munion, as so openly to have declared a contrary sense to the same article: m Non hoc corpus quod videtis manducaturi estis, &c.; "You are not to eat this body which you see," (so he brings in Christ speaking to his disciples,) "or to drink that blood which my crucifiers shall pour forth; I have commended to you a sacrament, which being spiritually understood shall quicken you. "And Christ brought them to a banquet, in which he commended to his disciples the figure of his body and blood. For he did not doubt to say, This is my body, when he gave the sign of his body. Quod ab omnibus sacrificium appellature, &c. That which by all men is called a sacrifice is the sign of the true sacrifice, in which the flesh of Christ, after his assumption, is celebrated by the sacrament of remembrances." But concerning S. Austin's doctrine, I shall refer him that desires to be further satisfied to no other record than their own canon law. 9 Which not only from S. Austin, but from divers others, produces testimonies so many, so pertinent, so full for our doctrine, and against the dream of transubstantiation, that it is to me a wonder why it is not clapped into the Indices Expurgatorii, for it speaks very many truths beyond the cure of their glosses; which they have changed and altered several times. But that this matter concerning S. Austin may be yet clearer, his own third book de Doctrina Christiana is so plain for us in this question, that when Frudegardus in the time of Charles the Bald had upon occasion of the dispute which then began to be hot and interested in this question, read this book of S. Austin, he was changed to the opinion of a spiritual and mysterious presence, and upon occasion of that his being persuaded so by S.Austin, Paschasius Radbertus wrote to him, as of a question then doubted of by many persons, as is to be seen in his Epistle to Frudegardus. I end this of S. Austin with those words of his which he intends by way of rule for expounding these and the like words of Scripture taken out of this book of Christian doctrine"; Locutio præceptica, &c. "A preceptive speech forbidding a crime, or commanding something good or profitable, is not figurative; but if it seems to command a crime, or forbid a good, then it is figurative: Unless ye eat the flesh of the Son of man, &c. seems to command a wickedness; it is therefore a figure commanding us to communicate with the passion of our Lord, and sweetly and profitably to lay it up in m In Psal. xcviii. n In Psal. iii. o Cont. Adimant. c. 12. P Lib. 1o. contr. Faustum Manich. c. 2. q De Consecrat. d. 2. I our memory, that his flesh was crucified and wounded for us." shall not need to urge that this holy sacrament is called eucharistia carnis et sanguinis, "the eucharist of the body and blood," by Irenæus; corpus symbolicum et typicum, by Origen; in typo sanguis, by S. Jerom; similitudo, figura, typus, àvтíтUTоv, images, enigmas, representations, expressions, exemplars of the passion, by divers others; that which I shall note here is this; that in the council of Constantinoples it was publicly professed that the sacrament is not the body of Christ púσe, but éσeɩ, not by nature, but by representment; for so it is expounded: Tò féσeɩ žτoɩ ἡ εἰκὼν αὐτοῦ ἁγία, “ the holy image of it ;” and, Τῆς εὐχαριστίας ἄρτον ὡς ἀψευδῆ εἰκόνα τῆς φυσικῆς σαρκὸς, “the eucharistical bread is the true image of the natural fesh ;” and, Η θεοπαράδοτος εἰκὼν τῆς σαρκὸς αὐτοῦ, and, ἀψευδὴς αὐτοῦ εἰκὼν τῆς ἐν σάρκου οἰκονομίας Xploroût, "a figure or image delivered by God, of his flesh;" and, "a true image of the incarnate dispensation of Christ." These things are found in the third tome of the sixth action of the second Nicene council, where a pert deacon, ignorant and confident, had boldly said, "that none of the Apostles or Fathers had ever called the sacrament the image of Christ's body;" that they were called avτíTuna, antitypes, before consecration, he grants; but after consecration, they are called, and are, and are believed to be, the body and blood of Christ properly: which I suppose he might have learned of Damascene, who, in opposition to the iconoclasts, would not endure the word type or image to be used concerning the holy sacrament; for they would admit no other image but that he, in defiance of them who had excommunicated him for a worshipper of images, and a half-Saracen, would admit any image but that; but denied that to be an image or type of Christ, (de Fide, 1. 4. c. 14.) For Christ said not, This is the type of my body, but, it is it. But however this new question began to branle the words of type and antitype, and the manner of speaking began to be changed, yet the article as yet was not changed. For the Fathers used the words of type and antitype and image, &c. to exclude the natural sense of the sacramental body and Damascene, and Anastasius Sinaita, and some others of that age began to refuse those words, lest the sacrament be thought to be nothing of reality, nothing but an image. And that this really was the sense of Damascene appears by his words recited in the acts of : s A. D. 754. t Vide Concil. General. tom. 3. p. 599. edit. Rom. the second council of Nice, affirming that the Divine bread is made Christ's body by assumption and inhabitation of the Spirit of Christ, in the same manner as water is made the laver of regeneration. But however they were pleased to speak in the Nicene assembly, yet in the Roman edition of the councils, the publishers and collectors were wiser, and put on this marginal note: ̓Αντίτυπα μετὰ τὸ ἁγιασθῆναι πολλάκις εὕρεται καλούμενα τὰ ayia dôpa: "The holy gifts are oftentimes called types and figures even after consecration;" particularly by Gregory Nazianzen", and S. Cyril of Hierusalem. I remember only one thing objected to this testimony of so many bishops, that they were iconoclasts, or breakers of images, and therefore not to be trusted in any other article. So Bellarmine, as I remember. But this is just as if I should say that I ought to refuse the Lateran council, because they were worshippers of images, or defenders of purgatory. Surely if I should, I had much more reason to refuse their sentence, than there is that the Greeks should be rejected upon so slight a pretence; nay, for doing that which, for ought appears, was in all their circumstances their duty