I

In the period of the great councils, the fourth and fifth centuries, as in the period which precedes the Council of Nicæa, it will be convenient to consider separately the evidences of belief found in regard to the presence and gift in the Eucharist and those relating to the Eucharistic sacrifice. Taking the ideas as to the presence and the gift first, it will add to clearness to classify them in distinct groups.

1. Representative writers both of the East and of the West supply sentences in abundance in which there are references of a general character to the Eucharist as the means whereby Christians receive the body and blood of Christ. Of this general way of speech it may be sufficient to quote instances from the canons of the Council of Nicæa, from St. Athanasius, from St. Macarius of Egypt, from a Roman writer of the latter part of the fourth century, and from St. Leo the Great.

The eighteenth canon of the Council of Nicæa deals with a practice which had arisen in some places by which in the administration of the Sacrament presbyters received it from the hands of deacons. It appears to have been usual in the middle of the second century for the deacons to administer to the congregation in both kinds, though later the administration of the species of bread was confined to the bishop or celebrating presbyter, so that the deacons administered from the chalice only. At the time of the Council of Nicæa it is evident that the deacons in some places were in the habit of administering not only to the congregation but also to those presbyters who were present. In view of this practice and of another abuse by which deacons had received before bishops other than the celebrant, the Council laid down regulations as to the order of reception and the method of administration, incidentally describing the consecrated elements as the body of Christ in the sentence, “It is contrary to the canons and to custom for those who have not authority to offer to give the body of Christ to those who offer”.

St. Athanasius frequently alludes incidentally to the Eucharist as the body and blood of Christ. The Encyclical Letter of the Council of Alexandria of 339, quoted by him in his Defence against the Arians, contains the words:—

“Our sanctuaries, as always, so also now are clean, adorned only with the blood of Christ and the worship of Him.”

“It is only to you who preside over the Catholic Church that it pertains to administer the blood of Christ, and to no other. But as he who breaks the cup belonging to the mysteries is impious, much more impious is he who treats with insult the blood of Christ; and he so treats it with insult who ‘does this’ contrary to the rule of the Church.”

A letter of Julius, Bishop of Rome, quoted by St. Athanasius in the same treatise, lays stress on the wrong done by a trial in a civil court of a matter involving questions of fact as to the administration of the Eucharist.

“The presbyters who asked to attend the inquiry were not allowed to do so; and the inquiry concerning the cup and the Table took place before the prefect and his band in the presence of heathen and Jews.… Presbyters, who are the ministers of the mysteries, are not allowed to attend; but an inquiry concerning the blood of Christ and the body of Christ takes place before an external judge, in the presence of catechumens, and worse still of heathen and Jews who are of ill report in regard to Christianity.”

In his Letter to Maximus St. Athanasius, in maintaining the deity of Christ, speaks incidentally of Christians as “not partaking of the body of some man or other but receiving the body of the Word Himself”. In the Festal Letters there are similar phrases.

“We do not approach a temporal feast, my beloved, but an eternal and heavenly. Not in shadows do we show it forth but we come to it in truth. For they (the Jews) being filled with the flesh of a dumb lamb, accomplished the feast, and having anointed their door-posts with the blood, implored aid against the destroyer. But now we, eating of the Word of the Father, and having the lintels of our hearts sealed with the blood of the new covenant, acknowledge the grace given us from the Saviour.”

“We eat, as it were, the food of life, and constantly thirsting we delight our souls at all times, as from a fountain, in His precious blood.”

“Let us be prepared to draw near to the divine Lamb, and to touch heavenly food.”

Commenting on our Lord’s words, “Give not that which is holy unto the dogs,” he says, “Do thou then also, deacon, take heed that thou do not give to the unworthy the purple of the sinless body”.

In the Homilies ascribed to St. Macarius of Egypt it is said:—

“Those who partake of the visible bread spiritually eat the flesh of the Lord.”

The author of the Questions on the Old and New Testaments, apparently a Roman writer contemporary with Pope Damasus, who died in 384, refers to the Eucharist as the “reality” of which there had been types in the manna and in the bread and wine brought forth by Melchizedek, and speaks of that which is given as the body of Christ.

“The manna is a type of the spiritual food which by the resurrection of the Lord became a reality in the mystery of the Eucharist.”

“Neither did the Lord deny to him (Judas) … His body.”

“Melchizedek showed the future mystery of the Incarnation and passion of the Lord when to Abraham first as the father of the faithful he gave the Eucharist of the body and blood of the Lord that there might be beforehand in the case of the father a type of that which was to be a reality in the case of the sons.”

Similar allusions to the Eucharist occur in the writings of St. Leo the Great. Denouncing the Manichæans at Rome, he said:—

“Since to conceal their unbelief they dare to be present at our meetings, they behave at the communion of the mysteries in such a way that sometimes, lest they should fail to be concealed, they receive with unworthy mouth the body of Christ, though they altogether refuse to drink the blood of our redemption.”

In one of his passiontide sermons he taught:—

“Nothing else is brought about by the participation of the body and blood of Christ than that we pass into that which we receive, and bear throughout both in spirit and in flesh Him in whom we died and were buried and were raised together with Him.”

In another sermon, while maintaining the orthodox doctrine of the Incarnation against the heresy of Eutyches, he said:—

“Ye ought so to partake at the Holy Table as to have no doubt at all concerning the reality of the body and blood of Christ. For that is taken in the mouth which is believed be faith; and it is vain for them to respond Amen who dispute against that which is taken.”

In a letter addressed to the clergy and people of the city of Constantinople against Manichæan and other heresies, he wrote:—

“In what darkness of ignorance and what depth of sloth have they hitherto lain that they have neither learnt from hearing nor understood from reading the truth which in the Church of God so resounds in the mouths of all that at the rite of the Communion not even the tongues of infants are silent as to the reality of the body and blood of Christ? For in that distribution of spiritual nourishment such a gift is bestowed, such a gift is taken, that receiving the virtue of the heavenly food we pass into the flesh of Him who became our flesh.”

2. A second group of passages is formed by those in which the elements are spoken of as “figure” or “symbols” or the “image” or “likeness” of the body and blood of Christ. This phraseology recalls a like manner of speech found in the second and third centuries; and in the later writers as in the earlier it needs careful attention and consideration. In the period with which the present chapter is concerned it is found in Adamantius, Eusebius of Cæsarea, Serapion of Thmuis, St. Cyril of Jerusalem, St. Gregory of Nazianzus, the Apostolic Constitutions, St. Macarius of Egypt, Theodoret, the author of the book On the Sacraments, and St. Augustine.

In his Dialogue directed against the Manichæans Adamantius as a part of his argument in defence of the reality of our Lord’s body says:—

“If, as these say, He was fleshless and bloodless, of what flesh or of what blood was it that He gave the images (εἰκόνας) in the bread and the cup, when He commanded the disciples to make the memorial of Him by means of these?”

In the course of his treatment of the Incarnation and life of our Lord as a fulfilment of the Old Testament prophecies, in his Demonstratio Evangelica, Eusebius of Cæsarea refers to the words in the dying prophecy of Jacob:

“Binding his foal unto the vine,

And his ass’s colt unto the choice vine;

He hath washed his garments in wine,

And his vesture in the blood of grapes:

His eyes shall be red with wine,

And his teeth white with milk;”

and, after mentioning our Lord’s words, “I am the true vine,” and His triumphant entry into Jerusalem, and the prophetical saying of Zechariah, proceeds:—

“As to the passage, ‘He shall wash His garments in wine, and His vesture in the blood of the grape,’ does He not as in mysteries signify His mystic passion, in which He washed His garments and His raiment in the layer by means of which it is made clear that He washes away the ancient filth of those who believe in Him? For by means of the wine, which was the symbol (σύμβολον) of His blood, He cleanses from their former sins those who are baptised into His death and have believed on His blood, washing and wiping away their ancient garments and raiment, so that they, having been redeemed by the precious blood of the divine and spiritual grape and the wine of the aforesaid vine, put off the old man together with his deeds and put on the new man that is renewed unto knowledge according to the image of the Creator. And I think that the passages, ‘His eyes gladdening from wine,’ and ‘His teeth whiter than milk,’ again mystically refer to the mysteries of the new covenant of our Saviour. For it is my opinion that the words ‘His eyes gladdening from wine’ signify the gladness from the mystic wine which He gave to His own disciples saying, ‘Take, drink, this is My blood which is poured out for you for the remission of sins; do this for My memorial’; and that the words ‘His teeth whiter than milk’ signify the brightness and purity of the mystic food. For again He gave to His disciples the symbols (τὰ σύμβολα) of the divine dispensation, bidding them make the image (τὴν εἰκόνα) of His own body. For since He no longer allowed the sacrifices offered with blood, nor those appointed by Moses in the slaughter of divers animals, but ordained the use of bread as the symbol (συμβόλῳ) of His own body, He fittingly signified the brightness and purity of the food be saying, ‘His teeth whiter than milk’.”

Similarly, Eusebius speaks elsewhere of the Eucharistic food as “the symbols (συμβόλων) of His body and His saving blood,” and as “the mystic symbols (ἀπόρρητα σύμβολα) of the saving passion”.

The Eucharistic Anaphora in the Prayers of Serapion of Thmuis contains expressions which may be compared with those quoted from Eusebius.

“To Thee we have offered this bread, the likeness (τὸ ὁμοίωμα) of the body of the Only-begotten. This bread is the likeness (ὁμοίωμα) of the holy body, because the Lord Jesus Christ in the night in which He was betrayed took bread and brake and gave to His disciples saying, ‘Take and eat, this is My body which is being broken for you for the remission of sins’. Wherefore we also making the likeness (τὸ ὁμοίωμα) of the death have offered the bread.… We have offered also the cup, the likeness (τὸ ὁμοίωμα) of the blood, because the Lord Jesus Christ, taking a cup after supper, said to His own disciples, ‘Take, drink, this is the new covenant, which is My blood which is being poured out for you for the remission of trespasses’. Wherefore we also have offered the cup, presenting a likeness (ὁμοίωμα) of the blood.”

St. Cyril of Jerusalem in his Catechetical Lectures uses the sentences, “According to the Gospel His body bore the figure (τύπον ἔφερεν) of bread”; “In the figure (τύπῳ) of bread is given to thee the body, and in the figure (τύπῳ) of wine is given to thee the blood”; “the antitype (ἀντιτύπου) of the body and blood of Christ”.

St. Gregory of Nazianzus incidentally speaks of the reserved Sacrament as “the antitypes (τῶν ἀντιτύπων) of the precious body or blood,” and of the elements received by the communicant as “the figures (τοὺς τύπους) of my salvation”.

In the Apostolic Constitutions it is said that our Lord committed to the Apostles “the mysteries that are antitypes of His precious body and blood”; the Eucharist is described as “the antitype of the royal body of Christ”; and the elements are called the “antitypes” of “the precious blood” and “the precious body” “of Jesus Christ”.

The Homily ascribed to St. Macarius of Egypt, from which a quotation has already been made, contains the sentence:—

“In the Church bread and wine are offered, the antitype of His flesh and blood.”

Theodoret repeatedly speaks of the elements as the “symbols” of Christ’s body and blood.

