Page images
PDF
EPUB

reveal their masters' belief, they affirmed, after some time, that, in their mysteries, the Christians partook of flesh and blood. Blandina was presently charged with this guilt, and was put to the torture, to make her confess. But, the historian says, she "most wisely and prudently" answered:— "How can you think we can be guilty of such a crime; we who, from a spirit of mortification, abstain from eating ordinary flesh?" Now, suppose the imputed doctrine had been not at all akin to reality, what was easier than to say,"We believe no doctrine that bears a resemblance to this frightful imputation; we partake of a little bread and wine, as a bond of union, and a commemoration of our Saviour's passion. It is simple bread and wine, and we believe it be nothing more." She, however, is praised for her wisdom and exceeding prudence, because she did not deny the charge, at the same time that she met the odious and unnatural imputation it contained. The very silence and reserve, then, of the Christians, in answering the charges of the heathens, compared with the accusations themselves, allow us to discover, with tolerable certainty, what was their belief.

However, in the second place, occasionally an apologist did venture to remove this veil a little for the heathens. St. Justin thought it better, from the peculiar circumstance of his addressing his apology to prudent and philosophical men, like the Antonines, to explain what the real belief of the Christians was in this regard. How does he make his explanation? Remember that the plainer he spoke the truth, the better he would serve his cause, if the Christian Eucharist was only a commemorative rite. Listen, now, to his explanation of the Christian belief, when wishing to deprive it of all its disagreeable features,when wishing to remove prejudices and to conciliate. He says; "Our prayers being finished, we embrace one another with the kiss of peace;" a ceremony yet observed in the Catholic "Then to him who presides over the brethren, is presented bread, and wine tempered with water; having received which, he gives glory to the Father of all things in the name

mass.

of the Son and the Holy Ghost, and returns thauks in many prayers, that he has been deemed worthy of these gifts. This food we call the Eucharist, of which they alone are allowed to partake, who believe the doctrines taught by us, and have been regenerated by water for the remission of sin, and who live as Christ ordained. Nor do we take these gifts, as common bread and common drink; but as Jesus Christ, cur Saviour, made man by the word of God, took Flesh and Blood for our salvation; in the same manner, we have been taught, that the food which has been blessed by the prayer of the words which He spoke, and by which our blood and flesh, in the change, are nourished, is the Flesh and Blood of that Jesus incarnate." You see here how he lays open his doctrine in the concisest and simplest manner possible; telling us, that the Eucharist is the Body and Blood of Christ.

But, besides writers placed in the circumstances I have described, there is fortunately another class who have come down to us, into whom we must be naturally most disposed to look for simple information; those who expound for the first time to the newly baptized, what they have to believe on this subject. It was natural that in explaining to them what they were to believe, they should use the simplest language, and define the dogma precisely as they wished it to be believed. Another class again is composed of those, whose homilies or sermons are addressed exclusively to the initiated. These two classes afford abundant proofs, besides which there are many passages scattered casually through the writings of others.

In the first instance I will give a few of those expressly addressed to the newly baptized. The most remarkable of these addresses are those of St. Cyril of Jerusalem, for we have a whole series of his catechetical discourses. In one of them he warns his hearers to be careful not to communicate what he teaches them to heathens or to the unbaptised, unless they are about to be baptised. Thus he addresses them; "The

* Apol. i. Hage Comitum. 1742. pp. 82, 83.

Lread and wine, which, before the invocation of the adorable Trinity, were nothing but bread and wine, become, after this invocation, the Body and Blood of Christ." "The Eucharistic bread, after the invocation of the Holy Spirit, is no longer common bread but the Body of Christ.Ӡ This is the clear doctrine most simply expressed. In another place he says; "The doctrine of the blessed Paul alone is sufficient to give certain proofs of the truth of the divine mysteries; and you being deemed worthy of them, are become one Body and one Blood with Christ." After giving an account of the institution in the words of St. Paul, he draws this conclusion: "As then Christ, speaking of the bread, declared and said, this is my Body, who shall dare to doubt it? And, as speaking of the wine, He positively assured us, and said, this is my Blood, who shall doubt it and say, that it is not His Blood?" Again: "Jesus Christ, in Cana of Galilee, once changed water into wine by His will only; and shall we think Him less worthy of credit, when He changes wine into Blood? Invited to an earthly marriage, He wrought this miracle; and shall we hesitate to confess, that He has given to His children His Body to eat, and His Blood to drink? Wherefore, with all confidence, let us take the Body and Blood of Christ. For, in the type of bread, His Body is given to thee, and in the type of wine, His Blood is given: that so being made partakers of the Body and Blood of Christ, you may become one Body and one Blood with Him. Thus, the Body and Blood of Christ being distributed in our members, we become Christofori, that is, we carry Christ with us; and thus, as St. Peter says, we are made partakers of the divine nature."" In another place he expresses himself in even stronger terms; "For as the bread is the nourishment which is proper to the body; so the Word is the nourishment which is proper to the soul. Wherefore I conjure you, my brethren,

