II

The theologians who have so far been mentioned, while keeping carefully to the definition of the Council of Trent that the Mass is a “real and proper sacrifice,” and assenting to the teaching of St. Thomas Aquinas that in a sacrifice “something is done to that which is offered,” tend to make little of this latter point, and scrupulously avoid any doctrine which might seem to imply a repetition of the sacrifice of the cross or the death of Christ. This is alike true whether the sacrificial element is seen with Melchior Cano in the fraction of the consecrated host, with Salmeron and Vasquez and Lessius in the separate consecration of the two species, with Bellarmine in the consecration and Communion taken together, or with Suarez in the body of Christ being made present on the altar in honour of God. In all these explanations the element of destruction is either put out of sight altogether or is minimised.

The most famous representative of the opposite school of thought, that which makes much of the element of destruction, is Cardinal de Lugo. John de Lugo was born at Madrid in 1583. He entered the Society of Jesus in 1603. after teaching philosophy and theology in several colleges in Spain, he became professor of theology in the Jesuit College at Rome in 1621. Pope Urban VIII. made him a cardinal in 1643. In 1660 he died. During his life and ever since he has had a great reputation; and it would perhaps be impossible to find a better and more capable presentation of the later scholastic method in theology than is supplied by his writings. The discussions on the Eucharistic presence in his Treatise on the Venerable Sacrament of the Eucharist, with their minute and elaborate consideration of every detail which the theology of the subject suggests, may well be examined by any who wish to see the strength and the weakness of this method in its most complete development; but they do not present any conclusion which would do more than further illustrate beliefs of which many illustrations have already been given. It is in his teaching concerning the Eucharistic sacrifice in the same treatise that De Lugo maintains a position which is of great interest and importance. He insists that destruction is an essential element in sacrifice, whether it is the destruction of the life of the person who offers the sacrifice or the destruction of something else as expression of his surrender, and that the destruction must affect that which is offered. He rejects the views that the essential element in the Eucharistic sacrifice is the verbal oblation and that it is the fraction of the consecrated host, and accepts the opinion that the essential element is the consecration. In discussing how the consecration makes the sacrifice, he rejects the opinions that the point of the sacrifice is the destruction of the bread and wine; that in this sacrifice a change of some kind is sufficient without any destruction; that, though destruction was necessary in the absolute sacrifice of the cross, it is not required in the Eucharist inasmuch as it is a commemorative sacrifice; that the needed feature is in the separate consecration of the body and blood of Christ; and that the sacrifice is to be seen in the change from the unsacrificed bread and wine to the sacrificed body of Christ. Having thus cleared the ground by the rejection of the explanations which he thought wrong or inadequate, De Lugo, following out a suggestion already made by Bellarmine, expands his own opinion that by consecration the body of Christ is brought into a lower state, being after a human fashion destroyed by being made useless for the ordinary purposes of a human body and fit for food and drink, and that in this lowered state it is in the condition of a victim. The sacrifice is offered by Christ, not in the sense that He actively concurs in the offering of it, but because He has commissioned His priests to offer it and acts through their agency, so that, if by an impossible hypothesis Christ did not know what was being done, the offering of the sacrifice could none the less take place. Some of the more characteristic parts of De Lugo’s teaching may be seen in the following quotations:—

“In the first place, sacrifice does not differ from other worship of God exactly in this, that it is a declaration of the supreme excellence of God, or of His power over life and death, as Vasquez said. … Sacrifice denotes something else and in another way, by which it differs from all other worship, partly because of the thing signified in that it shows that God is worthy of our life being consumed in His honour, and partly because of the method in that it shows this by the destruction of something, by which we may express the desire for our own destruction, if it were lawful or necessary for the worship of God. Yet observe that it is not of the essence of the sacrifice that it be made by the destruction of some other thing, which may be substituted for us. For its essence could be preserved even better and more really if our life itself were sacrificed, as Christ our Lord on the cross offered to God a real sacrifice by His own destruction and death, which bore witness to the same excellence and dignity of God. We say then that it is of the nature of sacrifice that it be a declaration of that excellence of God, whereby He is worthy that our life be destroyed in His worship, whether this declaration be made by the actual destruction of one’s own life or by the destruction of some other thing by which our desire is expressed, when our own destruction would not be lawful or expedient. Secondly, in every sacrifice there must be some destruction of the thing that is offered.”

“That we may explain how the consecration is substantially the act of sacrificing, I observe that, when we require the destruction of the victim for the nature of a real sacrifice, by the word destruction is not always understood the physical or metaphysical substantial corruption of the victim, but the destruction either physical or human, so that from the force of the act of sacrificing, so far as concerns the end of the action, it has some lower state, and ceases to be at least in human fashion.… Among the ancients, to whom, as it was more frequent, so also the essence of sacrifice was better known, we find that some things were wont to be sacrificed by such a human destruction: for instance, when there was a libation of wine by pouring it out from bowls on the earth in honour of God, that outpouring was called the act of libation and sacrificing; but it is certain that by the outpouring the wine was corrupted formally but not substantially, until afterwards it should gradually dry up and be consumed, while the sacrifice took place in the pouring out itself, because by the outpouring it was destroyed in human fashion, inasmuch as it now received some state useless for its former operations.… In which manner also they used to sacrifice when something was thrown into the sea or into a river, … because by that submersion the thing thrown in was destroyed in human fashion, although it was not substantially corrupted in its own existence. This being understood, it will be easy to explain how by the act of consecration itself the body of Christ is sacrificed; for, though it is not destroyed substantially by the act of consecration itself, yet it is destroyed in human fashion in so far as it receives a lower state of such a kind as to render it useless for the human purposes of a human body and suitable for other different purposes in the way of food. Wherefore in human fashion it is the same as if it were to become real bread and to be fitted and prepared for food. This change is sufficient for a real sacrifice; because for that to become eatable which was not eatable, and for it to become eatable in such a way as no longer to be useful for any other purposes but in the way of food, is a greater change than others which in the common judgment of men have been sufficient for a real sacrifice.”

“It is not required that Christ concur physically with the act of offering, or that Christ have in act some actual will physically existing whereby now to offer; for though Christ were now taking no notice, or did not know, nay, though whether possible or impossible He were asleep when this sacrifice is offered, it would still be said to be offered by Christ, as a king is said to show obedience to the pontiff when his ambassador shows it, though the king were at the moment asleep or not thinking about it.… It is not enough for this that there be a mere institution, but that there be an institution with the will that it be offered in His name; and much less is the application of His merits enough, for this application could be made at a sacrifice which was not in any sense offered in the name of Christ. Christ therefore now really offers because the priest by the institution of Christ offers in the name of Christ, which is enough for this action, morally speaking, to be called the action of Christ, as the reverence which the ambassador of a king shows to the pontiff is morally the reverence of the king towards the pontiff. So also Christ by means of the priest whom He has substituted as His ambassador and minister exercises this act of reverence and worship towards God, which consists in the offering of the sacrifice; and therefore this offering is deemed morally the action of Christ worshipping God by means of His minister.”