In describing the words used by the priest at the consecration of the Eucharist the author of the book On the Sacraments, which has sometimes been ascribed to St. Ambrose, writes:—

“You have taken the likeness of the death.… You drink also the likeness of the precious blood.… The priest says, ‘Make this oblation to us approved, ratified, reasonable, acceptable, because it is the figure (figura) of the body and blood of our Lord Jesus Christ.”

St. Augustine uses phraseology resembling that of Tertullian when he says:—

“The Lord did not hesitate to say, ‘This is My body,’ when He gave the sign (signum) of His body.”

“The supper, in which He committed and gave to His disciples the figure (figuram) of His body and blood.”

With these brief sentence of St. Augustine may be compared statements in his treatise Concerning Christian Doctrine and his anti-Manichæan book, Against an Opponent of the Law and the Prophets. In the treatise Concerning Christian Doctrine, he says:—

“If a command either forbids what is disgraceful or wrong or orders what is useful or kindly, it is not figurative. But, if it seems to order what is disgraceful or wrong, or to forbid what is useful or kindly, it is figurative. It is said, ‘Except ye eat the flesh of the Son of man and drink His blood, ye will not have life in yourselves’. This seems to order what is wrong or disgraceful: therefore it is a figure, ordering that there is to be communion in the passion of the Saviour, and that there is to be sweet and useful remembrance that for us His flesh was crucified and wounded.”

In the book Against an Opponent of the Law and the Prophets, after referring to the typical significance of the marriage relation of Abraham with Sarah and Hagar and of the births of Isaac and Ishmael and of marriage as a figure of the union between Christ and the Church, he writes:—

“With faithful heart and mouth we admit that the Man Christ Jesus, the Mediator between God and men, gives us His flesh to eat and His blood to drink, although it seems more horrible to eat human flesh than to kill it, and to drink human blood than to shed it; and in all Holy Scripture, whenever anything is figuratively said or done, in any matters contained in the sacred pages, it is to be explained in accordance with the rule of sound faith, and we are to listen not with scorn but with wisdom.”

Macarius Magnes mentions those who spoke of the Eucharist in a way which he himself repudiated.

“It is not a figure (τύπος) of the body and a figure of the blood, as some whose minds are blinded have foolishly said (ἐρραψῴδησαν), but really the body and blood of Christ.”

In considering what inferences may rightly be drawn from the phraseology of which instances have been given it is necessary to remember the elements of the problem pointed out in the last chapter, namely the marked difference between the use of such words as “figure” and “symbol” in the early Church and their present usual meaning, the sense evidently attached to the word “figure” in some passages in Tertullian and other Latin writers, the influence of the language of the Greek mysteries on the use of the word “symbol” by the Alexandrian theologians; and further to observe instances of a different type of phraseology in the same writers to be given later. In addition to these general considerations there are four special points which require notice here. (a) In the Eucharistic Anaphora of Serapion of Thmuis and in the treatise On the Sacraments—apart from one passage in the latter, where the reference is shown by the context to be to the outward sign—the instances of the phrases “likeness of the body” and “likeness of the blood” and “likeness of the death” and “figure of the body and blood of our Lord Jesus Christ” occur before the sentences which are evidently regarded as the crucial moment of the consecration. (b) A comparison of other passages in St. Cyril of Jerusalem in which he uses the words “figure” (τύπος) and “antitype” (ἀντίτυπος) shows meanings which he elsewhere attaches to them. Joshua is said to have borne the figure (τύπον ἔφερεν) of Christ; the barren fig-tree is said to have been cursed for the sake of the figure (διὰ τὸν τύπον); incidents of the fall are regarded as figures of incidents of the redemption accomplished by Christ; the brasen serpent is called the figure of the crucifixion; Jonah is spoken of as a figure of Christ; the sprinkling of the blood on the door posts and the crossing of the Red Sea are described as figures of the blood of Christ and of Holy Baptism. Baptism is called an antitype (ἀντίτυπον) of the sufferings of Christ; and anointing is said to be an antitype (ἀντίτυπον) of the Holy Ghost. Yet, though these illustrations of St. Cyril’s use of the words taken by themselves might seem to point towards the sentences formerly cited having the meaning that the Eucharistic food merely represents the body and blood of Christ, his language elsewhere will be found to be incompatible with such a view. (c) Theodoret, in addition to speaking of the elements as “symbols,” is explicit that after consecration they are what then are called, the body and blood of Christ; and the Apostolic Constitutions, while calling the elements “antitypes,” very definitely describes them after consecration as our Lord’s body and blood. (d) On the other hand, the denial by Macarius Magnes of the opinion of those who declared that the Eucharist is a figure of the body and blood appears to imply that he understood at any rate some who used this phraseology to denote by it a belief contrary to his own identification of the elements with the body and blood.

3. One part of the teaching of St. Cyril of Jerusalem, St. Gregory of Nyssa, and St. Cyril of Alexandria suggests the idea of the heightened efficacy of the elements. This thought is prominent in St. Cyril of Jerusalem and St. Gregory of Nyssa, and appears to be implied by St. Cyril of Alexandria.

In the Catechetical Lectures of St. Cyrilof Jerusalem the effect of the Eucharistic consecration is definitely compared with the effect of the heathen invocation on heathen offerings and the effect of the Christian invocation on the chrism in Confirmation, and by implication it is regarded as parallel to the effect of the Christian invocation on the water in Baptism.

“The things which are hung up at the idol festivals, whether flesh or bread or other such things, having been defiled by the invocation of the foul demons, are reckoned in the pomp of the devil. For as the bread and the wine of the Eucharist before the invocation of the holy and adorable Trinity were simple (λιτός) bread and wine, but when the invocation has taken place the bread becomes the body of Christ and the wine the blood of Christ, so in like manner such food of the pomp of Satan, though in its own nature simple (λιτά), becomes profane (βέβηλα) by the invocation of the demons.”

“Beware of supposing this chrism (μύρον) to be bare (ψίλον). For as the bread of the Eucharist after the invocation of the Holy Ghost is no longer simple (λιτός) bread but the body of Christ, so also after invocation this holy chrism is no longer bare (ψίλον) nor, so to say, common but becomes Christ’s gift of grace (χάρισμα) and by the coming of the Holy Ghost fit to impart His Godhead.”

“Do not pay heed to the layer as simple (λιτῷ) water but to the spiritual grace that is given with the water. For as the things that are brought to the heathen altars, though simple (λιτά) in their nature, become defiled by the invocation of the idols, so contrariwise the simple (λιτόν) water on receiving the invocation of the Holy Ghost and of Christ and of the Father acquires the power of holiness.”

A similar conception of the heightened efficacy of material things and a similar parallel between the different rites of the Church are expressed at some length by St. Gregory of Nyssa in his sermon On the Baptism of Christ. In describing the effects of Christian Baptism he says:—

“The Spirit” “blesses the body which is baptised and the water which baptises. Wherefore despise not the sacred layer, nor count it cheap as a common thing, because of the use of the water. For that which operates is great, and the effects which it accomplishes are wonderful. Since also this holy altar at which we stand is in its nature common stone, nothing differing from the other blocks with which our walls are built and our floors adorned. But through being hallowed for the worship of God and receiving consecration it is a holy Table, a stainless altar, no longer to be touched by all but only by the priests, and that with reverence. The bread again is up to a certain point common bread; but when the mystery has consecrated it, it both is called and becomes the body of Christ. In like manner the mystic oil, in like manner the wine, being things of little worth before they are hallowed, after the consecration effected by the Spirit have each their distinctive operation. The same power of the word makes the priest also reverend and honourable, separated by his new consecration from the ordinary multitude. For, while yesterday and the day before he was one of the multitude and of the people, he is all at once rendered a guide, a ruler, a teacher of orthodoxy, a leader in hidden mysteries; and he does these things without any change in body or in form; but being in appearance what he was, by a certain invisible power and grace he is in his invisible soul transformed (μεταμορφωθείς) to what is better.”

A like comparison between the effects of the blessing of the water in Baptism and the result of the Eucharistic consecration appears to be implied in language about Baptism used by St. Cyril of Alexandria, if compared with statements about the Eucharist in the same father. Commenting on our Lord’s words to Nicodemus, “Except any one be begotten of water and the Spirit, he cannot enter into the kingdom of God,” St. Cyril says:—

“The spirit of man is sanctified by the Spirit, the body by the water which in its turn has already been sanctified. For as the water that is poured out in cauldrons receives the power that is derived from the fire, so the perceptible water through the activity of the Spirit is re-elemented (ἀναστοιχειοῦται) to a certain divine and mystic power, and hereafter sanctifies those to whom it comes.”

It is obvious that in themselves the parallel between the different rites and the whole conception of the heightened efficacy of the Eucharistic elements are capable of two interpretations. In themselves they might mean that in all cases alike the outward part is merely the instrument employed to effect a particular purpose, or that, while in all cases the outward part is the instrumental means whereby a spiritual purpose is effected, in the case of the Eucharist it is more than an instrument and itself contains or is identified with that which it is the means of bestowing. Though in the abstract either of these interpretations might be a tenable explanation of the conception, there are not wanting indications in the passages of St. Cyril of Jerusalem which have been quoted already that the latter is intended by this father, and it will be found in the subsequent course of this investigation that all the three writers from whom quotations have here been made use language elsewhere which shows that the parallel with the other rites was not meant by them to exhaust the truth about the Eucharist, but that they believed the elements not only to receive such a heightened efficacy as enables them to effect the reception of the spiritual food but also themselves to become the body and blood of Christ.

4. The passages which must be considered next are those in which the consecrated elements are identified with the body and blood of Christ. Such passages are found in writers of different types in both the East and the West. In some instances they are the work of those who use also phraseology which has already been referred to as of a more general character, or as describing the elements as “figures” or “symbols,” or as denoting the heightened efficacy of the elements. The following quotations supply the illustrations of the identification of the consecrated elements with the body and blood of Christ which appear to be more distinct and most characteristic.

Two fragments of a Sermon to the Baptized ascribed to St. Athanasius, quoted by Eutychius, who was Patriarch of Constantinople in the sixth century, in his Sermon on the Pasch and on the Most Holy Eucharist, are as follows:—

“You will see the Levites (that is, the deacons) bringing the bread and the cup of wine, and placing them on the Table. And so long as the supplications and prayers are not yet made, the bread and the cup are bare elements (ψιλός). But when the great and marvellous prayers are completed, then the bread becomes the body, and the cup the blood, of our Lord Jesus Christ.”

“Let us come to the consecration of the mysteries. This bread and this cup, so long as the prayers and supplications are not yet made, are bare elements (ψιλά). But when the great prayers and the holy supplications are sent up to God, the Word descends upon the bread and the cup, and they become His body.”

Very similar is the language used in the Prayers of Serapion of Thmuis, St. Athanasius’s contemporary and friend. In the Eucharistic Anaphora which these Prayers contain, after the allusions to the bread and the cup as the “likeness” of the body and blood of Christ, the following passage occurs:—

“O God of truth, let Thy Holy Word come upon this bread that the bread may become the body of the Word, and upon this cup that the cup may become the blood of the Truth.”

The following are among the explicit statements made by St. Cyril of Jerusalem in his Catechetical Lectures that the consecrated bread and wine are the body and blood of Christ.