6

Catech. Mystag. 1, n. vii. p. 308. Ibid. Catech. 111, n. iii. p. 316.
Ibid. iv. n. 1, p. 319.
§ Ibid. n. ii. iii. p. 320.

[blocks in formation]

not to consider them any more as common bread and wine, since they are the Body and Blood of Jesus Christ according to His words; and although your sense might suggest that to you, let faith confirm you. Judge not of the thing by your taste, but by faith assure yourself, without the least doubt, that you are honoured with the body and blood of Christ. This knowing, and of this being assured, that what appears to be bread, is not bread, though it be taken for bread by the taste, but is the Body of Christ; and that which appears to be wine, is not the wine, though the taste will have it so, but is the Blood of Christ."* Could the Catholic dogma of transubstantiation be laid down, by any possibility, in terms more marked and explicit than these?

Such, then, were the terms in which the new Christians were initiated and instructed; such is the dogma laid down in elementary catechetical discourses on the subject of the Eucharist.

St. Gregory of Nyssa, is another of these catechetical instructors. Hear him teaching the Christians regarding their new belief. "When this salutary medicine is within us, it repels, by its contrary quality, the poison we had received. But what is this medicine? No other than that Body, which was shown to be more powerful than death, and was the beginning of our life; and which could not otherwise enter into our bodies, than by eating and drinking. Now, we must consider, how it can be, that one body, which so constantly, through the whole world, is distributed to so many thousands of the faithful, can be whole in each receiver, and itself remain whole." The very difficulty made to the Catholic doctrine nowadays. Hear his answer; "The body of Christ, by the inhabitation of the Word of God, was transmuted into a divine dignity: and so I now believe, that the bread, sanctified by the Word of God, is transmuted into the body of the Word of God. This bread, as the apostle says, is sanctified by the Word of God,

Catech. Myst. n. iv. v. vi. ix. p. 329, 321, 322.

and prayer, not that, as food, it passes into his body, but that it is instantly changed into the Body of Christ, agreeably to what he said, This is my body. And therefore does the divine Word commix itself with the weak nature of man, that, by partaking of the divinity, our humanity may be exalted. By the dispensation of his grace, He enters, by His flesh, into the breasts of the faithful, commixed and contempered with their bodies, that, by being united to that which is immortal, man may partake of incorruption."* In this passage we have a word equivalent to transubstantiation, transmuting or changng one substance into another.† On another occasion he says; "It is by virtue of the benediction that the nature of the visible species is changed into His Body."-" The bread also is, at first, common bread; but when it has been sanctified, it is called and made the Body of Christ."+

A distinguished writer of the second class, that is, one who exclusively addresses the initiated, is St. John Chrysostome. Than his homilies to the people of Antioch, nothing possibly can be desired stronger, in demonstration of the Catholic belief. In fact, I hardly know where to begin, or where I shall close my extracts from him. I will take them, therefore, without choice. "Let us then," he says, "touch the hem of His garment; rather let us, if we be so disposed, possess Him entire. For His Body now lies before us, not to be touched only, but to be eaten and to satiate us. And if they who touched His garment, drew so much virtue from it, how much more shall we draw, who possess Him whole? Believe, therefore, that the supper, at which He sat, is now celebrated; for there is no difference between the two. This is not performed by a man, and that by Christ. Both are by Him. When, therefore, thou seest the Priest presenting the Body to thee. think not that it is his hand, but the hand of Christ that is stretched towards thee."§ Again; "Let us believe God in

*Orat. Catech. c. xxxvii. T. ii. p. 534-7.
Orat. in Bapt. Christi, T. ii. p. 802.
Homil. 1. in cap. xiv. Matt. T. vii. p. 516, 517.

† Μεταποιεισθαι.

« PreviousContinue »