over the victim, and all the worshippers empurpled with that precious blood,89 canst thou then think that thou art still amongst men, and standing upon the earth? Art thou not, on the contrary, straightway translated to Heaven, and casting out every carnal thought from the soul, dost thou not with disembodied spirit and pure reason contemplate the things which are in Heaven? Oh! what a marvel! what love of God to man! He who sitteth on high with the Father is at that hour held in the hands of all,90 and gives Himself to those who are 47 willing to embrace and grasp Him. And this all do through the eyes of faith!91 Do these things seem to you fit to be despised, or such as to make it possible for any one to be uplifted against them? Would you also learn from another miracle the exceeding sanctity of this office? Picture Elijah and the vast multitude standing around him, and the sacrifice laid upon the altar of stones, and all the rest of the people hushed into a deep silence while the prophet alone offers up prayer: then the sudden rush of fire from Heaven upon the sacrifice:—these are marvellous things, charged with terror. Now then pass from this scene to the rites which are celebrated sacrifice, as that was of this: for we do not offer one victim to-day and another to-morrow, but always the same: wherefore the sacrifice is one. Well, then, as He is offered in many places, are there many Christs? No, by no means, but everywhere one Christ, complete both in this world and in the other, one body. As then, though offered in many places, He is but one body, so is there but one sacrifice. Our High Priest is He who offers the sacrifice which cleanses us. We offer that now which was offered then: which is indeed inconsumable. This takes place now, for a memorial of what took place then. ‘Do this,’ said He, ‘for my memorial.’ We do not then offer a different sacrifice, as the high priest formerly did, but always the same; or rather we celebrate a memorial of a sacrifice.” 89 This may be only a rhetorical expression, but perhaps there is an allusion to a custom which prevailed in some churches, that the worshippers after receiving the cup applied the finger to the moistened lip, and then touched their breast, eyes and ears. 90 The caution mentioned just now in note 3 must be repeated here. A comparison of passages in the writings of Chrysostom and his contemporaries proves clearly enough that they did not hold that the elements of bread and wine were transmuted into the body and blood of Christ in such a sense as to cease to be bread and wine. The authenticity of the letter of Chrysostom to Cæsarius is doubtful, but whoever the writer may have been, he is clearly representing the current orthodox belief of the Church in his day. He maintains, in opposition to the Apollinarian or perhaps the Eutychian heresy, that there are two complete natures in the one person of God the Son Incarnate, and illustrates it by the following reference to the holy elements in the Eucharist: “Just as the bread before consecration is called bread, but when the Divine Grace sanctifies it through the agency of the priest it is released from the appellation of bread, and is deemed worthy of the appellation of the ‘Lord’s Body,’ although the nature of bread remains in it, and we speak not of two bodies, but one body of the Son: so here the Divine nature being seated in the human body, the two together make up but one Son—one Person.” 91 Some mss. omit the word πίστεως “of faith,” having in its place τότε “at that time.” 63 Book III