“The bread and the wine of the Eucharist were simple (λιτός) bread and wine before the invocation of the holy and adorable Trinity; but when the invocation has taken place the bread becomes the body of Christ and the wine the blood of Christ.”

“The bread of the Eucharist after the invocation of the Holy Ghost is no longer simple (λιτός) bread but the bode of Christ.”

“Since then He declared and spake of the bread, ‘This is My body,’ who will dare to doubt any longer? And since He affirmed and said, ‘This is My blood,’ who will ever hesitate so as to say it is not His blood?”

“Regard the bread and the wine then not as bare elements (ψιλοῖς); for they are (τυγχάνει) the body and blood of Christ according to the declaration of the Lord.”

“We beseech the merciful God to send the Holy Ghost upon the oblations that He may make the bread the body of Christ and the wine the blood of Christ; for whatever the Holy Ghost has touched is surely consecrated and changed (ἡγίασται καὶ μεταβέβληται).”

In a letter to Amphilochius, the Bishop of Iconium, St. Gregory of Nazianzus uses the very remarkable expressions contained in the following sentence:—

“Be not negligent both to pray and to intercede for us, when by word you draw down the Word, when with bloodless cutting you sever the Lord’s body and blood, using your voice as your sword”.

St. Gregory of Nyssa deals with the Eucharist at some length in his Catechetical Oration. The possibility of Sacraments, he teaches, is shown by the truth of the Immanence of God. They carry on the principle of the Incarnation, and have their validity because of the guarantee afforded be the promise of God. Through Baptism and the Eucharist Christians possess union with God through Christ. In sacraments that is accomplished continuously and for individuals which was accomplished once for mankind in general by the Incarnation. Man is compounded of body and soul. It is therefore necessary that those who are to be in the way of salvation should lay hold of Christ by both body and soul. Hence arises the need of both faith and Sacraments. Human nature has been poisoned through the body; and therefore the antidote to the poison must be received through the body. This antidote can be nothing else than that body which has conquered death and is the first fruits of our life. The necessary entrance of the body of Christ into human bodies can only be by means of eating and drinking. This fact suggests the problem how it is

“possible for that one body, being continually (εἰς ἀεί) portioned to so many myriads of the faithful throughout the whole world, to become in its entirety the possession of each recipient through the portion received, and yet to remain whole in itself.”

In attempting to solve this problem St. Gregory of Nyssa, after showing that the life of the human body is preserved by means of the food and drink which are consumed and digested and assimilated and thereby become the body and blood of the persons who eat and drink them, points out that this process of nourishment took place in our Lord’s earthly life, and that the change which is effected in the Eucharist is parallel to that in the preservation of His manhood by means of food.

“The body which was the body of God by receiving the nourishment of bread was in a certain manner (λόγῳ τινι) the same as it, the nourishment, as has been said, being changed into the nature of the body. For that which is characteristic of all was acknowledged also in the case of that flesh, namely, that that body too was maintained by bread. Moreover, that body by the indwelling of God the Word was transmade (μετεποιήθη) to the dignity of Godhead. Rightly, then, do we believe that now also the bread which is consecrated by the word of God is transmade (μεταποιεῖσθαι) into the body of God the Word.… In this case the bread, as says the Apostle, is consecrated by means of the word of God and prayer; not that it advances by the process of eating into becoming the body of the Word, but it is at once transmade (μεταποιούμενος) into the body by means of the word, as the Word said, ‘This is My body’.… In the dispensation of grace He plants Himself in all the faithful by means of that flesh composed of wine and bread, blending Himself with the bodies of the faithful, so that man also may become partaker of incorruption by the union with the immortal. He bestows these gifts as He transelements (μεταστοιχειώσας) the nature of the visible things to that immortal thing by virtue of the consecration.”

It will be necessary to recur to this passage later on; it is quoted now as showing St. Gregory of Nyssa’s belief that the consecrated elements are the body and blood of Christ, and his defence of his belief on the grounds of analogy with natural processes and harmony with the principle of the Incarnation.

Teaching greatly resembling the characteristic thought of St. Gregory of Nyssa occurs in Macarius Magnes. In the Dialogue, which represents a discussion between a heathen opponent and a Christian, the heathen is depicted as taking exception to the Eucharist. The command to eat the flesh of the Son of Man and drink His blood as a condition of life is said to be unreasonable and savage; and it is maintained that even if the words have some allegorical and mystic meaning the impression created by them is still injurious to the soul. To this objection a lengthy reply is given. A new-born babe, it is said, must die unless he eats the flesh and drinks the blood of his mother, since his food is the mother’s blood which a physical process has converted into milk. If, then, the infant thus eats the flesh and drinks the blood of his mother, it is not unreasonable that Christ should command those to whom He gave authority to become the children of God to eat His flesh and drink His blood, to eat the mystic flesh and drink the mystic blood of her who bare them. For the Wisdom of God brought forth children and fed them from the two breasts of the two covenants and gave them her own flesh and blood and bestowed on them immortality; and this Wisdom of God is Christ. Men are made from the earth, and in corn and wine and other food they after a fashion eat the flesh and drink the blood of the earth. From the earth they are nourished, and the earth does not sustain loss or injury through giving them nourishment. The only begotten Son created the earth in the beginning, and in the Incarnation He took from the earth His body. The bread and the wine are not figures of Christ’s body and blood but really His body and blood, since the source of His body and the source of bread and wine is the earth. The words of Christ would have been untrue if they had been spoken by Abraham or any other than Christ Himself.

“Common bread that is grown in the earth, even though it is the flesh of the earth, is not declared to have eternal life, but it bestows on those who eat it only a short-lived benefit, since without the divine Spirit its force is quickly quenched. But the bread that is grown in the blessed earth of Christ, being united to the power of the Holy Ghost, by the mere taste gives immortality to man. For the mystic bread, having received the inseparable invocation of the Saviour—the invocation that is on His body and blood—unites him who eats to the body of Christ and makes him the limbs of the Saviour. For as the writing-tablet receives power through the letters which the teacher writes on it and gives this power to the scholar, and by means of it uplifts and unites him to the teacher, so the body, which is the bread, and the blood, which is the wine, receiving the immortality of the unstained deity, give it from themselves to him who receives them, and by means of it restores him to the uncorruptible abiding of the Creator. Therefore the flesh of the Saviour when it is eaten is not destroyed, and this blood when it is drunk is not consumed, but he who eateth attains to an increase of divine powers, and that which is eaten remains unspent, since it is kindred to and inseparable from the inexhaustible nature.”

In the writings of St. Chrysostom, besides abundant allusions to the participation in Christ which is gained by Communion, there are more explicit statements. He speaks with sympathy and belief of the vision of which he had heard of angels “surrounding the altar and bowing down, as one might see soldiers standing in the presence of a king”. The body and blood of Christ are, he says, received in the hands, and in the mouth; the tongue is touched by the flesh of Christ; the elements become the body and blood of Christ; the Lamb is on the Table; “that which is in the chalice is that which flowed from the side” of our Lord on the cross; and the identification of the bread and wine with the body and blood is implied in the passionate declaration:—

“I will surrender my own life rather than grant unworthily the reception of the blood of the Lord; I will shed my own blood rather than grant wrongly the reception of blood so awful.”

In the second book of the Apostolic Constitutions communicants are not only said to partake of “the body of the Lord and His precious blood,” but are also ordered to come up to the place of Communion “with reverence and devotion as approaching the body of a King”; in the eighth book the words of administration are given as “the body of Christ,” “the blood of Christ, the cup of life,” and communicants are said to partake of “the precious body and the precious blood of Christ”.

The teaching of St. Cyril of Alexandria about the Eucharist is closely connected with the truth of the one Person of the incarnate Son of God, with the defence of which his life is pre-eminently associated. In numberless passages he lays stress on the fact that the value of the Eucharist is derived from, and dependent on, the personal union between the divine and human natures of our Lord. The flesh that was taken by our Lord in the Incarnation and is received by communicants in the Eucharist has its life-giving properties because it is the flesh, not of some man however holy or in however close communion with God, but of the Person of God the Word. An instance of teaching of this kind which occurs in the third letter to Nestorius is of some special interest, since the letter which contains it received a general assent from the Œcumenical Council of Ephesus in 431. The passage is as follows:—

“Proclaiming the death according to the flesh of the only begotten Son of God, that is, Jesus Christ, and confessing His resurrection from the dead and ascent into heaven, we celebrate the bloodless sacrifice in our churches; and thus we approach the mystic blessings, and are sanctified by partaking of the holy flesh and the precious blood of Christ the Saviour of us all. And we receive it, not as common flesh (God forbid), nor as the flesh of a man sanctified and associated with the Word according to the unity of merit, or as having a divine indwelling, but as really the life-giving and very flesh of the Word Himself.”

Besides reiterated statements to this effect there are passages in which St. Cyril identifies the consecrated elements with the body and blood of Christ.

“It was needful for Him, then, to be in us through the Holy Ghost after a divine fashion; and to be as it were mingled with our bodies through His holy flesh and His precious blood, which verily we also had for a life-giving blessing, as in bread and wine. For in order that we should not be paralysed with horror, by seeing flesh and blood set out on the holy Tables of the churches, God condescends to our infirmities and sends the power of life into the elements and transfers (μεθίστησιν) them into the efficacy (ἐνεργεία) of His own flesh, that we may have them for life-giving reception, and that the body of life may be found in us a life-giving seed. And doubt not that this is true, since He says clearly, ‘This is My body,’ and ‘This is My blood’; but rather receive in faith the word of the Saviour; for He is the Truth and does not lie.”

“If then it is the body of God which is given, here is true God, Christ the Lord, and not bare (ψιλός) man, or an angel, as they say, ministering, or one of the created spirits. And if the drink is the blood of God, then it is not simply God, one of the adorable Trinity, the Son of God, but God the Word incarnate. But if the food were the body of Christ, and the drink the blood of Christ, and according to their view bare (ψιλός) man, how is it proclaimed as a means of eternal life to those who approach the holy Table? How, if they were right, could it dwell here and everywhere and not be diminished? For bare (ψιλόν) body is never a fount of life to those who receive it.”

Each of these passages appear to connect the presence and gift of the flesh and blood of the one Person of God the Son with the consecrated elements. That this was St. Cyril’s belief is confirmed by the terms in which he alludes to the reserved Sacrament in his letter to Calosyrius, the Bishop of Arsinoe.

“I hear they say that the sacramental consecration does not avail for hallowing if a portion of it be kept to another day. In saying so they are mad. For Christ is not altered, nor will His hold body be changed; but the power of the consecration and the life-giving grace still remain in it.”

The Letters of Isidore of Pelusium contain references to the effect of Communion as the incorporation of the communicant with Christ, and to the consecrated elements as the body and blood of Christ.

As illustrations of the identification of the elements with the body and blood of Christ in the West during this period it may be sufficient to quote from the writing of St. Hilary of Poitiers, St. Optatus, St. Ambrose, the author of the book On the Sacraments which has sometimes been ascribed to St. Ambrose, and St. Augustine.

