The Eastern writers of the sixth and seventh centuries yield but little on the doctrine of the Eucharist. In what may be found there are the same general ideas as in the earlier periods, those of the communication of Christ’s body and blood and of the Eucharist as a sacrifice.
The document entitled The Canons of Athanasius Patriarch of Alexandria has been preserved in a Coptic translation of the Greek original and in an Arabic version of the Coptic translation. The Arabic version appears to have been made in the eleventh century; and the MS. containing the Coptic translation is assigned to the sixth or seventh century. The Greek original was compiled probably not later than the sixth century. In this document the Eucharist is described as an offering, and as the sacrifice of “the body and blood of our Lord Jesus Christ”; the expression “the body is divided” is used of the dividing of the Sacrament; and it is said of the Eucharistic elements:—
“Because the Lord standeth upon the altar, so are the altar vessels spiritual and neither silver nor gold nor stone nor wood; even as the bread and wine, before they are raised upon the altar, are bread and wine, yet, after that they are raised upon the altar, are no more bread and wine but the life-giving body of God and blood, so that they that communicate therein die not but live eternally.”
Some special interest attaches to two passages in the writings directed against the Nestorian and Eutychian heresies by Leontius of Byzantium, a monk whose literary activity may be placed in the first half of the sixth century, whom in recent times a writer of insight has styled “the best theologian of the sixth century”. Writing in strong condemnation of the view which he ascribed to Theodore of Mopsuestia that “there was one person of God the Word and another of Jesus the Christ,” Leontius uses as an argument the inferences which may be deduced from the Eucharist, and says:—
“Whose body and blood then do those who are of such a mind think that they receive? Is it of Him who gave the benefit, or of Him who received it? If it is of God the Word, who gave the benefit, how can they say this, when they do not acknowledge that He was made flesh and became man? If it is of Him who received the benefit, their hope is vain, since they bring in the worship of a man.”
Here then Leontius carries on the teaching in which St. Cyril of Alexandria connects the value of the gift in the Eucharist with the doctrine of the one Person of our Lord, since it is a Christians receive the body and blood of Him who is personally God that the Eucharist is the means of communion with Him and reception of His power. Elsewhere Leontius, without explicitly referring to the Eucharist, emphasises strongly the fact that in God’s use of natural means for supernatural purposes that which is natural is not destroyed but empowered.
“The supernatural leads up and elevates the natural, and empowers it for more perfect actions, such as it could not accomplish if it remained within the limits of the natural. The supernatural therefore does not destroy the natural but educes and stimulates it both in its capacity for actions of its own and in its receiving power for those things which are beyond this capacity.”
Leontius gives instances of the operation of this principle in the elevation of natural material by art; and applies it to the truth of the abiding reality of the human nature of our Lord when used by Him in the Incarnation. Though not explicitly referring to the Eucharist, this passage may be mentioned here as a notable instance of the principle which, at an earlier time, led Theodoret and Gelasius to insist on the continued existence of the elements of bread and wine in the Eucharist.
A definite assertion of the application of this principle to the Eucharist is found in a fragment from the treatise against Nestorius and Eutyches written by Ephraim the Bishop of Antioch in the middle of the sixth century, which has been preserved, like much else in the works of Ephraim, through being quoted by Photius, the Patriarch of Constantinople, in the ninth century. After speaking of the union of the two unimpaired natures of Godhead and manhood in the one Person of Christ, Ephraim continues:—
“So the body of Christ which is received by the faithful does not depart from its perceptible (αἰσθητῆς) substance (οὐσίας) and remains indivisible from the spiritual (νοητῆς) grace.”
Here Ephraim so fully identifies the Sacrament with the presence of Christ that he calls the outward element “the body of Christ,” and at the same time maintains that it preserves its natural existence in the way in which the manhood of Christ remains unimpaired in the union of the Incarnation.
On the other hand, the line of thought which tends to make little of, or lose sight of, the continued existence of the elements of bread and wine is also found in confusions between the inward and the outward parts.
The Homilies ascribed to Eusebius Bishop of Alexandria were probably delivered in the sixth century, though they may be somewhat earlier. In the sixteenth of these the writer gives instructions as to the keeping of Sunday. These instructions include directions about attendance at the Liturgy. They are noteworthy as containing a reference to the practice, alluded to by Clement of Alexandria in the third century, of Christians remaining in the Church throughout the whole celebration of the mysteries but abstaining from Communion if their conscience tells them that there is a hindrance to their communicating worthily. In the course of the exhortation to be present at the Liturgy it is said, “Behold thy Lord divided in pieces and distributed and not spent,” where the phrase that in the Eucharist Christ is “divided” applies to the inward reality that which is true of the outward part.
