X.

"1. Then, after being filled, thus give ye thanks:--

"2. We give thanks to thee, holy Father, for thy holy name, which thou

hast caused to dwell in our hearts, and for the knowledge and faith

and immortality which thou didst make known to us through Jesus Christ

thy servant; to thee be the glory for ever.

"3. Thou Almighty Sovereign, didst create all things for thy name's

sake, and food and drink thou didst give to men for enjoyment, that

they should give thanks unto thee; but to us thou didst of thy grace

give spiritual food and drink and life eternal through thy servant.

"4. Before all things, we give thee thanks that thou art mighty; to

thee be the glory for ever.

"5. Remember, Lord, thy church to deliver it from all evil, and to

perfect it in thy love, and gather it together from the four winds,[5]

the sanctified, unto thy kingdom, which thou hast prepared for it; for

thine is the power and the glory for ever.

"6. Come grace, and pass this world away. Hosanna to the God of David!

If any one is holy, let him come. If any one is not, let him repent.

Maranatha.[6] Amen.

"But allow the prophets to give thanks as much as they will."

From a subsequent section, ch. xiv. 1, we learn that the Eucharist was

on Sunday:--"Now when ye are assembled together on the Lord's day of the

Lord, break bread and give thanks, having first confessed your

transgressions, so that your sacrifice may be pure."

The above, like the uninterpolated Lucan account, places the cup first

and has no mention of the body and blood of Christ. But in this last and

other respects it contrasts with the other synoptic and with the Pauline

accounts. The cup is not the _blood_ of Jesus, but _the holy vine of

David_, revealed through Jesus; and the holy vine can but signify the

spiritual Israel, the _Ecclesia_ or church or Messianic Kingdom, into

which the faithful are to be gathered.

The one loaf, as in Paul, symbolizes the unity of the _ecclesia_, but

the cup and bread, given for enjoyment, are symbols at best of the

spiritual food and drink of the life eternal given of grace by the

Almighty Father through his servant (lit. boy) Jesus. The bread and wine

are indeed an offering to God of what is his own, pure because offered

in purity of heart; but they are not interpreted of the sacrifice of

Jesus' body broken on the cross, or of his blood shed for the remission

of sin. It is not, as in Paul, a meal commemorative of Christ's death,

nor connected with the Passover, as in the Synoptics. Least of all is it

a sacramental eating of the flesh and drinking of the blood of Jesus, a

perpetual renewal of kinship, physical and spiritual, with him. The

teaching rather breathes the atmosphere of the fourth gospel, which sets

the Last Supper before the feast of the Passover (xiii. 1), and

pointedly omits Christ's institution of the Eucharist, substituting for

it the washing of his disciples' feet. The blessing of the Bread and

Cup, as an incident in a feast of Christian brotherhood, is all that the

_Didache_ has in common with Paul and the Synoptists. The use of the

words "after being filled," in x. 1, implies that the brethren ate

heartily, and that the cup and bread formed no isolated episode. The

Baptized alone are admitted to this Supper, and they only after

confession of their sins. Every Sunday at least they are to celebrate

it. A prophet can "in the Spirit appoint a table," that is, order a

Lord's Supper to be eaten, whenever he is warned by the Spirit to do

so. But he must not himself partake of it--a very practical rule. The

prophets are to give thanks as they like at these "breakings of bread,"

without being restricted to the prayers here set forth. In xv. 3 the

overseers or bishops and deacons, though their functions are less

spiritual than administrative and economic, are allowed to take the

place of the prophets and teachers. The phrase used is [Greek:

leitourgein ten leitourgian], "to liturgize the liturgy." This word

"liturgy" soon came to connote the Eucharist. The prophets who normally

preside over the Suppers are called "your high-priests," and receive

from the faithful the first-fruits of the winepress and threshing-floor,

of oxen and sheep, and of each batch of new-made bread, and of oil. Out

of these they provide the Suppers held every Lord's day, offering them

as "a pure sacrifice." Bishops and deacons hold a subordinate place in

this document; but the contemporary Epistle of Clement of Rome attests

that these bishops "had offered the gifts without blame and holily." The

word "liturgy" is also used by Clement.