The works of St. Hilary of Poitiers contain incidental references which imply that the consecrated elements are the body and blood of Christ. In his description of the outrages at Toulouse during the Arian persecution in 356, after mentioning the ill-treatment of the presbyters and deacons, he says:—

“And on Himself, as holy persons understand with me, on Christ Himself hands were laid,”

apparently alluding to the insults offered to the holy Sacrament as an Arian means of denying the validity of Catholic ministrations. In the version of the letter of the Eusebian bishops at Philippopolis in 343 which St. Hilary preserves a like outrage alleged to have been perpetrated on Arians by Marcellus of Ancyra is described.

“As must be told with tears and mourning, he openly and publicly profaned the consecrated body of the Lord hung on the necks of the priests.”

In one passage in his treatise On the Trinity St. Hilary deals with the subject of the Eucharist at some length. He there defends the doctrine that the union of Christians with God and the unity of Christians with one another is accomplished and maintained in nature not in will. As an illustration of this doctrine he refers to Baptism, observing that St. Paul shows that “the unity of the faithful” is derived from “the nature of the Sacraments,” so that the unity of Christians “in Christ Jesus” arises from “the unity of the Sacrament” not from “an agreement of will”. He gives a further illustration of the same doctrine from the Eucharist.

“If in truth the Word has been made flesh, and if we in truth receive the Word made flesh in the food of the Lord, must we not believe that He abides in us naturally? For He, born as Man, has assumed the nature of our flesh now inseparable from Himself, and has joined the nature of the flesh that is thus His own to the nature of the eternal Godhead (æternitatis) in order that in the Sacrament (sub sacramento) that flesh may be communicated to us. For so are we all one, because the Father is in Christ, and Christ is in us.… If in truth then Christ has taken the flesh of our body, and if in truth that Man who was born of Mary is Christ, and if in truth we receive in the mystery (sub mysterio) the flesh of His body—and in this way we shall be one, because the Father is in Him, and He is in us—how is it possible to assert that this is a unity of will, seeing that the special property of nature received through the Sacrament is the Sacrament of a complete unity?… Concerning the verity of the flesh and blood there is no room left for doubt. For now it is shown both by the declaration of the Lord Himself and by our faith that in truth it is flesh and in truth it is blood. And these when eaten and drunk bring it to pass that both we are in Christ and Christ is in us.… Therefore He Himself is in us by means of His flesh, and we are in Him, while our own nature (hoc quod nos sumus) is with Him in God.… We have Christ dwelling in our fleshly nature (in nobis carnalibus) by means of His flesh, and we shall live through Him in the same manner as He lives through the Father.… We live through Him according to the flesh, that is, having partaken of the nature of His flesh.… The mystery of the real and natural unity is to be preached in the light of the glory of the Son bestowed on us, and of the Son dwelling in us by His flesh (carnaliter), while we are united in Him bodily (corporaliter) and inseparably.”

St. Optatus of Milevis, in describing the outrages of the Donatists against the Catholics, speaks of those who “commanded the Eucharist to be thrown to dogs” as “guilty of the holy body”; compares the perpetrators of these outrages with the Jews at the crucifixion of our Lord, since “the Jews laid hands on Christ on the cross, by you He was smitten on the altar”; and calls the altar “the abode of the body and blood of Christ,” and the place “where the body of Christ dwelt”.

The treatise of St. Ambrose On the Mysteries contains a careful statement and defence of the doctrine that the Eucharistic bread and wine are the body and blood of Christ. After an explanation of Baptism and Confirmation he describes how “the cleansed people, rich with these adornments, hastens to the altar of Christ,” and so goes on to speak of the Eucharist. The Sacraments of the Church, he says, are more ancient than those of the synagogue and more excellent than the manna with which the Jews were fed in the wilderness. They are more ancient than those of the synagogue because they were foreshadowed by the sacrifice of Melchizedek, who was a type of Christ. They are more excellent than the manna because those who ate of the manna died in the wilderness, while “whosoever shall eat of this bread,” “the bread that came down from heaven,” “shall never die,” “and it is the body of Christ”. Moreover this food is “in reality” (in veritate), while the manna and the water from the rock were “in a shadow” (in umbra); and “light is better than the shadow, the reality than the figure, the body of its Giver (auctoris) than the manna from heaven”. At this point St. Ambrose supposes that an inquiry is made how the Sacrament can be the body of Christ; and he proceeds to explain how the Sacrament “is not what nature made but what the blessing consecrated,” and that “the nature itself is changed by the blessing,” by several illustrations. The rod of Moses became a serpent. The streams of Egypt were made blood. The Red Sea was divided, and the Jordan was turned back, so that “the nature of the waves of the sea and of the river stream was changed”. Water flowed from the rock. The bitter water was made sweet. The axe-head floated.

“We observe then that grace has more power than nature; and yet so far it has been the grace of the blessing of a prophet only of which we have made mention. If the blessing of a man had so great power that he could change nature, what are we to say of that consecration of God wherein the very words of our Lord and Saviour are instrumental? For that Sacrament which you receive is made by the word of Christ. If the word of Elijah had so great power that it brought down fire from heaven, shall not the word of Christ have power to change the nature (species) of the elements? You have read concerning the making of the whole world, ‘He spake, and they were made; He commanded, and they were created’. Shall not the word of Christ, which was able to make out of nothing that which was not, be able to change things which are into that which they were not? For it is not less to give new natures to things than to change their natures.… Was the ordinary course of nature preserved when the Lord Jesus was born of Mary? If we look for what usually happens, it is the wont of a woman to conceive when she has had intercourse with a man. Certainly then for a virgin to conceive was outside the ordinary way of nature. And this body which we make is that which was born of a virgin. Why do you look for the usual course of nature in the body of Christ, when the Lord Jesus Himself was born of a virgin and not according to nature? In very deed it is the true flesh of Christ, which was crucified and buried. In truth then the Sacrament is of His flesh. The Lord Jesus Himself proclaims, ‘This is My body’. Before the blessing of the heavenly words another nature (species) is named; after the consecration the body is denoted (significatur), He Himself speaks of His blood. Before the consecration it is called by another name; after the consecration it is named blood. And you say, Amen, that is, It is true.”

While there is much in the arguments of St. Ambrose which is in harmony with those used by St. Gregory of Nyssa, St. Gregory of Nyssa lays great stress on the analogy with the processes of nature, while with St. Ambrose the chief emphasis is on the Eucharistic consecration as a supernatural reality which transcends nature.

The belief shown by the treatise On the Sacraments differs little, if at all, from that of St. Ambrose himself. There is a like assertion of the greater antiquity and excellence of the Christian Sacraments as compared with the rites of the Jews and the gifts to the Jewish people, a like comparison with the miracles of the Old Testament, a like emphasis on our Lord’s birth from a virgin, and a like distinction between the nature of the elements before consecration and after it. On this last point the writer says:—

“This bread is bread before the sacramental words; when the consecration has taken place, from being bread it becomes the flesh of Christ. Let us then declare this. How can that which is bread be the body of Christ? By consecration. But by what words is the consecration effected, and who is He that spoke them? For everything else which is said before is spoken by the priest, prayer is offered to God, prayer is made for the people, for kings, for all others; but when the time comes for the making of the venerable Sacrament, the priest no longer uses his own words, but he uses the words of Christ. Therefore the word of Christ makes this Sacrament. What is the word of Christ? Assuredly that by which all things were made. The Lord commanded, and the heaven was made; the Lord commanded, and the earth was made; the Lord commanded, and the seas were made. The Lord commanded, and every creature was created. You see how powerful the word of Christ is. If then there is so great force in the word of the Lord Jesus that those things which were not should begin to be, how much more does it bring to pass that those things which were shall be and shall also be changed into something else. The heaven was not, the sea was not, the earth was not; but hear the words of David, ‘He spake and they were made; He commanded, and they were created’. Therefore that I may give you an answer, before consecration it was not the body of Christ; but after consecration I tell you that it is now the body of Christ. He spake and it was made; He commanded and it was created. You were yourself, but you were an old creature; after you were consecrated, you began to be a new creature. Do you wish to know how a new creature? ‘Every one,’ says Scripture, ‘in Christ is a new creature.’ … You have learnt that from bread the body of Christ comes to be, and that wine and water are placed in the cup but become blood by the consecration of the heavenly Word. But perhaps you say, I do not see the nature of blood. Yet it has likeness; for as you have received the likeness of the death, so also you drink the likeness of the precious blood, so that there may be no horror at gore, and that none the less the price of redemption may accomplish its work. You have learnt then that what you receive is the body of Christ.”

As in other matters which the profound and versatile mind of St. Augustine considered, so in regard to the Eucharist different lines of thought are found in his writings. Among them is the identification of the elements with the body and blood of Christ. In this connection notice must be taken of the passages in which he maintains that at the institution of the Sacrament our Lord held Himself in His own hands; that the bread becomes the body of Christ by receiving the blessing of Christ; that the instruction and experience of children in regard to the Eucharist, apart from other knowledge, would naturally lead to their supposing that Christ manifested Himself in His incarnate life as bread and wine; and that the gift received by worthy and unworthy communicants is the same, though with different effects.

In his Enarrations on the Thirty-third Psalm the mystical exposition of the words, “He changed his behaviour before Abimelech, who drove him away, and he departed,” leads St. Augustine to say of our Lord:—

“Christ was carried in His hands, when in giving His own body He said, ‘This is My body’. For He carried that body in His hands.”

“When He gave His own body and His own blood, He took in His hands what the faithful know; and in a certain manner (quodam modo) He carried Himself, when He said, ‘This is My body’.”

Elsewhere he says:—

“Not all bread, but that bread which receives the blessing of Christ, becomes the body of Christ.”

In a remarkable passage in the treatise On the Trinity he writes as follows in reference to the theophanies and types of the Old Testament:—

“What man knows how angels made or assumed those clouds and fires to signify what they announced, even if the Lord or the Holy Ghost was manifested in those bodily forms? As in the case of that which is placed on the altar and consumed at the end of the rite of Christian worship little children do not know whence or how it is made and whence it is taken for the use of religion. And if they never learnt by experience of their own or of others and never saw that outward sign (illam speciem rerum) except when it is offered and administered at the celebration of the Sacrament, and if they were taught on the weightiest authority whose body and blood it is, they would be sure to believe that the Lord appeared to the eyes of men in that form (specie) and that it was that liquid which flowed from such a smitten side.”

In one part of his teaching St. Augustine is emphatic that the identification of the elements with the body and blood of Christ is so complete that even the wicked recipients of the Sacrament receive Christ’s body and blood as really, though with different effects, as those who partake of the Sacrament worthily. Thus in his book On Baptism against the Donatists he says:—

“For as Judas, to whom the Lord gave the sop, allowed place in himself to the devil not by receiving what was evil but by receiving in an evil way, so one who receives the Sacrament of the Lord unworthily does not bring about that it is evil because he is evil or that he has received nothing because he has not received to salvation. For it is the body and blood of the Lord no less in the case of those of whom the Apostle said, ‘Who eats unworthily eats and drinks judgment to himself’.”

Similarly in one of his Sermons he insists that it is possible to “eat the very flesh” and “drink the very blood” of Christ in such a way as to “eat and drink judgment,” and that there are two ways of “eating that flesh and drinking that blood,” one of which leads to the recipient abiding in Christ and Christ in him, the other of which leads to judgment.

