This was no new doctrine:  Ignatius, Ephes. xxi., speaks of Christians as “breaking one Bread, which is the medicine of immortality, and the antidote that we should not die, but live for ever in Jesus Christ.”  This is perhaps the earliest expression of the belief that the resurrection of the body is secured by the communion of the Body of Christ in the Eucharist.  The manner in which this communion is effected is described by Justin Martyr (Apolog. I. § 66) in language which shews clearly what Cyril meant:  “We do not receive these things as common bread and common drink:  but in the same way as Jesus Christ our Saviour was made flesh by the Word of God, and took both flesh and blood for our salvation, so we have been taught that the food over which thanksgiving has been made by prayer in the word received from Him (τὴν δι᾽ εὐχῆς λόγου τοῦ παρ᾽ αὐτοῦ εὐχαριστηθεῖσαν τροφήν), from which (food) our blood and flesh are by transmutation (κατὰ μεταβολήν) nourished, is both the Flesh and Blood of Him the Incarnate Jesus.”