in a high measure: so that in effect they are refused for being good Christians. But after this, it happened again that the words of type and image were disliked in the question of the holy sacrament, by the emperor Charles the Great; his tutor Alcuinus, and the assembly at Frankfort; but it was in opposition to the council of Constantinople, that called it the true image of Christ's body, and of the Nicene council who decreed the worship of images for if the sacrament were an image, as they of Constantinople said, then it might be lawful to give reverence and worship to some images: for although these two synods were enemies to each other, yet the proposition of one might serve the design of the other; but therefore the western doctors of that age, speaking against the decree of this, did also mislike the expression of that: meaning, that the sacrament is not a type or image, as a type is taken for a prefiguration, a shadow of things to come, like the legal ceremonies, but in opposition to that is a body and a truth; yet still it is a sacrament of the body, a mystery which is the same in effect with that which the Fathers taught in their so frequent using these words of type, &c. for 750 years together. u In Apolog. et Orat. Funebr. pro Gorg. x Mystag. Catech. 5. And concerning this I only note the words of Charles the emperor, Ep. ad Alcuinum, after the synod, "Our Lord hath given the bread and the chalice in figura corporis sui et sui sanguinis, in the figure of his body and blood." But setting the authority aside, for if these men of Constantinople be not allowed, yet the others are, and it is notorious that the Greek Fathers did frequently call the bread and wine ἀντίτυπα, σύμβολα, μυστήρια, elkóvas; and the Latin Fathers call them signs, similitudes, figures, types, images, therefore there must be something pretended to stop this great outcry and insupportable prejudice of so great, so clear authority. After many trials; as, that by antitypes they mean exemplars, that it is only before consecration, not after, and such other little devices, of which they themselves quickly grew weary; at last the craftiest of them came to this, that the body of Christ under the species might well be said to be the sign of the same body and blood, as it was on the cross; so Bellarminey; that is the answer; and that they are hard put to it, you may guess by the meanness of the answer. For besides that nothing can be like itself, idem non est simile; the body, as it is under the species, is "glorified, immortal, invisible, impassible, indivisible, insensible;" and this is it which he affirms to be the sign, that is, which is appointed to signify and represent a body that was "humbled, tormented, visible, mortal, sensible, torn, bleeding, and dying2;" so that here is a sign nothing like the thing signified, and an invisible sign of a visible body, which is the greatest absurdity in nature and in the use of things which is imaginable; but besides this, this answer, if it were a proper and sensible account of any thing, yet it is besides the mark; for that the Fathers in these allegations affirm that the species are the signs, that is, that bread and wine, or the whole sacrament, is a sign of that body which is exhibited in effect and spiritual power: they dreamt not this dream; it was long before themselves did dream it: they that were but the day before them, having, as I noted before, other fancies. I deny not but the sacramental body is the sign of the true body crucified: but that the body glorified should be but a sign of the true body crucified, is a device fit for themselves to fancy. To this sense are those words cited y De Euch. 1. 2. c. 15. z Nemo est sui ipsius imago; S. Hilar. lib. de Synod. Quod simile est non est illud cui est simile S. Athanas. lib. contr. Hypocr. Meleti. by Lombard and Gratian out of S. Austin in the sentences of Prosper: Caro ejus est quam forma panis opertam in sacramento accipimus, sanguis quem sub specie vini potamus: caro, viz. carnis, et sanguis sacramentum est sanguinis, carne et sanguine utroque invisibili et intelligibili et spirituali significatur corpus Christi visibile plenum gratiæ et Divinæ majestatis; that is, "It is his flesh which under the form of bread we receive in the sacrament, and under the form of wine we drink his blood." Now that you may understand his meaning, he tells you this is true in the sacra mental or spiritual sense only; for he adds, "flesh is the sacrament of flesh, and blood of blood; by both flesh and blood which are invisible, intelligible, and spiritual, is signified the visible body of Christ full of grace and Divine majesty." In which words here is a plain confutation of their main article, and of this whimsy of theirs. For as to the particular, whereas Bellarmine says, that Christ's body real and natural is the type of the body as it was crucified; S. Austin says, that the natural body is a type of that body which is glorified, not the glorified body of the crucified. 2. That which is a type is flesh in a spiritual sense, not in a natural; and therefore it can mean nothing but this, that the sacramental body is a figure and type of the real, oneр edel deîţaι. And this thing is noted by the Gloss of Gratian; Caro, i. e. species carnis, sub qua latet corpus Christi, &c.; "The flesh, that is, the species of it under which it lies, is the sacrament of the flesh :" so that the being of a sacrament of Christ's body is wholly relative to the symbols, not to the body; as if the body were his own sign and his own sacrament. 30. Next to this heap of testimonies, I must repeat the words of Theodoret and Gelasius, which, though known in this whole question, yet being plain, certain, and unanswerable, relying upon a great article of the religion, even the union of the two natures of Christ into one person without the change of substances, must be as sacred and untouched by any trifling answer, as the article itself ought to be preserved. The case was this: the Eutychian heretics denied the natures of Christ to be united in one person, that is, they denied him to be both God and man, saying, his humanity was taken into his Divinity after his ascension. The Fathers, disputing against them, say, the substances a Ubi supra. b De Consecrat. d. 2. c. Hoc est quod. c Alphons. à Castro de Hæres. Eutych. |