Pliny's Letter (Epist. 96), written A.D. 112 to the emperor Trajan,

about the Christians of Bithynia, attests that on a fixed day, _stato

die_ (no doubt Sunday), they met before dawn and recited antiphonally a

hymn "to Christ as to a god." They then separated, but met again later

to partake of a meal, which, however, was of an ordinary and innocent

character. Pliny regarded their meal as identical in character with the

common meals of _hetairiae_, i.e. the trade-gilds or secret societies,

which were then, as now, often inimical to the government. Even benefit

societies were feared and forbidden by the Roman autocrats, and the

"dominical suppers" of the Christians were not likely to be spared.

Pliny accordingly forbade them in Bithynia, and the renegade Christians

to whom he owed his information gave them up. These suppers included an

Eucharist; for it was because the faithful ate in the latter of the

flesh and blood of the Son of God that the charge of devouring children

was made against them. If, then, this afternoon meal did not include it,

Pliny's remark that their food was ordinary and innocent is

unintelligible.

Ignatius, about A.D. 120, in his letter to the Ephesians, defines the

one bread broken in the Eucharist as a "drug of immortality, and

antidote that we should not die, but live for ever in Jesus Christ." He

also rejects as invalid any Eucharist not held "under the bishop or one

to whom he shall have committed it." For the Christian prophet has

disappeared, and with him the custom of holding Eucharists in private

dwellings.

In the Epistle to Diognetus, formerly assigned to Justin Martyr, we read

(v. 7) that "Christians have in vogue among themselves a table common,

yet not common" (i.e. unclean). In Justin's first apology (c. 140) we

have two detailed accounts of the Eucharist, of which the first, in ch.

65, describes the first communion of the newly baptized:--

"After we have thus washed the person who has believed and conformed

we lead him to the brethren so called, where they are gathered

together, to offer public prayer both for ourselves and for the person

illuminated, and for all others everywhere, earnestly, to the end that

having learned the truth we may be made worthy to be found not only in

our actions good citizens, but guardians of the things enjoined.

"We salute one another with a kiss at the end of the prayers. Then

there is presented to the president of the brethren bread and a cup of

water (and of a mixture,)[7] and he having taken it sends up praise

and glory to the father of all things by the name of the Son and Holy

Spirit, and he offers at length thanksgiving (_eucharistia_) for our

having been made worthy of these things by him. But when he concludes

the prayer and thanksgiving all the people present answer with

acclamation 'Amen.' But the word 'Amen' in Hebrew signifies 'so be

it.' And when the president has given thanks, and all the people have

so answered, those who are called by us deacons distribute to each of

those present, for them to partake of the bread (and wine)[8] and

water, for which thanks have been given, and they carry portions away

to those who are not present. And this food is called by us

_Eucharistia_, and of it none may partake save those who believe our

teachings to be true and have been washed in the bath which is for

remission of sin and rebirth, and who so live as Christ taught. For

we do not receive these things as common bread or common drink. For as

Jesus Christ our Saviour was made flesh by Word of God and possessed

flesh and blood for our sake; so we have been taught that the food

blessed (lit. thanked for) by prayer of Word spoken by him, food by

which our blood and flesh are by change of it (into them) nourished,

is both flesh and blood of Jesus so made flesh. For the apostles in

the memorials made by them, which are called gospels, have so related

it to have been enjoined on them: to wit, that Jesus took bread, gave

thanks and said: This do ye in memory of me; this is my body, and the

cup likewise he took and gave thanks and said, This is my blood; and

he distributed to them alone. And this rite too the evil demons by way

of imitation handed down in the mysteries of Mithras. For that bread

and a cup of water is presented in the rites of their initiation with

certain conclusions (_or_ epilogues), you either know or can learn."

The second account, in ch. 67, adds that the faithful both of town and

country met for the rite on Sunday, that the prophets were read as well

as the gospels, that the president after the reading delivered an

exhortation to imitate in their lives the goodly narratives; and that

each brought offerings to the president out of which he aided orphans

and widows, the sick, the prisoners and strangers sojourning with them.