It will be convenient to associate with this teaching two statements, one of which appears to add some qualification and the other of which closely resembles passages already quoted from St. Gregory of Nyssa and Macarius Magnes. With the words already quoted on the action of our Lord at the institution of the Sacrament in carrying Himself in His own hands “in a certain manner” may be compared a phrase in one of St. Augustine’s Epistles, where he says:—

“If the Sacraments had not any likeness to those things of which they are Sacraments, they would not be Sacraments at all. And from this likeness for the most part also they receive the names of the things themselves. As then after a certain fashion (secundum quemdam modum) the Sacrament of the body of Christ is the body of Christ, and the Sacrament of the blood of Christ is the blood of Christ, so the Sacrament of faith is faith.”

In an earlier passage than those already quoted from the Enarrations on the Thirty-third Psalm, St. Augustine uses the comparison between a mother feeding her child with her own body and the feeding of the children of God with the body and blood of Christ. He there says that our Lord has willed our salvation to be in His body and blood, and that His humility has made it possible for us to eat and drink these. The food which the mother eats becomes fit food for her infant child by means of the process of passing through her flesh. In like manner the Wisdom of God feeds Christians; and the Incarnation and the Passion have made possible the gift to them of the flesh and blood of the Lord.

5. The next step in the consideration of the Eucharistic theology of the fourth and fifth centuries is to observe instances of the connection of a particular moment in the rite with the consecration of the elements.

In the Liturgical Prayers of Serapion of Thmuis the recital of our Lord’s words at the institution of the Sacrament appears as an historical narrative, and is followed by the prayer for the descent of the Word on the elements, so that they may become “the body of the Word” and “the blood of the Truth”. Here then the invocation of the Word is regarded as the crucial moment in the consecration. The connection between the descent of the Word and the elements becoming His body in a sermon by St. Athanasius, coupled with this prayer of Serapion, makes it likely that this was an Egyptian characteristic of the middle of the fourth century.

In two passages in the Catechetical Lectures of St. Cyril of Jerusalem the consecration is connected with the invocation of the Holy Ghost. A like connection is found in the writings of St. Chrysostom and of Theophilus of Alexandria. In his Homily on the Burial-ground and the Cross, preached at Antioch about 392, when exhorting to reverence, St. Chrysostom says:—

“When the priest stands before the Table, holding up his hands to heaven, and calling on the Holy Ghost to come and touch the elements, there is great quiet, great silence. When the Spirit gives His grace, when He descends, when He touches the elements, when you see the Sheep sacrificed and consummated, do you then cause tumult or turmoil or strife or abuse?”

In St. Jerome’s Latin version of the Second Paschal Letter of Theophilus of Alexandria the work of the Holy Ghost is thus referred to:—

“He says that the Holy Ghost does not operate in those things which are lifeless, and does not come to what is without reason. In so contending he does not recognise that in Baptism the mystic waters are hallowed by the coming of the Holy Ghost; and that the bread of the Lord, by which the body of the Saviour is shown and which we break for our sanctification, and the sacred cup, which are placed on the Table of the Church and are lifeless, are sanctified by the invocation and coming of the Holy Ghost.”

In one passage in the Catechetical Lectures of St. Cyril of Jerusalem the consecration is connected with the invocation of the Holy Trinity.

In the eighth book of the Apostolic Constitutions the consecrating prayer is given as follows:—

“In the night that He was betrayed He took bread in His holy and blameless hands, and, looking up to Thee, His God and Father, He brake it, and gave it to His disciples, saying, This is the mystery of the new covenant, take of it, eat, this is My body which is broken for many for the remission of sins. Likewise also, having mixed the cup with wine and water, and having consecrated it, He gave it to them, saying, Drink ye all of it, this is My blood which is poured out for many for the remission of sins; do this for My memorial; for as often as ye eat this bread and drink this cup, ye proclaim My death until I come. Mindful therefore of His passion and death and resurrection from the dead and ascent into heaven and His future second coming, in which He is to come with glory and power to judge the living and the dead and to render to each one according to His works, we offer to Thee, our King and God, according to His ordinance this bread and this cup, giving thanks to Thee through Him in that Thou hast counted us worthy to stand before Thee and to do priestly service to Thee; and we beseech Thee propitiously to look on these gifts which are set before Thee, O God who needest nothing, and to be well pleased with them for the honour of Thy Christ, and to send down on this sacrifice Thy Holy Ghost, the Witness of the sufferings of the Lord Jesus, that He may make (ἀποφήνῃ) this bread the body of Thy Christ, and this cup the blood of Thy Christ, that those who partake thereof may be strengthened in piety, may obtain remission of sins, may be delivered from the devil and his craft, may be filled with the Holy Ghost, may be made worthy of Thy Christ, and may obtain eternal life through Thy reconciliation to them, O Lord Almighty.”

A different way of regarding the consecration is found in St. Ambrose and in the writer of the treatise On the Sacraments. The crucial moment is here represented as being in the recitation of our Lord’s words at the institution of the Sacrament. In St. Ambrose’s work On the Mysteries the consecration is more than once referred to as being effected by these words; and elsewhere he says that the word of Christ consecrates the Eucharist. In the treatise On the Sacraments the writer refers several times in general terms to the consecration being the work of the word of Christ; and afterwards writes as follows on this subject:—

“Do you wish to know that the Sacrament is consecrated by the heavenly words? Receive what the words are. The priest says, Make this oblation to us approved, ratified, reasonable, acceptable, because it is the figure of the body and blood of our Lord Jesus Christ. Who on the day before He suffered took bread in His holy hands, and looked up to heaven to Thee, hold Father, Almighty, Eternal God, and gave thanks, and brake, and gave that which was broken to His Apostles and His disciples, saying, ‘Take and eat ye all of this; for this is My body, which will be broken for many’. In like manner also after supper on the day before He suffered He took the cup, and looked up to heaven to Thee, holy Father, Almighty, Eternal God, and gave thanks, and blessed, and gave to His Apostles and His disciples, saying, ‘Take and drink ye all of this; for this is My blood’. Behold all this. The words of the Evangelist go as far as ‘Take’ both in the case of the body and in the case of the blood. Thus the words of Christ are, ‘Take and drink ye all of this; for this is My blood’. And mark the separate words. ‘Who on the day before He suffered took bread in His holy hands.’ Before it is consecrated it is bread; but when the words of Christ have been added it is the body of Christ. Again, hear Him saying, ‘Take and eat ye all of it; for this is My body’. Before the words of Christ the cup is full of wine and water; when the words of Christ have operated there is made (efficitur) the blood of Christ, which redeemed the people.”

And in a Homily preached at Antioch about 395, St. Chrysostom, who elsewhere refers to the consecration as effected by the descent of the Holy Ghost, speaks of Christ as the consecrator and of the words of institution as the means of consecration.

Thus, there is evidence of different customs from different quarters. In Italy in the fourth century the consecration was associated with the recitation of our Lord’s words at the institution of the Sacrament. In Egypt the invocation of the Word, and later the invocation of the Holy Ghost, was regarded as the distinctive act of consecration. In Syria, most of the evidence connects the consecration with the invocation of the Holy Ghost, but one passage in St. Cyril of Jerusalem refers it to the invocation of the Holy Trinity, and one passage in St. Chrysostom to the words of institution.

The prayer of consecration in the Syrian or Cilician document The Testament of our Lord has important characteristics; and part of it may for that reason be cited here. It is to be noticed that what corresponds to the invocation is addressed to the Holy Trinity, and expresses the prayer that the elements may be beneficial to the communicants without any explicit request for their transformation into the body and blood of Christ. After the recital of the words of institution and the commemoration of our Lord’s death and resurrection, the bishop is directed to say:—

“We offer to Thee this thanksgiving, Eternal Trinity, O Lord Jesus Christ, O Lord the Father before whom all creation and every nature trembleth fleeing into itself, O Lord the Holy Ghost; we have brought this drink and this food of Thy Holiness; cause that it be to us not for condemnation, not for reproach, not for destruction, but for the medicine and support of our spirit. Yea, O God, grant us that by Thy name every thought of things displeasing to Thee may flee away.… Feed the people in uprightness; sanctify us all, O God; but grant that all who partake and receive of Thy holy things may be made one with Thee, so that they may be filled with the Holy Ghost, for the confirmation of the faith in truth.”

6. There are many examples of teaching that the presence and gift are of a spiritual character. Instances may be given from the writings of Eusebius of Cæsarea, St. Athanasius, St. Cyril of Jerusalem, St. Chrysostom, St. Ambrose, and St. Augustine.

In his book On the Theology of the Church, Eusebius quotes from Marcellus of Ancyra an argument based on our Lord’s words, “The flesh profiteth nothing,” to the effect that since the flesh is profitless it is unreasonable to suppose that the Word permanently preserves His union with it. In refutation of this argument Eusebius writes:—

“But do you, receiving the Scriptures of the Gospels, perceive the whole teaching of our Saviour, that He did not speak concerning the flesh which He had taken but concerning His mystic body and blood. For when He had sustained the multitudes with the five loaves, and in this had shown a great wonder to those who beheld it, very many of the Jews despised what was done and said to Him, ‘What then doest thou for a sign, that we may see, and believe?’ and then mentioned the manna which was in the wilderness, saying, ‘Our fathers ate the manna in the wilderness, as it is written, He gave them bread out of heaven to eat’. To this the Saviour answered, ‘It was not Moses that gave you the bread out of heaven; but My Father giveth you the true bread out of heaven’. Then He adds, ‘I am the bread of life,’ and again, ‘I am the bread which came down out of heaven,’ and again, ‘The bread which I will give is My body (σῶμα),’ and He adds again, ‘Verily, verily, I say unto you, Except ye eat the flesh of the Son of man and drink His blood, ye have not life in yourselves. He that eateth My flesh and drinketh My blood hath eternal life; and I will raise him up at the last day. For My flesh is true food, and My blood is true drink. He that eateth My flesh and drinketh My blood abideth in Me and I in him.’ When He had discussed these and such things more mystically, some of His disciples said, ‘The saying is hard; who can hear it?’ The Saviour answered them, saying, ‘Doth this cause you to stumble? What then if ye should behold the Son of man ascending where He was before? The Spirit is the life-giver; the flesh profiteth nothing; the words that I have spoken unto you are spirit, and are life.’ In this way He instructed them to understand spiritually (πνευματικῶς) the words which He had spoken concerning His flesh and His blood; for, He says, you must not consider Me to speak of the flesh with which I am clothed (ἣν περίκειμαι), as if you were to eat that, nor suppose that I command you to drink perceptible and corporal (σωματικόν) blood; but know well that ‘the words that I have spoken unto you are spirit, and are life,’ so that the words themselves and the discourses themselves are the flesh and the blood, of which he who always partakes, as one fed on heavenly bread, will be a partaker of heavenly life. Therefore, He says, let not this cause you to stumble which I have spoken concerning the eating of My flesh and concerning the drinking of My blood; nor let the offhand (πρόχειρος) hearing of what I have said about flesh and blood disturb you; for these things ‘profit nothing’ if they are understood according to sense (αἰσθητῶς); but the Spirit is the life-giver to those who are able to understand spiritually (πνευματικῶς).”