A more extreme instance of confusion between the inward and the outward parts, involving also the opinion that the body of Christ present in the Eucharist is in the condition of the preresurrection not the risen body, occurs in a treatise of St. Anastasius of Sinai, probably written late in the sixth century. St. Anastasius is there combating the error of the Gaianites, an offshoot of the Monophysites, who maintained that the body of Christ was incorruptible from the beginning of its union with His divine nature in the Incarnation. To refute this error he introduce in his work a discussion between an orthodox theologian and an advocate of the position of the Gaianites. In this discussion reference is made to the Eucharist and both disputants agree that the Sacrament is not mere bread or a figure of the body of Christ but is His real body and blood. The orthodox divine then proposes au extraordinary test. He suggests that the consecrated Sacrament from a church of the Gaianites should be reserved for some days. If at the end of the time it remains uncorrupted, this will show, he says, that the Gaianites are right in maintaining the incorruptibility of the body of Christ from the beginning of His incarnate life. If, on the other hand, it becomes corrupted, then, unless it be the case that it is not the real body of Christ or that because of the perverse belief of the Gaianites the Holy Ghost has not descended on it in the consecration, positions which the Gaianites would themselves repudiate, the corruption shows that the Gaianite contention is wrong, and that the body of Christ was subject to corruption before His resurrection.
“The Orthodox.—Is the Communion of the all holy body and blood of Christ, which you offer and receive, the real body and blood of Christ, the Son of God, or is it mere bread, such as is sold at home, and a figure of the body of Christ?…
“The Gaianite.—God forbid that we should say that the holy Communion is a figure of the body of Christ or mere bread, but we truly receive the actual body and blood of Christ the Son of God.…
“The Orthodox.—So we believe and so we confess according to the word of Christ Himself.… Since then Christ Himself bears witness that what we Christians offer and receive is truly His body and blood, bring to us from the Communion of your Church, which you say is more orthodox than any other Church, and we will place this holy body and blood of Christ with all honour splendidly in a vessel; and, in a few days, if it be not corrupted or altered or changed, it will be plain that you rightly preach Christ as having been in every way incorruptible from the very beginning of the Incarnation. But, if it be corrupted or changed, we must maintain one of the following alternatives. Either that which you receive is not the real body of Christ but a figure and mere bread, or because of your misbelief the Holy Ghost did not descend upon it, or the body of Christ is corruptible before the resurrection as being slain and put to death and wounded and divided and eaten. For an incorruptible nature is not cut or wounded in the side and hands or divided or put to death or eaten or at all held or handled; but is of such a kind as the incorruptible nature of angels and souls.”
The argument here used by St. Anastasius shows, first, an agreement between Catholics and Gaianites that the consecrated elements are the real body and blood of Christ; secondly, a confusion between the inward and outward parts which could spring more readily out of an opinion that the elements themselves are changed into the body and blood of Christ than from a belief that they are His body and blood without departing in any way from their natural substances; and, thirdly, a view of the body and blood of Christ present in the Sacrament which is at the opposite pole of thought from the aspect of the presence as that of the spiritual risen body, a notable instance of which in an earlier period has been seen in the writings of St. Jerome. Incidentally the passage also shows the belief of St. Anastasius that the consecration was effected at the invocation of the Holy Ghost.
A different way of regarding the Eucharist than that found in Leontius of Byzantium and Ephraim of Antioch or in Eusebius of Alexandria and Anastasius of Sinai may be seen in the intense mysticism of the writer known as Dionysius the Areopagite. The date of this writer is involved in much uncertainty. His writings are certainly not earlier than the fifth century, and are possibly considerably later. It is not unlikely that Bishop Westcott was right in his suggestion that Dionysius wrote between 480 and 520 either at Edessa or under the influence of the Edessene school. The central thought of the theology of Dionysius is the conformity of man to God by means of participation in the divine life. This is the object, he says, of all the ordinances of religion and of all the ministrations of the Church. In the accomplishment of this object the Eucharist is a means of the assimilation of the lives of those who partake of it to the life of God. Through it they are mystically united to the human nature which the eternal Word took in the Incarnation, and thereby to the divine being.