These contributions of the faithful seem to be included by Justin along

with the bread and cup as sacrifices acceptable to God. But he also

particularly specifies (Dialog. 345) that perfect and pleasing

sacrifices alone consist in prayers and thanksgivings (_thusia_). The

elements are _gifts_ or _offerings_. Justin was a Roman, but may not

represent the official Roman church. The rite as he pictures it agrees

well with the developed liturgies of a later age.

Irenaeus (Gaul and Asia Minor, before 190) in his work _against

heresies_, iv. 31, 4, points to the sacrament in proof that the human

body may become incorruptible:

"As bread from the earth on receiving unto itself the invocation of

God is no longer common bread, but is an Eucharist, composed of two

elements, an earthly and a heavenly, so our bodies by partaking of the

Eucharist cease to be corruptible, and possess the hope of eternal

resurrection."

There is a similar passage in the 36th fragment (ed. Harvey ii. p. 500),

sketching the rite and calling the elements antitypes:

"The oblation of the Eucharist is not fleshly, but spiritual and so

pure. For we offer to God the bread and the cup of blessing ([Greek:

eulogia]), thanking him for that he bade the earth produce these

fruits for our sustenance. And therewith having finished the offering

([Greek: prosphora]) we invoke the Holy Spirit to constitute this

offering, both the bread body of Christ and the cup the blood of

Christ, that those who partake of these antitypes ([Greek: antitupa],

i.e. surrogates) may win remission of sins and life eternal."

Here we note the stress laid on the Invocation of the Spirit to operate

the transformation of the elements, though in what sense they are

transformed is not defined. This _Epiklesis_ survives in the Greek

liturgies, but in the Roman a prayer takes its place that the angel of

the Lord may take the oblation laid on the visible altar, and carry it

up to the altar sublime into the presence of the divine majesty. We must

not forget that the church of Irenaeus was Greek.

To the second century, lastly, belongs in part the evidence of the

catacombs, on the walls of which are depicted persons reclining at

tables supporting a fish, accompanied by one or more baskets of loaves,

and more rarely by flasks of wine or water. The fish represents Christ;

and in the Inscription of Abercius, bishop of Hierapolis about A.D. 160,

we have this symbolism enshrined in a literary form: "In company with

Paul I followed, while everywhere Faith led the way, and set before me

the fish from the fountain, mighty and stainless, whom a pure virgin

grasped, and gave this to friends to eat always, having good wine and

giving the mixt cup with bread." This representation of baskets of

loaves and several fishes, or of one fish and several loaves, seems to

contradict the usage of one loaf. It may represent the _agape_ or Lord's

Supper as a whole, of which the one loaf and cup formed an episode. Or

the entire stock of bread may have been regarded as flesh of Jesus in

virtue of the initial consecration of one single loaf.

To the second century also belong two gnostic uses. Firstly, that of

Marcus, a Valentinian, of South Gaul about 150, whose influence extended

to Asia Minor. Irenaeus relates (Bk. I., ch. vii. 2), that this

"magician" used in the Eucharist cups apparently mixt with wine, but

really containing water, and during long invocations made them appear

"purple and red, as if the universal Grace [Greek: charis] dropped some

of her blood into the cup through his invocation, and by way of

inspiring worshippers with a passion to taste the cup and drink deep of

the influence termed Charis." Such a rite presupposes a belief in a real

change of the elements; and water must have been used. In the sequel

Irenaeus recites the Invocation read by Marcus before the

communicants:--

"Grace that is before all things, that passeth understanding and

words, replenish thy inner man, and make to abound in thee the

knowledge of her, sowing in the good soil the grain of mustard seed."