In one of the Epistles to Serapion by St. Athanasius there is an important passage on the spiritual meaning of our Lord’s words. St. Athanasius is discussing “the blasphemy against the Holy Ghost,” and in commenting on the distinction between speaking against the Son of man and speaking against the Holy Ghost explains that “the Son of man” denotes our Lord’s human nature, and that “the Holy Spirit” denotes His divine Person. To illustrate this interpretation he refers to the words, “What then if ye should see the Son of man ascending where He was before? The Spirit is the life-giver”; and proceeds to explain the meaning of our Lord’s discourse at Capernaum as being that the flesh manifested in His earthly life is to be given as food to each Christian, that the gift of it is to be in a heavenly and spiritual manner, and that the purpose of the gift is to preserve unto eternal life.

“Here also He has used both terms about Himself, namely flesh and spirit; and He distinguished the spirit from what relates to the flesh in order that they might believe not only in what was visible in Him but also in what was invisible, and might thereby learn that what He says is not fleshly but spiritual. For how many would the body suffice for eating, that it should become the food of the whole world? But for this reason He made mention of the ascension of the Son of man into heaven, in order that He might draw them away from the bodily notion, and that from henceforth they might learn that the aforesaid flesh was heavenly eating from above and spiritual food given by Him. For, He says, what I have spoken unto you is spirit and life, as much as to say, That which is manifested, and is given for the salvation of the world, is the flesh which I wear. But this and its blood shall be given to you by Me spiritually as food, so that this may be imparted (ἀναδίδοσθαι) spiritually to each one, and may become to all a preservative for resurrection to eternal life.”

So also in one of his Festal Epistles St. Athanasius emphasises the need of faith, saying:—

“Let us mortify our members which are on the earth, and be nourished with living bread—by faith and love to God—knowing that without faith it is impossible to be partakers of such bread as this.”

With this teaching of St. Athanasius it is well to compare some sentences in the Catechetical Lectures of St. Cyril of Jerusalem which indicate that the gift is of a spiritual kind affecting the whole nature of the recipients.

“Christ in discussion with the Jews said, ‘Except ye eat My flesh and drink My blood, ye have not life in yourselves’. They not having understood His words spiritually were offended and went back, supposing that He was urging them to eat flesh. In the old covenant also there was the shew-bread; but this as belonging to the old covenant has come to an end. But in the new covenant there is heavenly bread and a cup of salvation, sanctifying soul and body. For as the bread corresponds to the body, so also the Word is appropriate to the soul.”

“ ‘Give us this day our substantial (ἐπιούσιον) bread.’ This common bread is not substantial (ἐπιούσιος), but this holy bread is substantial (ἐπιούσιος), that is, appointed for the substance (οὐσία) of the soul. For this bread does not go into the belly, and is not cast out into the draught; but it is imparted (ἀναδίδοται) to your whole system (σύστασιν) for the benefit of body and soul.”

A like thought as to the spiritual character of the presence and gift occurs in a passage of St. Chrysostom where he is emphasising to the full the wonder and sanctity of the Sacrament. In one of the Homilies on St. Matthew he says:—

“How much purer than the rays of the sun ought to be the hand which divides this flesh, the mouth that is filled with spiritual fire, the tongue that is reddened with most awful blood.”

St. Ambrose also joins to the strong assertions in his book On the Mysteries that the bread and wine become at the consecration the body and blood of Christ a reference to the spiritual character of the Eucharistic food.

“In that Sacrament is Christ, because it is the body of Christ. Therefore it is not bodily food, but spiritual. Whence also the Apostle says of the type of it, ‘Our fathers ate spiritual food and drank spiritual drink’. For the body of God is a spiritual body; the body of Christ is the body of the divine Spirit, because the Spirit is Christ.”

There are elements in the teaching of St. Augustine which need notice in the same connection. In one of his Sermons, while commenting on the discourse at Capernaum, he mentions the difficulty felt by some of the disciples, and says:—

“What then does He answer? ‘Does this make you stumble? What then if ye shall see the Son of man ascending where He was before?’ What does He mean by ‘Does this make you stumble?’ Do you think that of this body of Mine which ye see I shall make pieces, and cut up My limbs, and give them to you? What does He mean by ‘If then ye shall see the Son of man ascending where He was before?’ Certainly He who could ascend whole could not be consumed. Therefore He both gave to us healthful nourishment from His body and blood and in a few words solved so great a question about His wholeness. Therefore let those eat who eat, and let those drink who drink; let them be hungry and thirsty; let them eat life, let them drink life. To eat this is to be nourished; but so are you nourished that the source of your nourishment does not fail. To drink this, what is it but to live? Eat life, drink life; you will have life, and yet the life is whole. Then this will happen, that is, the body and blood of Christ will be life to each one, if what is visibly received in the Sacrament is spiritually eaten and spiritually drunk in very truth.”

There is a longer exposition of the same discourse in St. Augustine’s Treatise on the Gospel of St. John, where the ideas of feeding on Christ by faith and the need of spiritual union with Christ if sacramental communion is to be profitable cross and recross the conception of the Eucharist as the body and blood of Christ.

“ ‘Jesus answered and said unto them, This is the work of God, that ye believe on Him whom He hath sent.’ This then is to eat the food which does not perish but ‘abideth unto eternal life’. Why do you prepare teeth and stomach? Believe and you have eaten.”

“The Lord said that He is the bread which cometh down from heaven, exhorting us to believe in Him. For to believe in Him is to eat the living bread. He who believes eats; he is invisibly fed because he is invisibly reborn.”

“We to-day receive visible food; but the Sacrament is one thing, the virtue of the Sacrament is another. How many there are who receive from the altar and die, who die through receiving. Whence the Apostle says, ‘He eateth and drinketh judgment unto himself’. For the sop of the Lord was not poison when given to Judas. And yet he received it, and when he received it the enemy entered into him; not because he received what was evil but because being evil he received in an evil way that which was good. Take heed then brethren, eat the heavenly bread spiritually, bring innocence to the altar.”

“ ‘This is the bread which cometh down from heaven, that a man may eat thereof and not die.’ Yes, but he who eats that which pertains to the virtue of the Sacrament, not that which pertains to the visible Sacrament; who eats within, not without; who eats in the heart, not he who presses with the teeth.”

“ ‘He that eateth My flesh and drinketh My blood hath eternal life.’ He then has it not who does not eat that bread or drink that blood; for men can have the life of time without this, but eternal life they certainly cannot have. He then who does not eat His flesh and drink His blood has not life in Himself; and he who eats His flesh and drinks His blood has life. And in each case the word which He used ‘eternal’ applies. It is not so with this food which we receive for the purpose of sustaining this life of ours in time. For he who shall not have received it will not live; but it does not follow that he who shall have received it will live. For it can come to pass that very many who have received it die from old age or disease or some accident. But in the case of this food and drink, that is, the body and blood of the Lord, it is not so. For both he who receives it not has not life, and he who receives it has life, and that too eternal. And so He wishes this food and drink to be understood to mean the participation (societatem) of His body and His members, because the Holy Church is in His saints and faithful ones who are predestined and called and justified and glorified. Of which the first has already taken place, that is, the predestination; the second and third have taken place and are doing so and will do so, that is, the calling and justifying; the fourth now exists in hope but has yet to be in fact, that is, the glorifying. The Sacrament of this thing, that is, of the unity of the body and blood of Christ, in some places daily, in other places on certain selected days, is made ready on the Table of the Lord, and is received from the Table of the Lord, by some to life, by others to destruction; but the thing itself, of which this is the Sacrament, is to every man to life, to none to destruction, whoever shall have been partaker of it.”

“He explains how it is that what He speaks of happens, and the meaning of eating His body and drinking His blood. ‘He that eateth My flesh and drinketh My blood abideth in Me, and I in Him.’ This then is to eat that food and to drink that drink, to abide in Christ, and to have Him abiding in oneself. And in this way he who does not abide in Christ, and in whom Christ does not abide, without doubt neither eats His flesh nor drinks His blood, but rather to His own judgment eats and drinks the Sacrament of so great a thing.”

“What is the meaning of ‘The flesh profiteth nothing’? It is true that the flesh profiteth nothing, but only when the flesh is understood as they understood it; for they regarded the flesh as it is cut up in a corpse or sold in the market, not as it is given life by the Spirit.… ‘The flesh profiteth nothing,’ but that is the flesh alone; let the Spirit be added to the flesh, … and it profiteth much.… As they understood the flesh, not so do I give My flesh to be eaten.”

“All this which the Lord spake about His body and His blood, and His promise of eternal life to us in the grace of the administration of it; and that He willed the eaters and drinkers of His flesh and blood to be understood in this way, that they should abide in Him and He in them; and that those who did not believe did not understand; and that they were caused to stumble through interpreting spiritual things in a carnal sense; and that when they were caused to stumble and were perishing the Lord allowed consolation to the disciples who had remained, whom He asked for the purpose of proving them, ‘Would ye also go away?’ so that the answer that they would remain might be known to us; for He knew that they would remain;—all this should have the effect on us, dearly beloved, that we should not eat the flesh of Christ and the blood of Christ only in the Sacrament, which many also who are evil do; but we should eat and drink with spiritual participation (usque ad spiritus participationem), so that we may abide as limbs in the body of the Lord, so that we may be given life by His Spirit, and may not be caused to stumble, even if many now eat and drink with us the Sacraments in time, who at the last will enter eternal torments. For now the body of Christ is mixed as in the threshing floor; but the Lord knoweth who are His.”

7. The quotations which have been made from the writings of St. Augustine, notably the last, serve to illustrate the close connection which existed in his thought between the Eucharist as the body of Christ and the Church as His mystical body. Further illustrations of this particular point may be seen in the three following passages from his Sermons.

“That virtue which is there (in the Eucharist) understood is unity, that being joined to His body and made His limbs we may be that which we receive.”

“I promised you, who have been baptised, a sermon in which I would explain the Sacrament of the Lord’s Table, the Sacrament which now also you see, of which last night you became partakers. You ought to know what you have received, what you are about to receive, what you ought to receive daily. That bread which you see on the altar, having been consecrated by means of the word of God, is the body of Christ. That cup, or rather what the cup contains, having been consecrated by means of the word of God, is the blood of Christ. In this way the Lord willed to impart His body and His blood, which He shed for us for the remission of sins. If you have received well, you are that which you have received.”

“That which you see is bread and the cup, which even your eyes declare to you; but as to that in which your faith demands instruction, the bread is the body of Christ, the cup is the blood of Christ.… Such a thought as this may occur in some one’s mind. Our Lord Jesus Christ—we know whence He received flesh, of the Virgin Mary. As a babe He was suckled, was nourished, grew, … He was slain, … He rose again, … He ascended into heaven, … there He is now sitting at the right hand of the Father; how is the bread His body? How is the cup, or that which the cup contains, His blood? Brethren, these things are called Sacraments for this reason, that in them one thing is seen, another thing is understood. That which is seen has bodily appearance; that which is understood has spiritual fruit. If you wish to understand the body of Christ hear the Apostle speaking to the faithful, ‘Now ye are the body and members of Christ’. If you then are the body and members of Christ, your mystery is laid on the Table of the Lord, your mystery you receive. To that which you are you answer Amen, and in answering you assent. For you hear the words, The body of Christ; and you answer Amen. Be a member of the body of Christ, that the Amen may be true. Wherefore then in the bread? Let us assert nothing of our own here; let us listen to the reiterated teaching of the Apostle, who when he spoke of this Sacrament said, ‘We who are many are one bread, one body’; understand and rejoice; unity, truth, goodness, love. ‘One bread.’ What is that one bread? ‘Many are one body.’ Remember that the bread is not made from one grain but from many. When ye were exorcised, ye were so to speak ground. When ye were baptised, ye were so to speak sprinkled. When ye received the fire of the Holy Ghost, ye were so to speak cooked. Be what you see, and receive what you are. This the Apostle spake of the bread. What we are now to understand about the cup, though it is not spoken, he shows with sufficient clearness.… Brethren, recall whence the wine is made. Many grapes hang on the cluster, but the juice of the grapes is gathered together in unity. So also the Lord Christ signified us, wished us to belong to Him, consecrated on His Table the mystery of our peace and unity.”

