CHAPTER XXIX.

That several of the Fathers believed a mystical union of Christ's Divinity with the Sacramental bread.

I cannot, however, dissemble that several of the Fathers entertained an opinion which the Romish Church now very properly rejects. They teach, that as there is a personal union between the divine and human nature of Jesus Christ, there is also, in virtue of consecration, a union, though not personal and hypostatic, nevertheless, a mystical, divine, and ineffable union, between his divine nature and the Eucharistical bread, by which the bread remaining bread, becomes the body of Christ. This opinion has no foundation in Scripture. However, I venture to say, that it is an error which is in no way prejudicial to the Christian religion ;for this opinion does not change the nature of Jesus Christ, nor destroy his humanity; nor does it change the nature of the Sacrament, since they did not believe that there was any change in the substance of the bread. They, therefore, did not adore the Sacrament, nor fall into idolatry. short, it was an innocent error which served to increase the respect and reverence of the people for the holy Sacrament, and induced them to call it terrible and admirable. have in it, however, an evident proof that these Fathers did not believe in transubstantiation; for, as they did not believe that the human nature of Christ was trausubstantiated or abolished by its union with his divinity,-neither did they believe that the bread was destroyed, nor changed into another substance, by its divine and mystical union with the divinity of Jesus.

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By this doctrine, the Eucharistical bread is the body of Christ in two ways: the one on account of its mystical union with Christ, even as the man Jesus is called the Son of God, on account of his personal union with the Son of God; the other because the bread is the sacred sign and commemoration of Christ's body, agreeably to the custom of giving to the signs the names of the things signified. For this second reason, they say the bread of the Eucharist is the body which was born of the Virgin, and which was crucified for us. As to the first reason, it is certain that the bread, which they say is made the body of Christ by mystical union, is not the same body of Christ as was crucified for us; for, to effect this change, they interpose the Almighty power of God, seeing that it necessarily requires a divine power to cause the bread remaining bread to be so closely united to the divinity of Christ, as to be the body of Christ.

But that these Fathers held that Christ's mystical body is a different body in substance from that which was crucified for us, although it be the same in signification, we shall now prove by various quotations from their writings, in which they say that Jesus Christ had two kinds of flesh, and that we are permitted to eat the flesh or mystical body, it being taken sacramentaily; but are by no means suffered to eat the flesh that was crucified for us.

The first Father who employs the personal union of the two natures of Jesus, for shewing how the bread is made the body of Christ, not by transubstantiation, but by the mystical union of his divinity with the bread, is Justin Martyr, toward the end of his second Apology, where he speaks thus: "We do not take these things as common bread, but as Christ became incarnate, and was made flesh and blood for our salvation, so have we likewise been taught that the

food, over which thanks have been offered by prayer of the Word, and by transmutation* of which our flesh is nourished, is the body and blood of Jesus." But Justin, by saying, it nourishes our bodies, shews that he believed that this food was always bread, and did not lose its substance; and further confirms it, by stating that, "the Deacons give to all present, that they may partake of the bread and wine, over which thanks have been offered."

The author of the Catechetical prayer, attributed to Gregory of Nyssen,† uses the same comparison: "The body is changed into a divine dignity by the inhabitation of the God Word. With good reason, therefore, do I now believe also that bread sanctified by the Word of God is changed into the body of the God Word." If this comparison be good, then, as the body of Christ is not transubstantiated by the inhabitation of the divinity, neither, in like manner, can the bread be transubstantiated by the consecration performed in the Sacrament.

Hilary speaks after the same manner, in the eighth book of the Trinity: "If the Word was verily made flesh, we also partake of the Word flesh in the meat of the Lord."

Gratian quotes the following passage, which he says is Augustine's, in the second Distinction of the Consecration, and is extracted from Prosper's Sentences: "The Sacrifice of the Church is composed of two things, namely, the Sacrament and the thing of the Sacrament, that is of the body of Christ, like as the person of Christ is composed of God and man. For Christ is true God and true man."

By this transmutation, he means the digestion of the bread in the stomach for the nourishment of our bodies.

I shew this falsity in my book against Cardinal Perron, b. vii c. xxii., particularly in what he says about Severus, a heretic, who lived more than a hundred years after the death of Gregory.

Irenaeus has a very peculiar opinion. He says that the bread is the body of Christ, because Christ is the creator of all things; for he imagines that the world has the same relation to God, as the body of man has to his soul. This was the belief of Plato, Cicero, Virgil, and of the whole Platonic school, which was in great vogue in the age of Irenaeus.

The author of the book upon the Lord's Supper, attributed to Cyprian, holds the same belief. That author speaks thus: "Common bread being changed into flesh and blood, communicates life and growth to the body; and, therefore, the weakness of our faith being assisted in the usual effect, is taught, by sensible proofs, that in the visible Sacraments there is a cause operative of eternal life." When he says, common bread is changed into flesh and blood," he does not mean that it is changed into the body and blood of Christ, but into our flesh and blood by digestion; for he adds, that this bread nourishes our bodies, and promotes their growth; and this is confirmed by the whole bearing of his speech. But it is in the words that he shortly after subjoins, that our adversaries, from not rightly understanding that belief, exult in imagined victory."The bread (says he) which the Lord gave to his disciples being changed, not in appearance but in nature, is made flesh by the Omnipotence of the Word." But he shews in what follows, that this change of bread into the flesh of Christ is not effected by transubstantiation, but by a union of Christ's divinity with the bread, similar to the union of his divine and human nature; for he subsequently adds, "and even as we see the humanity in the person of Christ whilst the divinity is hid, so also the divine essence is infused in an inexpressible manner into the visible sacrament." There is nothing more explicit nor more ad

verse to transubstantiation; for, according to the belief of this author, as the divine nature of Christ hath not transubstantiated his humanity, but made it become the flesh of the Son of God, so the divine essence, which he says is infused into the Sacramental bread, makes it become the body of Christ without transubstantiating it. Moreover, he also says, a little after, that what we receive in the Sacrament " is unleavened bread, by whose touch we are sanctified;" thus acknowledging that it is always bread.

Bellarmine, in the fifteenth chapter of his third book upon the Eucharist, cites St. Remi, who wrote in the following terms, about A.D. 890: "The flesh which the Word of God, the Father, took in the womb of the Virgin into unity of person, and the bread consecrated in church, are one and the same body. For the fulness of divinity which was in that flesh, fills also this bread." Bellarmine adds, that Haymo held the same language; and that the words of Gelasius and Theodoret, which we quoted above, are irreconcileable with this opinion.

The author quoted with most ostentation by our adversaries is Damascenus, to whom they assign a place among the saints. This person might well be called the Lombard of the Greeks, because he is the first Grecian who treated of theology in philosophical terms: he is the first also who wrote in favour of image worship. He wrote about A.D. 740. In the first book of the Orthodox Faith, c. xliv., he enlarges upon this subject, and pretends that the bread is changed into the Lord's body, not by transubstantiation, but by assumption and union with the divinity, like the union of his divine with his human nature; "because (says he) it is the custom to eat bread and drink wine and water, the Lord conjoined his divinity to these things, and made them his body and blood." And shortly after, "If