The _Acts of Thomas_, secondly, ch. 46, attest an Eucharistic usage,

somewhat apart from the orthodox. The apostle spreads a linen cloth on a

bench, lays on it bread of blessing ([Greek: eulogia]), and says:

"Jesus Christ, Son of God, who hast made us worthy to commune in the

Eucharist of thy holy body and precious blood, Lo, we venture on the

thanksgiving (_Eucharistia_) and invocation of thy blessed name, come

now and communicate with us. And he began to speak and said: Come Pity

supreme, come communion of the male, come Lady who knowest the

mysteries of the Elect one, ... come secret mother ... come and

communicate with us in this Eucharist which we perform in thy name and

in the love (_agape_) in which we are met at thy calling. And having

said this he made a cross upon the bread, and brake it and began to

distribute it. And first he gave to the woman, saying: This shall be

to thee for remission of sins and release of eternal transgressions.

And after her he gave also to all the rest that had received the

seal."

In the 2nd century the writer who nearest approaches to the later idea

of Transubstantiation is the gnostic Theodotus (c. 160):

"The bread no less than the oil is hallowed by the power of the name.

They remain the same in outward appearance as they were received, but

by that power they are transformed into a spiritual power. So the

water when it is exorcised and becomes baptismal, not only drives out

the evil principle, but also contracts a power of hallowing."

In the Fathers of the first three or four centuries can be traced the

same tendency to spiritualize the Eucharist as we encountered in the

fourth gospel, and in the _Didache_. Ignatius, though in _Smyrn_. 7 he

asserts the Eucharist to be Christ's "flesh which suffered for our

sins," elsewhere speaks of the blood as being "joy eternal and lasting,"

as "hope," as "love incorruptible," and of the flesh as "faith" or as

"the gospel." Clement of Alexandria (c. 180) regards the rite as an

initiation in divine knowledge and immortality. The only food he

recognizes is spiritual; e.g. knowledge of the divine Essence is "eating

and drinking of the divine Word." So Origen declares the bread which God

the Word asserted was his body to be that which nourishes souls, the

word from God the Word proceeding, the Bread from the heavenly Bread.

Not the visible bread held in his hand, nor the visible cup, were

Christ's body and blood, but the word in the mystery of which the bread

was to be broken and the wine to be poured out. "We drink Christ's

blood," he says elsewhere, "when we receive His words in which standeth

Life." So the author of the _Contra Marcellum_ writes in view of John

vi. 63 as follows (_De eccl. Theol_. p. 180):

"In these words he instructed them to interpret in a spiritual sense

his utterances about his flesh and blood. Do not, he said, think that

I mean the flesh which invests and covers me, and bid you eat that;

nor suppose either that I command you to drink my sensible and somatic

blood. Nay, you know well that my words which I have spoken unto you

are spirit and life. It follows that the very words and discourses are

his flesh and blood, of which he that constantly partakes, nourished

as it were upon heavenly bread, will partake of the heavenly life. Let

not then, he says, this scandalize you which I have said about eating

of my flesh and about drinking of my blood. Nor let the obvious and

first hand meaning of what I said about my flesh and blood disturb you

when you hear it. For these words avail nothing if heard and

understood literally (_or_ sensibly). But it is the spirit which

quickens them that can understand spiritually what they hear."

But these views were not those of the uninstructed pagans who filled the

churches and needed a rite which brought them, as their old sacrifices

had done, into physical contact and union with their god. Their point of

view was better expressed in the scruples of priests, who, as Tertullian

(c. 200) records (_De Corona_, iii.), were careful lest a crumb of the

bread or a drop of the wine should fall on the ground, and by such

incidents the body of Christ be harassed and attacked!

_The Eucharist as a Sacrifice_.--Before the 3rd century we cannot trace

the view that in the Eucharistic rite the death of Christ, regarded from

the Pauline standpoint as an atoning or redemptive sacrifice for the

sins of mankind, is renewed and repeated, though the germ out of which

it would surely grow is already present in the words "My blood ... which

is shed for many" of Matt. and Mark; yet more surely in Paul's "my body

which is in your behoof" and "this do in commemoration of me," where the

Greek word for do, Gr. [Greek: poieite], Lat. _facite_, could to pagan

ears mean "this do ye sacrifice." In the first two centuries the rite is

spoken of as an offering and as a bloodless sacrifice; but it is God's

own creations, the bread and wine, alms and first-fruits, which, offered

with a pure conscience, he receives as from friends, and bestows in turn

on the poor; it is the praise and prayers which are the sacrifice. In

these centuries baptism was the rite for the remission of sin, not the

Eucharist; it is the prophet in the _Didache_ who presides at the Lord's

Supper, not the Levitically conceived priest; nor as yet has the Table

become an Altar. Among Christians, prayers, supplications and

thanksgivings have taken the place of the sacrifices of the old

covenant.

