SOD. Howbeit that mystical sign changes its first name, and is not afterward named by that name which it was first called, but is called a body. Wherefore the truth itself must now be called God, and not anymore a body.
ORTH. You appear ignorant to me: it is not only called a body, but also the bread of life: for so the Lord called it. Yea, and we also call this a divine body and a quickening body, and the Master’s body, and the Lord’s body, teaching, that it is no common body of every man, but the body of our Lord Jesus Christ, who is God and man: even Jesus Christ, yesterday and today, and the same forever.
Chapter 31:
Chrysostom and the Nature of the Eucharist
There is an extant Epistle in the Library of Florence (albeit not printed) from Chrysostom to Caesarius the Monk during his second banishment, written against Apollinaris and others who confounded the divinity and humanity of Christ. He states, “Christ is both God and man: God because he cannot suffer; Man, because of his passion and suffering: One son, one Lord, one and the selfsame doubtless possessing one dominion, and one power of the natures united (although they be not together of one substance) and each one of them being unmixed keeps an acknowledgement of his own property: for this cause that they be two things not confounded. For like as before the bread be sanctified, we name it bread, and the same being sanctified, by the divine grace by means of the priest is undoubtedly delivered from the name of bread, and is accounted worthy to be called the Lord’s body, although the nature of bread has remained in it, and is declared not to be two bodies but one body of the Son: even so this divine φύσις, that is to say, the nature of an overflowing body, hath made both these one Son and one person.”
Hesychius, in the 20th book upon Leviticus, the 8th Chapter, writes: “Therefore he commands that the flesh should be eaten with bread, to the intent we might understand the same to be called a mystery of him, because it is flesh and bread together.”
Gelasius, against Eutyches, wrote that in the Sacrament of the Eucharist the substance and nature of bread and wine do not cease to be. He makes a comparison of this Sacrament with Christ, in whom both the natures as well divine as human remain whole, even as in this Sacrament does the nature of bread and of the body of Christ.
Gregory, in the register, states: “While we take as well the sweet bread as the leavened bread, we are made one body of the Lord our Saviour.” Bertram, in his little book “De Corpore et Sanguine Domini,” says regarding the natures of the signs, that according to the substance of the creatures, what they were before consecration, they remain afterward.
Bernard, in his Sermon “De Coena Domini,” uses a similitude of a King, whereby any man receives either the faith of wedlock or the possession of some dignity: as it happens in the consecration of Bishops, where the King, the Crosier’s staff, or the labels of the Miter, are signs of things given and granted, and yet no vain signs. For the things which they signify are most certainly given. The very same thing I have shown to be done in Sacraments.
Chapter 32:
Confuting the Arguments for Transubstantiation
Now let us confute the arguments of these men whereby they endeavour to prove their Transubstantiation. As touching the first, we answer that Christ promised his flesh or his body or blood to be meat and drink, and that in the 6th of John: which he performs as often as we believe that he truly died for us. He also performed it when in the supper he instituted this Sacrament: For unto that spiritual eating, he added signs.
But specially they object, “This is my body”: about the truth of which saying stands the controversy: albeit only as touching the manner: for both they and we affirm the proposition to be true, and we contend only about the sense. They affirm the proposition to be plain, and we on the other side say, that Augustine in “De doctrina Christiana” teaches that we must not interpret one place in a way that contradicts many others, but so as it may agree with the rest. Neither must they always claim a plainness of the sense. Otherwise, when it is said, “Let us make man to our own image and likeness,” the heretics called Anthropomorphitae arise and infer that God has a body and a soul and other members as we see them to be framed in man.
You say that this similitude must be referred to the soul because through it man rules over other creatures as God does: but they say that these things are written of man, and that you vainly attribute to a part, namely to the soul, that which is pronounced of the whole. You again object that God is a spirit, and that a spirit has not flesh and bones, and so by other places of the Scriptures, you gather the sense of this one place. The Arians said that they had a plain sense of the place: “The Father is greater than I.” You restrain this to the nature of man because in other places, the divinity of Christ is declared unto you: as in the first of John and in the Epistle to the Romans the 9th Chapter: and in the 5th Chapter of John’s Epistle Christ says: “He that hath not a sword let him buy one.” Whereby he seems to stir up to revenge: but if you have respect to other places, you will perceive it is spoken figuratively.
Paul says: “Pray without ceasing.” The heretics called Euchites thought that we should apply ourselves to perpetual and close whispering prayers, when it is said elsewhere: “He that provideth not for his own, and especially for his household, renounces his faith, and is worse than an infidel.” And again: “Let all things be done in order.” And again: “He that laboureth not let him not eat.” The heretics called Chiliastae, or Millenarij, thought that they had a most plain word in the Apocalypse, the 20th Chapter, regarding a thousand years wherein Christ shall reign with his saints. The Sabellian heretics said: “There is no difference between the Father and the Son,” by reason of the place: “I and the Father are one,” Also Philip: “He that seeth me, seeth the Father,” and “As I am in the Father, so likewise the Father abides in me.” These things the heretics said were plain and made for them. The Ebionites affirmed Christ to be a mere creature, and they said that these words, “My God, my God, why hast thou forsaken me,” could not otherwise be understood, seeing that God never forsakes Himself.
Because it is written in the 6th of John: “He that eats my flesh, and drinks my blood shall not die at any time,” some have said that it follows that they who have lawfully communicated once cannot perish everlastingly. This error Augustine in “De Civitate Dei” manifestly refutes. The words of the Canticles of Solomon, if you receive them as they appear at first glance, are no other than verses of love or a wedding song. It is not appropriate, therefore, to always claim the perspicuity of words.
Christ said: “He that hath ears to hear, let him hear, and he that reads, let him understand.” It is not convenient to immediately seize the first sense, neglecting and not considering other places. Christ said to the Apostles, “Beware of the leaven of the Pharisees.” They immediately thought he spoke of bread, when he spoke concerning doctrine. He said also, “Lazarus our friend sleeps.” There the Apostles misunderstood him: “If he sleeps he shall be safe,” when he spoke of death. Again, the Lord said: “Destroy this Temple, and in three days I will raise it up again.” Neither did they understand that he meant his body. “He that shall keep my commandments, shall not die forever.” Here also the Jews thought that he spoke of common death. Grossly did Nicodemus misunderstand the new birth. No less did the woman of Samaria err concerning the water which Christ promised her. The Hebrews erred when Christ said to them: “That Abraham saw his day and rejoiced.”
Wherefore, let them not always say to us that this scripture, “This is my body,” is plain: for we will answer them: it is plain, as touching the signification of the words. But the sense of them is not plain, as in the like sentences it appears: “Christ is the Rock,” “Christ is the Lamb,” “You are the body of Christ,” “We who are many are one bread.” All these are the words of God, and we may pronounce that they are plain, that they are manifest: yet none of them infer Transubstantiation.