blessed Eucharist, but that the faithful should as semble in great numbers in the churches, there to sing the praises of God, and to prepare themselves by acts of piety to participate worthily on that day, and receive it with respect. The celebrated Cardinal Groper, the ornament of the Church of Cologne, in veighed against many of the abuses connected with this ceremony, so late as 1560. St. Carlo Borromeo, in the acts of the Council of Milan, puts restrictions on the public exposition of the Blessed Sacrament8. The feast was celebrated at Liege fourteen years be fore the Bull of Urban, and did not become universal till after the Council of Yienne in 1311.

” The Sacrament was not by Christ’s ordinance lifted up.” In spite of the text in St. Paul’s Epistle to the Galatians, where in allusion to the divine mysteries, it is said that Jesus Christ is set forth verily crucified before their eyes*, we cannot trace back this custom to Apostolic times. In a certain form we find some thing of the kind very anciently practised in the Greek Church u.

In the Western Church there is no allusion to it in the early Sacramentaries of Gelasius, Leo, or Gregory, nor in the works of St. Isidore of Seville, or Eabanus,

• Tit. De Sac. EucJi. De Expos, in orat., 40 horarurn.

• Gal. iii. 1.

u “Longepost orationem dominicam brevitamen ante communionem spatio, juxta Jacobi, Basilii et Chrysostomi Liturgias, Dorainicum Corpus, non ita ut a populo conspicatur elevat Grsecus Sacerdos.” (Goar, not. 158, in Miss. Chrys., p. 143. col. 2.)

or Walafride, or any of the ancient writers who explain the ceremonies of the Church. It is when we come to mediaeval times, that the practice is recognised, such as in the Speculum Eccksia of Hugh of St. Victor ; in Hildebertus of Le Mansx (A.D. 1136). It is con stantly alluded to in the Provincial Synods of the thirteenth century, as also by Durandus^. The eleva tion of the chalice does not obtain among the Greeks, and is by no means universal among the Latins.

It is unnecessary to go into the question of the worship of our Lord in the Sacrament, after the ex haustive treatise of John Keble, TOV paicapLTov, to which the reader is referred.

• De Offic. Miss. r Rationale Div. Off.

Notes

• See the passages collected in Spicil. Solesm., t. iii. p. 527.
• In Exod., Horn. xiii. § 3, p. 176.
• Frag. op. Gall., iii. 541. r Ibid., § 2. z Assem. Acta
• 4, p. 341. d Ibid., p. 346. e Serm. ad Baptizat. ap.
• Ibid. ft Hist. Evang., L. iv. B. P. iv. 74.
• S.AtJi. Apol. c. Arian., init. p. 14, O. T. k In S. Ath.
• De Prodit. Jud., § 5. * Ibid., § 6.
• Vita S. Ambrosii, n. 47, ctp. S. A.mbrosii Opp. t. ii., App. p. xii.
• Orat. de Die Dom. init., Gall. viii. 252, about A.D. 444.— See for an account of this Father, Dr. Pusey, Real Presence, pp. 449, 450.
• St. John Dam., Orth.fid., 1. iv. c. 13.
• Professor Faraday, in a paper on the Nature of Matter, in the ” Philosophical Magazine/’ Feb., 1844, p. 141.
• See Hardwick, pp. 312, 313.
• Lugo, Disp. vi. § iii. ed. Migne, 228.
• Muratori Lit. Horn., i. 3G9. l Ibid., ii. 43.
• ” Eucharistiam domum delatam et in area servatam, scribunt Tertul- lianus sub finem libri ad Mart., lib. ii. ad uxor. S. Cyp., lib. de lapsis. S. Aug., lib. iii. Cont. Crescon., cap. 11 ; Bas., in Epist. cclxxxix.; Joan.
• Vit. S. Lauren. O’Toole, Archiep. Dub., Apud Surium. 14 Nov.; cap. 8, t. vi. 313; Vit. S. Ludovici, Reg. Fr., 25 Aug. ; t. iv. 912.