“Let us with holiness observe for what reason the title which is common to the other hierarchic rites is applied to this in a special sense beyond the rest, so that it is uniquely styled Communion and Assembly, since each mystic action gathers together our divided lives into one uniform assimilation to God and by the divine union of those that are separated bestows communion and unity with the One. But we say that from the thearchic and completing gifts of this is accomplished the completion of the reception of the other hierarchic symbols.”
“The hierarch … after he has received and given the thearchic Communion ends with holy thanksgiving, the multitude having beheld only the divine symbols but he himself being ever hierarchically uplifted be the thearchic Spirit in the purity of his godlike state in blessed and spiritual perceptions to the holy archetypes of the earthly rites.”
“The most divine common and peaceful participation in one and the same bread and cup enjoins on them [that is, the partakers], as on those brought up in the same family, a godly harmony of character, and brings them to the holy remembrance of the most divine Supper, which is the primal type of the rites.”
“O most divine and holy Sacrament, revealing the garments of riddles with which thou art in symbolic fashion clothed, show us plainly, and fill our spiritual vision with single and unclouded light.”
“There seems to me to have taken place among us the accomplishment of all the divine works the praise of which is sung, nobly sustaining our substance and life, and forming with archetypal beauty that which is godlike in us, and placing us in possession of a more divine state and uplifting, taking care to recall to our ancient condition be good things supplied to us the lack of the divine gifts which we incurred through sloth, and by the complete reception of what is ours to grant the most complete partaking of His own, and thus to bestow on us communion with God and the things that are divine.”
“When the venerable symbols, by means of which Christ is signified and is received, have been placed upon the divine altar, at once the description of the holy things is here, which manifests inseparably the bond of their supernatural and holy union with Him.”
“That which is one and simple and hidden in Jesus, the thearchic Word, by His Incarnation among us came in His goodness and kindness without any change to that which is composite and visible, and nobly wrought out unifying communion between us and Himself, supremely uniting our lowliness with His divinity in the identity of His spotless and divine life, if indeed we also are joined to Him as limbs to a body, and if we do not become unfitted for those divine and most healthy limbs and separate from them and without share in their life through being slain by destructive passions. For we must, if we desire communion with Him, look up to His most divine life in the flesh, and by assimilation to it run up to the godlike and spotless state of holy sinlessness. For so will He harmoniously bestow on us communion that leads to likeness. This is what tire hierarch shows by the acts which he sacredly performs, uncovering the hidden gifts and dividing their unity into many parts, and by the supreme union of the elements distributed with those who receive them making the partakers to have communion in them. For in these he depicts perceptibly our spiritual life as in images, bringing Jesus Christ under our sight, from that which is hidden in His divine being kindly taking our form by His complete and unconfused Incarnation among us, and without any change proceeding from His natural unity to our divided nature, and through this noble kindness calling the race of man to participation in Himself and His own good things, if so be we are united to His most divine life, by assimilation to it according to our power; and thus shall we truly be made in communion with God and the things that are divine.”
The sermon On Easter and the Holy Eucharist by Eutychius the Patriarch of Constantinople, who died in 582, is of importance because in it Eutychius, besides referring to communicants “receiving the holy body and blood,” calls the elements the “antitypes,” maintains that the whole body of Christ is received in each fragment of the Sacrament, and condemns those who adopted a practice of honouring the Sacrament before consecration in ways which would be appropriate only after the elements had been consecrated.
“The Lord … after He had supped took the bread and gave thanks and showed and brake it uniting Himself to the antitype. In like manner also He mixed the cup of the fruit of the vine and gave thanks and showed it to God the Father and said, ‘Take, eat,’ and ‘Take, drink’; ‘This is my body,’ and ‘This is my blood’. Therefore every one receives the whole holy body and precious blood of the Lord, if he receive any part of these elements; for He is divided among all without any division because of the union. As also one seal imparts its impressions and forms to those things which receive it, and remains one, and is not lessened after being imparted, and is not changed towards those things which receive it, even if they be very many in number. Or as again one voice which is uttered by any one and poured out into the air also remains whole in him who uttered it, and being in the air comes whole to the ears of all, no one of those who hear it receiving more or less than another, but is wholly undivided and complete to all, even though they be ten thousand or more, although it is a body, for a voice is nothing else than air which has been struck. Let no one then suspect that after the mystic rite and the holy resurrection the incorruptible and immortal and holy and life-giving body of the Lord, placed in the antitypes by means of the priestly rites, puts out its own powers less than the aforesaid examples, but let all be sure that it is wholly found in every part. For all the fulness of the Godhead of God the Word dwells bodily, that is essentially, in the body of the Lord itself.”