In Cyprian of Carthage (c. 250) we first find the Eucharist regarded as

a sacrifice of Christ's body and blood offered by the priest for the

sins of the living and dead. We cannot drink the blood of Christ unless

Christ has been first trodden under foot and pressed.... As Jesus our

high priest offered himself as a sacrifice to his Father, so the human

priest takes Christ's place, and imitates his action by offering in

church a true and full sacrifice to God the Father (Ep. 63). He speaks

of the dominical host (_hostia_), and takes the verb to _do_ in Paul's

letter in the sense of to _sacrifice_. As early as Tertullian prayers

for the dead, who were named, were offered in the rite; but there was as

yet no idea of the sacrifice of Christ being reiterated in their behalf.

After Cyprian's day this view gains ground in the West, and almost

obscures the older view that the rite is primarily an act of communion

with Christ. In harmony with Cyprian's new conception is another

innovation of his age and place, that of children communicating; both

were the natural accompaniment of infant baptism, of which we first hear

in his letters. In the East we do not hear of the sacrifice of the body

and blood before Eusebius, about the year 300. In the Armenian church of

the 12th century the idea of a reiterated sacrificial death of Christ

still seemed bizarre and barbarous.[9] But as early as 558 in Gaul the

bread was arranged on the altar in the form of a man, so that one

believer ate his eye, another his ear, a third his hand, and so on,

according to their respective merits! This was forbidden by Pope

Pelagius I.; but in the Greek church the custom survives, the priest

even stabbing with "the holy spear" in its right side the human figure

planned out of the bread, by way of rehearsing in pantomime the

narrative of John xix. 34.

The change from a commemoration of the Passion to a re-enacting of it

came slowly in the Greek church. Thus Chrysostom (_Ham_. 17, _ad Heb_.),

after writing "We offer ([Greek: poiouren]) not another sacrifice, but

the same," instantly corrects himself and adds: "or rather we perform a

commemoration of the sacrifice." This was exactly the position also of

the Armenian church.

_Wine or Water?_--Justin Martyr perhaps contemplated the use of water

instead of wine, and Tatian his pupil used it. The Marcionites, the

Ebionites, or Judaeo-Christians of Palestine, the Montanists of Phrygia,

Africa and Galatia, the confessor Alcibiades of Lyons, c. A.D. 177

(Euseb. _Hist. Eccl_. v. 3. 2), equally used it. Cyprian (_Ep_. 63)

affirms (c. 250) that his predecessors on the throne of Carthage had

used water, and that many African bishops continued to do so, "out of

ignorance," he says, "and simplemindedness, and God would forgive them."

Pionius, the Catholic martyr of Smyrna, c. 250, also used water. In the

_Acts of Thomas_ it is used. Such uniformity of language has led Prof.

Harnack to suppose that in the earliest age water was used equally with

wine, and Eusebius the historian, who had means of judging which we have

not, saw no difficulty in identifying with the first converts of St Mark

the Therapeutae of Philo who took only bread and water in their holy

repast.

Abercius and Irenaeus are the first to speak of wine mixt with water, of

a _krama_ ([Greek: krama]) or _temperamentum_. In the East, then as now,

no one took wine without so mixing it. Cyprian insists on the admixture

of water, which he says represented the humanity of Jesus, as wine his

godhood. The users of water were named _Aquarii_ or _hydroparastatae_ in

the 4th century, and were liable to death under the code of Theodosius.