Thus in the teaching of St. Augustine there are three very closely connected but not identical ideas as to the reception of the body of Christ. The consecrated elements are Christ’s body and blood. Those who receive the elements have already been made the members of Christ by means of Baptism. In the reception they are His body.

An illustration of a similar line of thought may be taken from St. Chrysostom. In his exposition of the teaching of St. Paul that the Eucharistic bread is “a communion of the body of Christ,” St. Chrysostom writes:—

“What is the meaning of ‘a communion’? We are that body itself. For what is the bread? The body of Christ. And what do they who partake become? The body of Christ, not many bodies but one body.”

So also Theodoret, commenting on the same passage in St. Paul’s Epistle, says:—

“Do not we who receive the holy mysteries communicate of the Lord Himself, whose body and blood we say we are, since we all partake of the one bread?”

8. Illustrations have been given of teaching as to the spiritual character of the Eucharistic presence and the relation of the body of Christ in the Eucharist to the Church as the mystical body of Christ. With this teaching it is well to link a distinction found in the writings of St. Jerome between different senses of the phrase, the body of Christ. As a prelude to the consideration of a remarkable passage in which this distinction is clearly stated, other passages referring to the Eucharist in the writings of St. Jerome may be mentioned. St. Jerome incidentally describes the reserved Sacrament, when being carried to the sick, as “the body of the Lord” and His “blood”. He affirms that all communicants “equally” receive “the body of Christ,” although “that which is one becomes different in proportion to the merits of the recipients”. He draws a contrast between the typical presentation of Melchizedek and the presentation of Christ “in the reality of His body and blood,” and maintains that “there is as much difference between the shew-bread and the body of Christ as there is between a shadow and bodies, between an image and the reality, between the patterns of future things and those very things which were prefigured by the patterns”. These statements must be viewed in the light of the passage previously mentioned, where St. Jerome explains that there is the same kind of difference between the body of Christ in the days of His earthly life and the spiritual body which is received in the Eucharist as there is between the flesh of the saints while on earth and that flesh wherewith they will behold God in heaven. His words are:—

“Who is He, they say, who is so great and of such a nature as to be able to redeem the whole world by the ransom which He pays? Jesus Christ the Son of God gave His own blood, and delivered us from slavery, and bestowed freedom on us. And in truth, if we believe the histories of the heathen, that Codrus and Curtius and the Decii Mures put an end to pestilences in cities and famines and wars by their deaths, how much more must it be held possible in the case of the Son of God that by His blood He cleansed not one city only but the whole world? But the blood of Christ and the flesh of Christ are to be understood in two ways. There is that spiritual and divine flesh and blood of which He said, ‘My flesh is truly food, and My blood is truly drink,’ and ‘Except ye shall have eaten My flesh and drunk My blood, ye shall not have eternal life’. There is also the flesh which was crucified and the blood which flowed forth from the wound made by the soldier’s lance. According to this distinction a difference of blood and flesh is understood also in the case of His saints, so that there is one flesh which will see the salvation of God, and there is another flesh and blood which cannot possess the kingdom of God.”

This passage is of great significance as emphasising that the body and blood of the Eucharist are those of the risen and ascended Christ, and bringing in all the distinctions between the nature and possibilities of flesh and blood in the earthly state of humiliation and those in the heavenly state of glory on which St. Paul lays stress in the First Epistle to the Corinthians.

9. In the period now under review there is but little attempt to explain the method of the relation of the presence of the body and blood of Christ to the elements of bread and wine. The writers who say anything bearing on this subject may be divided into two groups,—those who push the connection between the Incarnation and the Eucharist in the direction of emphasising the abiding reality of the elements of bread and wine, and those who tend towards affirming a change in the elements themselves.

(a) Before the end of the fifth century four writers lay stress on the continued existence of the bread and wine in the Eucharist as parallel to the abiding reality of the manhood of Christ in His incarnate life.

Nestorius was a native of Germanicia, who became Patriarch of Constantinople in 428, was deposed in 431 as a consequence of his failure to clear himself from the heretical denial of the one Person of our Lord, and died about the middle of the fifth century. In a recently discovered Syriac version of a work by him, known as the Bazaar of Heraclides, he maintains that the bread in the Eucharist remains bread after consecration, as the body of our Lord remains body in His incarnate life. He suggests the answer No to the inquiry:—

“Is the bread the body of Christ by a change of ousia, or are we His body by a change, or is the body of the Son of God one in nature with God the Word?”

and says:—

“How is it that, when He said over the bread ‘This is My body,’ He did not say that the bread was not bread and His body not body? But He said ‘bread’ and ‘body’ as showing what it is in ousia. But we are aware that the bread is bread in nature and in ousia. Yet Cyril wishes to persuade us to believe that the bread is His body by faith and not be nature; that what it is not as to ousia, this it becomes by faith.”

Theodoret was born at Antioch near the end of the fourth century, became Bishop of Cyrrhus in the north of Syria about 342, and died about 457. One of his works consists of three dialogues between a Eutychian heretic and an orthodox divine. In the course of the second of these dialogues the orthodox divine maintains against the Eutychian that the body of the Lord continues really to exist after the resurrection and ascension, although it has become incorruptible, impassible, and glorious. As part of his contention he introduces the subject of the Eucharist, and the following discussion is represented as taking place:—

“Orth.—Tell me now; the mystic symbols which are offered to God by those who perform priestly rites, of what are they symbols?

“Eran.—Of the body and blood of the Lord.

“Orth.—Is it really the body, or is it not really so?

“Eran.—It is really the body.

“Orth.—Good. For the image must have its archetype. For painters also imitate nature, and depict the images of the things that are seen.

“Eran.—True.

“Orth.—If then the divine mysteries are antitypes of that which is really the body, therefore even now the body of the Lord is a body, not changed into the nature of Godhead but filled with divine glory.

“Eran.—Opportunely have you introduced the subject of the divine mysteries. For from this I will show you the change of the Lord’s body into another nature. Answer then my questions.

“Orth.—I will answer.

“Eran.—Before the priestly invocation what do you call the gift that is offered?

“Orth.—It is not right to say clearly; for perhaps some who are uninitiated are present.

“Eran.—Let your answer be phrased enigmatically.

“Orth.—Food of such and such grain.

“Eran.—And by what name do we call the other symbol?

“Orth.—This name too is common, signifying a kind of drink.

“Eran.—But after the consecration what do you call these?

“Orth.—The body of Christ and the blood of Christ.

“Eran.—And do you believe that you partake of the body of Christ and of His blood?

“Orth.—I do so believe.

“Eran.—As then the symbols of the Lord’s body and blood are one thing before the priestly invocation, and after the invocation are changed and become different, so the body of the Lord after the ascension was changed into the divine substance.

“Orth.—You are caught in the net of your own weaving. For even after the consecration the mystic symbols do not depart from their own nature. For they remain in their previous substance and figure and form; and they are visible and tangible as they were before. But they are regarded as being what they have become, and they are believed so to be, and they are worshipped as being those things which they are believed to be.”

In this discussion it is important to observe the points in which the disputants agree, and those in which they differ. Both the Eutychian heretic and the Catholic theologian agree that after the consecration by the priestly invocation the Eucharistic elements are the body and blood of Christ; and that this presence of the body and blood is effected by means of the consecration. They differ in this respect. The Eutychian maintains that after the ascension the body of Christ is changed into the divine nature so as to be no longer a human body, and after the consecration the elements are changed into the body and blood of Christ so as to be no longer bread and wine. The Catholic maintains that after the ascension the body of Christ still remains a human body, although it is now incorruptible and glorious, and after the consecration the elements still continue to be bread and wine in substance and figure and form, although they are also the body and blood of Christ.

Similarly, in the first Dialogue the Catholic theologian says that

“Our Saviour changed the names, and placed upon the body the name of the symbol and upon the symbol the name of the body. Thus He called Himself a vine and spoke of the symbol as blood.… He wished those who partake of the divine mysteries not to give heed to the nature of the visible objects, but by means of the interchange of the names to believe the change that is wrought by His grace. For He who spoke of his natural body as corn and bread, and again named Himself a vine, dignified the visible symbols by the name of the body and the blood, not changing their nature but adding the grace to the nature.”

In a letter against the Monophysite heresy, which has been ascribed to St. Chrysostom, but is probably of the latter half of the fifth century, an argument in regard to the Incarnation is derived from the continued existence of the bread in the Eucharist after consecration:—

“As before the bread is consecrated we call it bread, but after the grace of God has consecrated it through the agency of the priest it is no longer called bread but counted worthy of the name of the body of the Lord, although the nature of bread remains in it, and we speak not of two bodies but of one body of the Son, so in this case when the divine nature was united to the body the two natures made one Son, one Person.”

The same line of thought is found also in Gelasius, who was Pope of Rome from 492 to 496. In his treatise On the Two Natures in Christ a comparison is made between the Incarnation and the Eucharist. Pope Gelasius is there defending against the Eutychians the doctrine of the abiding reality of the human nature of Christ affirmed by the Council of Chalcedon; and he introduces an argument from the Eucharist in much the same way as the Catholic theologian in the Dialogue of Theodoret and the writer of the letter ascribed to St. Chrysostom. The one Person of Christ, he maintains, is abidingly in the two unimpaired natures of manhood and Godhead. In like manner there are in the Eucharist both the body and blood of Christ and the substance and nature of bread and wine.

“The Sacrament which we receive of the body and blood of Christ is a divine thing. Wherefore also by means of it we are made partakers of the divine nature. Yet the substance or nature of the bread and wine does not cease to be. And certainly the image and likeness of the body and blood of Christ is set out in the celebration of the mysteries. Therefore it is plainly enough shown to us that we must think this in the case of the Lord Christ Himself which we confess, celebrate, and receive in the case of the image of Him. Thus, as the elements pass into this, that is the divine, substance by the operation of the Holy Ghost, and none the less remain in their own proper nature, so they show that the principal mystery itself, the efficacy and virtue of which they truly make present (repræsentant) to us, consists in this, that the two natures remain each in its own proper being so that there is one Christ because He is whole and real.”

(b) On the other hand there are writers whose tendency is to minimise any continuance of the elements of bread and wine after the consecration, and to approximate towards some form of the doctrine known in later times as the doctrine of Transubstantiation.