“They act with folly who, when the bread of the oblation and the freshly mixed cup are about to be borne to the holy altar in the liturgic rite, deliver to the people a hymn to be sung, suited as they think to what is being done, saying that they are offering the King of glory or even so calling the gifts which are being brought in and have not yet been consecrated by the high-priestly invocation and their splendid hallowing.”
There is an interesting passage in a treatise by Maximus the Confessor, who was appointed Abbot of the monastery of Chrysopolis in the year 639, who was a leading champion of Catholic truth against the Monothelite heresy. Maximus following, as he says, Dionysius the Areopagite, explains the meaning of Communion to be the incorporation of the Christian with Christ, and a foretaste of the future perfect union with Him.
“By means of the holy reception of the stainless and life-giving mysteries is denoted the communion and identity with Him that is allowed in participation through likeness (κατὰ μέθεξιν ἐνδεχομένην διʼ ὁμοιότητος), by means of which man is privileged to become God from being man. For those gifts of the Holy Ghost of which we believe that we partake here in the present life through the grace that is in faith, of these we believe that we shall partake in the future world truly, really, in very deed, … passing from the grace that is in faith to the grace that is of sight (κατʼ εἴδος), our God and Saviour Jesus Christ transmaking us into Himself by the destruction of the marks of the corruption that is in us, and granting to us the archetypal mysteries which are indicated by the present perceptible symbols.”
In estimating the importance of the teaching thus implied by Maximus notice must be taken of the mystical character of his theology in general and of that of his master Dionysius; and the affinities with much in the writings of Clement of Alexandria and Origen in an earlier period need close attention.
Considerable interest attaches to a passage in the Sayings of the Fathers ascribed to Palladius, who was Bishop of Helenopolis early in the fifth century, by Ânân-Îshô a monk of Northern Mesopotamia in the latter half of the sixth and the first half of the seventh century as given in a Syriac MS. of the thirteenth or fourteenth century now at Môsul. In this passage mention is made of an individual instance of the opinion that the consecrated elements are no more than the symbols of the body and blood of Christ; the ordinary repudiation of such a view is recorded; and an account is given of a vision of the presence of the body and blood of Christ.
“Abbâ Daniel Parnâyâ, the disciple of Abbâ Arsenius, used to tell about a man of Scete, and say that he was a man of great labours but simple in the faith, and in his ignorance he considered and declared that the bread which we receive is not in very truth the body of Christ, but a similitude of His body. And two of the fathers heard this word which he spake, and because they knew of his sublime works and labours, they imagined that he had spoken it in his innocence and simple-mindedness; and they came to him and said unto him, ‘Father, we have heard a thing from a man which we do not believe, for he saith that this bread which we receive is not in very truth the body of Christ, but a mere similitude’. And he said unto them, ‘It is I who have said this thing,’ and they entreated him, saying, ‘Thou must not say thus, father, but according to what the Holy Catholic Church hath handed down to us, even so do we believe, that is to say, this bread is the body of Christ in very truth, and is not a mere similitude’.… And the old man said, ‘Unless I be convinced by the thing itself, I will not hearken to this’; then the fathers said unto him, ‘Let us pray to God for the whole week on this mystery, and we believe that He will reveal it unto us,’ and the old man agreed to this with great joy, and each man went to his cell.… And God heard the entreaties of the two fathers, and when the week was ended they came to the church, and the three of them sat down by themselves on one seat, and the old man was between the other two; and the eyes of their understandings were opened, and when the time of the mysteries had arrived, and the bread was laid upon the Holy Table, there appeared to the three of them as it were a child on the Table. And when the priest stretched out his hand to break the bread, behold the angel of the Lord came down from heaven with a knife in his hand, and he slew the child and pressed out his blood into the cup; and, when the priest broke off from the bread small members, the old man drew near that he might partake of the holy offering, and a piece of living flesh smeared and dripping with blood was given to him. Now when he saw this he was afraid, and he cried out with a loud voice, saying, ‘I believe, O Lord, that the bread is Thy body, and that the cup is Thy blood’; and straightway the flesh which was in his hand became bread like unto that of the mystery, and he took it and gave thanks unto God. And the old men said unto him, ‘God knoweth the nature of men, and that it is unable to eat living flesh, and for this reason He turneth His body into bread, and His blood into wine, for those who receive Him in faith’.”