Some of the Monophysite churches, e.g. the Armenian, eschewed water and

used pure wine, so falling under the censure of the council _in Trullo_

of A.D. 692. Milk and honey was added at first communions. Oil was

sometimes offered, as well as wine, but it would seem for consecration

only, and not for consumption along with the sacrament. With the bread,

however, was sometimes consecrated cheese, e.g. by the African

Montanists in the 2nd century. Bitter herbs also were often added,

probably because they were eaten with the Paschal lamb. Many early

canons forbid the one and the other. Hot water was mixt with the wine in

the Greek churches for some centuries, and this custom is seen in

catacomb paintings. It increased the resemblance to real blood.

_Position of the Faithful at the Eucharist_.--Tertullian, Eusebius,

Chrysostom and others represent the faithful as standing at the

Eucharist. In the art of the catacombs they sit or recline in the

ordinary attitude of banqueters. In the age of Christ standing up at the

Paschal meal had been given up, and it was become the rule to recline.

Kneeling with a view to adoration of the elements was unheard of in the

primitive church, and the Armenian Fathers of the 12th century insist

that the sacrament was intended by Christ to be eaten and not gazed at

(Nerses, _op. cit_. p. 167). Eucharistic or any other liturgical

vestments were unknown until late in the 5th century, when certain

bishops were honoured with the same _pallium_ worn by civil officials

(see VESTMENTS).

In the Latin and in the Monophysite churches of Armenia and Egypt

unleavened bread is used in the Eucharist on the somewhat uncertain

ground that the Last Supper was the Paschal meal. The Greek church uses

leavened.

_Transubstantiation_.--In the primitive age no one asked how Christ was

present in the Eucharist, or how the elements became his body and blood.

The Eucharist formed part of an _agape_ or love feast until the end of

the 2nd century, and in parts of Christendom continued to be so much

later. It was, save where animal sacrifices survived, _the_ Christian

sacrifice, _par excellence_, the counterpart for the converted of the

sacrificial communions of paganism; and though charged with higher

significance than these, it yet reposed on a like background of

religious usage and beliefs. But when the Agape on one side and paganism

on the other receded into a dim past, owing to the enhanced

sacrosanctity of the Eucharist and because of the severe edicts of the

emperor Theodosius and his successors, the psychological background fell

away, and the Eucharist was left isolated and hanging in the air. Then

men began to ask themselves what it meant. Rival schools of thought

sprang up, and controversy raged over it, as it had aforetime about the

_homoousion_, or the two natures. Thus the sacrament which was intended

to be a bond of peace, became a chief cause of dissension and bloodshed,

and was often discussed as if it were a vulgar talisman.

Serapion of Thmuis in Egypt, a younger contemporary of Athanasius, in

his Eucharistic prayers combines the language of the _Didache_ with a

high sacramentalism alien to that document which now only survived in

the form of a grace used at table in the nunneries of Alexandria (see

AGAPE). He entreats "the Lord of Powers to fill this sacrifice with his

Power and Participation," and calls the elements a "living sacrifice, a

bloodless offering." The bread and wine before consecration are

"likenesses of his body and blood," this in virtue of the words

pronounced over them by Jesus on the night of his betrayal. The prayer

then continues thus: "O God of truth, let thy holy Word settle upon this

bread, that the bread may become body of the word, and on this cup, that

the cup may become blood of the truth. And cause all who communicate to

receive a drug of life for healing of every disease and empowering of

all moral advance and virtue." Here the bread and wine become by

consecration tenements in which the Word is reincarnated, as he

aforetime dwelled in flesh. They cease to be mere _likenesses_ of the

body and blood, and are changed into receptacles of divine power and

intimacy, by swallowing which we are benefited in soul and body. Cyril

of Jerusalem in his _catechises_ 5^1 enunciates the same idea of [Greek:

metabole] or transformation.