There are sentences in the Catechetical Lectures of St. Cyril of Jerusalem which, if taken by themselves, might be held to imply such a physical change in the elements as requires the cessation of the existence of the bread and wine after consecration. When they are viewed in relation to the statements which St. Cyril elsewhere makes that the consecrated elements are not “simple” or “bare” bread and wine, such an explanation of them may be thought to be precluded; but it may still fairly be said that their tendency is to make the continued existence of the elements of but little importance. They therefore to some extent supply a contrast to the line of thought which underlies the arguments used in the treatises of Theodoret and Gelasius.

“He once at Cana in Galilee changed the water into wine, akin to blood (οἰκεῖον αἵματι: another reading is οἰκείῳ νεύματι, by His own will); and is it incredible that He should change (μεταβαλών) wine into blood? When He was called to a bodily marriage, He wrought this wonderful miracle; and shall it not much rather be acknowledged that He bestowed on the sons of the bridechamber the fruition of His body and blood? Wherefore with full assurance let us partake as of the body and blood of Christ; for in the figure (τύπῳ) of bread is given to thee the body, and in the figure (τύπῳ) of wine is given to thee the blood, in order that by partaking of the body and blood of Christ thou mayest become of one body and of one blood with Him (σύσσωμος καὶ σύναιμος αὐτοῦ). For so also do we become Christbearers (χριστοφόροι), since His body and blood are distributed throughout our members. Thus according to the saying of the blessed Peter, we become partakers of the divine nature.”

“The seeming (φαινόμενος) bread is not bread, even though it is sensible to the taste, but the body of Christ, and the seeming (φαινόμενος) wine is not wine, even though the taste will have it so, but the blood of Christ.”

“Trust not the judgment to thy bodily palate; no, but to unfaltering faith; for they who taste are bidden to taste not bread and wine but the antitype (ἀντιτύπου) of the body and blood of Christ.”

St. Gregory of Nyssa teaches with great definiteness that by the consecration the elements are transmade (μεταποιεῖσθαι) and transelemented (μεταστοιχειοῦσθαι) into the body and blood of Christ as in the ordinary processes of life bread and wine are transmade into body and blood by consumption, digestion, and assimilation, and as in our Lord’s incarnate life the bread which He ate was transmade into His body. In his use of the words “transmade” and “transelemented” and in his whole argument he appears to contemplate such a physical change in the elements as takes place “when the constituent elements (στοιχεῖα) of bread and wine are, in the process of digestion, rearranged under a new form (εἶδος), so that they acquire the properties of ‘body’ ”. Thus, the “form,” as distinct from the “substance,” of the bread and wine is changed, so as to be that of the body and blood of Christ. The idea is parallel to, but different from, the later Western doctrine of Transubstantiation, according to which the change is in the “substance” of the elements. The differences between St. Gregory’s view and this later doctrine, real as they are, pertain rather to different methods of philosophical thought than to essential theological principle.

The nature of the effect of consecration on the elements is treated with less detail by St. Chrysostom and St. Cyril of Alexandria than by St. Gregory of Nyssa, and it is not probable that they had bestowed much thought on the connected philosophical subjects; but some such general notion as that maintained by St. Gregory of a new “form” given by consecration to the bread and wine may underlie words which they use. Thus St. Chrysostom applies to the body of Christ what properly refers to the outward element when he says that Christ’s “flesh” is “divided” in Communion; and that Christ, “enduring to be broken that He may fill all,” “suffers” in the Eucharist “that which He did not suffer on the cross” and writes of the elements being “re-ordered” and “transformed” by the act of consecration.

“Christ now also is present. He who adorned that table is He who now also adorns this. For it is not man who makes the gifts that are set forth to become the body and blood of Christ; but Christ Himself who was crucified for us. The priest stands fulfilling a figure, speaking those words, but the power and grace are of God. This is My body, he says. This word re-orders (μεταῤῥυθμίζει) the gifts that are set forth.”

“He who then did those things at that Supper is He who now also accomplishes them. We hold the rank of ministers. But it is He who consecrates and transforms (μετασκευάζων) them.”

St. Cyril of Alexandria speaks of the elements being “transferred”.

“That we may not be stupefied by seeing flesh and blood lying on the holy Tables of the churches, God, condescending to our infirmities, sends the power of life into the gifts that are set forth and transfers (μεθίστησιν) them into the efficacy (ἐνεργείαν) of His own flesh, that we may hare them for lifegiving participation, and that the body of the Life may be found in us as a lifegiving seed.”

If a fragment ascribed to Isidore of Pelusium is really his, he wrote, in language going some what beyond that of St. Chrysostom, of the body of the Lord being subjected to the teeth and dissolved in the mouth.

Some such general idea again of a change of “form” rather than a change of “substance” may underlie the assertions of St. Ambrose that the effect of consecration is to “transform,” and of the writer of the book On the Sacraments that the elements continue to exist and yet are changed. St. Ambrose writes:—

“The Sacraments” “by means of the mystery of the holy prayer are transformed (transfigurantur) into flesh and blood.”

The writer of On the Sacraments says:—

“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 operative that the things which were should still be and should be changed into something else. The heaven was not; the sea was not; the earth was not; but hear David saying, ‘He spake and they were made; He commanded and they were created’. Therefore, that I may answer thee, it was not the body of Christ before the consecration; but after the consecration I say to thee that it is now the body of Christ.”

It is not to be supposed that all the writers in either group viewed the effect of consecration on the elements in exactly the same light, or that this question had received any very careful consideration; but there is little room for doubt that there were tendencies at work in two different directions among those who agreed that the consecrated elements were the body and blood of Christ,—the tendency to lay great stress on the continued existence of the bread and wine with all their natural properties wholly unaltered, and the tendency to minimise the importance of any such continuance or to affirm an actual change in them.

10. The attitude of reverence towards the Holy Eucharist and the practice of adoration of our Lord in it are occasionally referred to in this period.

St. Cyril of Jerusalem in his Catechetical Lectures instructs the newly baptised to receive the Holy Communion with great care and reverence.

“Make thy left hand a throne for thy right, as for that which is to receive a king. And hollowing thy palm receive the body of Christ, saying over it the Amen. Hallow then with care thine eyes by the touch of the holy body, and partake of it, giving heed lest thou lose any part of it; for whatever thou shouldest lose would be evidently a loss to thee as from one of thine own members. For tell me, if any one gave thee grains of gold, wouldest thou not hold them with all care, taking heed lest thou shouldest lose any of them and suffer loss? Wilt thou not much more carefully be on thy guard lest a crumb fall from thee of what is more precious than gold and precious stones? Then, after thou hast made thy communion of the body of Christ, draw near also to the cup of His blood, not stretching out thy hands, but bending and in an attitude of reverence and worship saying the Amen, hallow thyself by partaking also of the blood of Christ.”

St. Gregory of Nazianzus, writing with apparent reference to the Sacrament reserved in church, speaks of “Him who is honoured” upon the altar. His sister Gorgonia, he says, in a time of great illness—

“Despairing of any other help, betook herself to the Physician of all, and waiting for the dead of night, at a slight intermission of the disease fell before the altar with faith, and, calling on Him who is honoured thereon with a great cry and with every kind of entreaty, and pleading with Him by all His mighty acts accomplished at any time, for she knew both those of ancient and those of later times, at last ventured on an act of pious and splendid boldness; she imitated the woman the fountain of whose blood was dried up by the hem of Christ’s garment. What did she do? Placing her head on the altar with another great cry and with a wealth of tears, like one who of old bedewed the feet of Christ, and declaring that she would not let go until she was made well, she then applied to her whole body this medicine which she had, even such a portion of the antitypes of the honourable body and blood as she treasured in her hand, and mingled with this act her tears. O the wonder of it! She went away at once perceiving that she was healed, with the lightness of health in body and soul and mind, having received that which she hoped for as the reward of hope, and having gained strength of body through her strength of soul. These things indeed are great, but they are true.”

Passages in the Homilies of St. Chrysostom imply that his hearers were familiar with the practice of adoring the sacramental presence of our Lord.

“This body even when lying in the manger the Magi reverenced. Heathen and foreign men left their country and their home, and went a long journey, and came and worshipped Him with fear and much trembling. Let us then, the citizens of heaven, imitate these foreigners. For they approached with great awe when they saw Him in the manger and in the cell, and saw Him in no way such as thou dost see Him now. For thou dost see Him not in a manger but on an altar, not with a woman holding Him but with a priest standing before Him, and the Spirit descending upon the offerings with great bounty.… For as in the palaces of kings what is most splendid of all is not the walls, or the golden roof, but the body of the king sitting on the throne, so also in heaven there is the body of the King; but this thou mayest now behold on earth. For I show to thee not angels, nor archangels, nor the heaven, nor the heaven of heavens, but Him who is the Lord of these Himself.”

“Not in vain do we at the holy mysteries make mention of the departed, and draw near on their behalf, beseeching the Lamb who is lying on the altar, who took away the sin of the world.”

Theodoret in a passage which has already been quoted represents the Catholic theologian in his discussion with the Eutychian heretic as appealing to what is evidently common ground when he says that the consecrated Sacrament is “worshipped” as being the body and blood of Christ.

The speech addressed by St. Ambrose to the Emperor Theodosius, recorded by Theodoret, when he forbad him to receive the Holy Communion or enter the Church at Milan after the massacre at Thessalonica, expresses a similar sense of the reverence due to the consecrated Sacrament as that in the Catechetical Lectures of St. Cyril of Jerusalem.

“With what eyes will you look on the temple of our common Lord? With what feet will you tread that holy threshold? How will you stretch out the hands that are still dripping with the blood of your unjust slaughter? How will you receive with such hands the all-holy body of the Lord? How will you raise to your mouth the precious blood when in your rage you have transgressed by shedding so much blood?”

In his treatise Of the Hold Ghost St. Ambrose refers more definitely to the adoration of our Lord in the Eucharist. Quoting a verse of the ninety-ninth Psalm as it is in the Septuagint and the Latin versions, “Worship His footstool, for it is holy,” he explains the “footstool” to mean the incarnate Lord and the worship to be such as the Apostles gave to Him “when He rose again in the glory of the flesh”. This worship of Christ is right and due because of His Godhead. Earth in general may not be worshipped, because it is a creature of God. But, he continues:—

“Let us see whether the prophet does not say that that earth is to be adored which the Lord Jesus took when He put on flesh. And so by ‘footstool’ is understood earth, but by earth the flesh of Christ, which to this day we adore in the mysteries, which the Apostles, as we have said above, adored in the Lord Jesus. For Christ is not divided but is one; and when He is adored as the Son of God it is not denied that He was born of the Virgin.”

In commenting on the same Psalm St. Augustine, like St. Ambrose, quotes the verse as “Worship His footstool, for it is holy”. The “footstool,” he says, means earth. There is then the difficulty how the earth may be worshipped, since God is the right Object of worship. This difficulty is solved by the Incarnation, through which it becomes possible for earth to be worshipped without impiety. For our Lord, St. Augustine goes on to say:—

“took earth from earth, because flesh is of earth, and from the flesh of Mary He received flesh. And because He lived here in the flesh itself, and gave the flesh itself for us to eat for our salvation, and because no one eats that flesh without first adoring, a way has been found in which such a footstool of the Lord may be adored and in which we not only do not sin if we adore but should sin if we did not adore.”