VII

Before the period of the ninth and tenth centuries is left, two quotations from other writers may be made, in each case for a special reason.

Nicolas I. was Pope from 858 to 867. In one of his letters to the Eastern Emperor Michael III. written in 860 during the controversy which arose about the Patriarchate of Constantinople, Nicolas refers incidentally to the Eucharist as affording an illustration of the rightfulness of the practice of venerating the images of Christ and His Mother and the saints. His language resembles that of St. Gregory of Nyssa in the fourth century; and, like St. Gregory of Nyssa, he combines the two ideas, different but not inconsistent, of the heightened efficacy of the elements and of their being made the body and blood of Christ by consecration. After speaking of images in general and of the figure of Christ above the altar, he proceeds:—

“The holy altar, on which we pay to almighty God the vows of our sacrifices, is by nature common stone, differing not at all from other blocks, which adorn our walls and floors. But because it has been consecrated by the help of God and has received a blessing, it is made to be a holy Table. Again, the bread, which is offered upon the altar, is by nature common bread; but, when it has been consecrated as a Sacrament, it becomes in reality the body of Christ, and it is so called. So also the wine, which before it has been blessed is of some moderate worth (vinum modicum aliquid digna existentia ante benedictionem), after the consecration by the Spirit is made the blood of Christ. For the image of the cross itself, before it receives the figure of its form, is common wood like any other wood; but, on receiving the all venerable likeness, it is holy, and terrible to demons, because the form of Christ has been made on it.”

As was pointed out before, the idea of the heightened efficacy of the elements is in itself consistent either with a view that they are merely instruments or with a conception that they are through consecration the body and blood of Christ. In the case of Pope Nicolas I. it is obvious from his phrases “it becomes in reality the body of Christ” and “it is made the blood of Christ” that he held it concurrently with the belief that the elements are the body and blood of Christ through consecration.

The other passage is from Ratherius, who became Bishop of Verona in 931, and, after many vicissitudes due in part to his earnest struggles to promote Christian morality and in part to the violence of his temperament, died at Namur in 974. Ratherius joins to an explicit assertion that the consecrated elements are really the flesh and blood of Christ a protest against too closely searching into the method by which this presence is effected.

“As at Cana of Galilee the water was made real and not figurative wine by the command of God, so this wine by the blessing of God is made real and not figurative blood, and the bread is made flesh. If it seems an argument against this that the taste and the colour remain, I put something else before you. Do you believe the authority of Scripture, which says that man was formed from the mud of the earth? I have no doubt that you will answer that you do believe it. Well, you remember the words, ‘Dust thou art, and unto dust shalt thou return’. I imagine that you reply that you remember the passage and believe it. Then the man whom you see in front of you is dust and ashes. That is so, you say, because he was made from the mud. What appearance then of mud is here? There is none: I should rather call it earth. Is there any appearance of earth? No. Is man none the less earth? He is. What of the appearance of mud? It has been transformed by the wisdom of the Creator. Does the substance yet remain? It does. So also here, though the colour remains, and the taste, yet believe that what you receive is by the operation of the same wisdom real flesh and blood, as you do not doubt that, when the appearance of mud is changed by creation into the appearance of man, nevertheless the substance of the mud remains. But you ask, perhaps unseasonably, that the vanity of human curiosity may have place, whence and by what agency it has come, and if it is brought down from above, and if the bread is invisibly taken up, or if the bread itself is changed into flesh. These are, I think, the stones with which a beast, that is, a carnal heart and a natural (animalis) man, who perceiveth not the things which are of the Spirit of God, is stoned, if it have presumed to touch the mount of the mysteries of God. Therefore let us inquire of the Gospel: ‘Jesus,’ it says, ‘taking bread gave thanks, and gave to them, saying, Take and eat, this is My body. In like manner also the cup after He had supped, saying, This is the cup of My blood of the new and eternal covenant, the mystery of faith, which will be poured out for you and for many for the remission of sins.’ You have of what body this is the flesh and blood by so much the more certainly as you are instructed by the voice of the same Truth, who speaks. For the rest, I beg, be not anxious, since you hear that it is a mystery, and that of faith; for, if it is a mystery, it cannot be grasped; if it is of faith, it ought to be believed, but not to be investigated.”