Gregory of Nyssa also about the same date (in Migne, _Patrolog. Graeca_,

vol. 46, col. 581, oration on the Baptism) asserts a "transformation" or

"transelementation" ([Greek: metastoicheiosis]) of the elements into

centres of mystic force; and assimilates their consecration to that of

the water of baptism, of the altar, of oil or chrism, of the priest. He

compares it also to the change of Moses' rod into a snake, of the Nile

into blood, to the virtue inherent in Elijah's mantle or in the wood of

the cross or in the clay mixt of dust and the Lord's spittle, or in

Elisha's relics which raised a corpse to life, or in the burning bush.

All these, he says, "were parcels of matter destitute of life and

feeling, but through miracles they became vehicles of the power of God

absorbed or taken into themselves." He thus views the consecration of

the elements as akin to other consecrations; and, like priestly

ordination, as involving "a metamorphosis for the better," a phrase

which later on became classical. John of Damascus (c. 750) believed the

bread to be mysteriously changed into the Christ's body, just as when

eaten it is changed into any human body; and he argued that it is wrong

to say, as Irenaeus had said, that the elements are mere antitypes after

as before consecration. In the West, Augustine, like Eusebius and

Theodoret, calls the elements signs or symbols of the body and blood

signified in them; yet he argues that Christ "took and lifted up his own

body in his hands when he took the bread." At the same time he admits

that "no one eats Christ's flesh, unless he has first adored" (_nisi

prius adoraverit_). But he qualifies this "Receptionist" position by

declaring that Judas received the sacrament, as if the unworthiness of

the recipient made no difference.

Out of this mist of contradictions scholastic thought strove to emerge

by means of clear-cut definitions. The drawback for the dogmatist of

such a view as Serapion broaches in his prayers was this, that although

it explained how the Logos comes to be immanent in the elements, as a

soul in its body, nevertheless it did not guarantee the presence in or

rather substitution for the natural elements of Christ's real body and

blood. It only provided an [Greek: antitypon] or surrogate body. In

830-850, Paschasius Radbert taught that after the priest has uttered the

words of institution, nothing remains save the body and blood under the

outward form of bread and wine; the substance is changed and the

accidents alone remain. The elements are miraculously recreated as body

and blood. This view harmonized with the docetic view which lurked in

East and West, that the manhood of Jesus was but a likeness or semblance

under which the God was concealed. So Marcion argued that Christ's body

was not really flesh and blood, or he could not have called it bread and

wine. Paschasius shrank from the logical outcome of his view, namely,

that Christ's body or part of it is turned into human excrement, but

Ratramnus, another monk of Corbey, in a book afterwards ascribed to Duns

Scotus, drew this inference in order to discredit his antagonists, and

not because he believed it himself. The elements, he said, remain

physically what they were, but are spiritually raised as symbols to a

higher power. Perhaps we may illustrate his position by saying that the

elements undergo a change analogous to what takes place in iron, when by

being brought into an electric field it becomes magnetic. The substance

of the elements remain as well as their accidents, but like baptismal

water they gain by consecration a hidden virtue benefiting soul and

body. Ratramnus's view thus resembled Serapion's, after whom the

elements furnish a new vehicle of the Spirit's influence, a new body

through which the Word operates, a fresh sojourning among us of the

Word, though consecrated bread is in itself no more Christ's natural

body than are we who assimilate it. Other doctors of the 9th century,

e.g. Hincmar of Reims and Haimo of Halberstadt, took the side of

Paschasius, and affirmed that the substance of the bread and wine is

changed, and that God leaves the colour, taste and other outward

properties out of mercy to the worshippers, who would be overcome with

dread if the underlying real flesh and blood were nakedly revealed to

their gaze!

Berengar in the 11th century assailed this view, which was really that

of transubstantiation, alleging that there is no substance in matter

apart from the accidents, and that therefore Christ cannot be

_corporally_ present in the sacrament; because, if so, he must be

_spatially_ present, and there will be two material bodies in one space;

moreover his body will be in thousands of places at once. Christ, he

said, is present spiritually, so that the elements, while remaining what

they were, unremoved and undestroyed, are advanced to be something

better: _omne cui a Deo benedicatur, non absumi, non auferri, non

destrui, sed manere et in melius quam erat necessario provehi_. This was

the phrase of Gregory of Nyssa.

Berengar in a weak moment in 1059 was forced by the pope to recant and

assert that "the true body and blood are not only a sacrament, but in

truth touched and broken by the hands of the priests and pressed by the

teeth of the faithful," and this position remains in every Roman

catechism. Such dilemmas as whether a mouse can devour the true body,

and whether it is not involved in all the obscenities of human digestive

processes, were ill met by this ruling. Each party dubbed the other

_stercoranists_ (dung-feasters), and the controversy was often marred by

indecencies.

As in the 3rd century the Roman church decided in respect of baptism

that the sacrament carries the church and not the church the sacrament,

so in the dispute over the Eucharist it ended, in spite of more

spiritual views essayed by Peter Lombard, by insisting on the more

materialistic view at the fourth Lateran Council in 1215, whose decree

runs thus:--"The body and blood of Jesus Christ are truly contained in

the sacrament of the altar under the species of bread and wine, the

bread and wine respectively being transubstantiated into body and blood

by divine power, so that in order to the perfecting of the mystery of

unity we may ourselves receive from his (body) what he himself receives

from ours." In 1264 Urban IV. instituted the Corpus Christi Feast by way

of giving liturgical expression to this view.

_Communion in One Kind._--Up to about 1100 laymen in the West received

the communion in both kinds, and except in a few disciplinary cases the

wine was not refused. In 1099, by a decree of Pope Paschal II., children

might omit the wine and invalids the bread. The communion of the laity

in the bread alone was enjoined by the council of Constance in 1415, and

by the council of Trent in 1562. The reformed churches of the West went

back to the older rule which Eastern churches had never forsaken.

_Mass._--The term _mass_, which survives in Candlemas, Christmas,

Michaelmas, is from the Latin _missa_, which was in the 3rd century a

technical term for the dismissal of any lay meeting, e.g. of a

law-court, and was adopted in that sense by the church as early as

Ambrose (c. 350). The catechumens or unbaptized, together with the

penitents, remained in church during the Litany, collect, three

lections, two psalms and homily. The deacon then cried out: "Let the

catechumens depart. Let all catechumens go out." This was the _missa_ of

the catechumens. The rest of the rite was called _missa fidelium_,

because only the initiated remained. Similarly the collect with which

often the rite began is the prayer _ad collectam_, i.e. for the

congregation met together or collected. The corresponding Greek word was

_synaxis_.

After the catechumens were gone the priest said: "The Lord be with you,

let us pray," and the service of the mass followed.

In the West, says Duchesne (_Origines_, p. 179), not only catechumens,

but the baptized who did not communicate left the church before the

communion of the faithful began (? after the communion of the clergy).

In Anglican churches non-communicants used to leave the church after the

prayer for the Church Militant. Ritualists now keep unconfirmed children

in church during the entire rite, through ignorance of ancient usage, in

order that they may learn to adore the consecrated elements. For this

moment of homage to material elements ritually filled with divine

potency may be so exaggerated as to obscure the rite's ancient

significance as a communion of the faithful in mystic food.

_Ideas of Reformers._--The 16th-century reformers strove to avoid the

literalism of the words "This is my body," accepted frankly by the Roman

and Eastern churches, and urged a Receptionist view, viz. that Christ is

in the sacrament only spiritually consumed by worthy recipients alone,

the material body not being actually chewed. This is seen by a

comparison of other confessions with the Profession of Catholic Faith in

accordance with the council of Trent, in the bull of Pius IV., which

runs thus:--

"I profess that in the Mass is offered to God a true, proper and

propitiatory sacrifice, for the living and the dead, and that in the

most holy sacrament of the Eucharist there is truly really and in

substance the body and blood, together with the soul and divinity of

our Lord Jesus Christ, and that there does take place a conversion of

the entire substance of the bread into the body, and of the entire

substance of the wine into the blood, which conversion the Catholic

Church doth call Transubstantiation. I also admit that under one of

the other species alone the entire and whole Christ and the true

sacrament is received."