Chapter
VII.—Eucharistic Doctrine.
We have seen that Cyril makes the consecration of
sacramental elements in every case consist in the Invocation of the
Holy Ghost, after which the water of Baptism is no longer
mere simple water
281
, the
ointment no longer plain ointment
282
, the bread and
the wine no longer plain bread and wine, but the Body and Blood of
Christ
283
.
Upon these statements an argument against
Transubstantiation has been founded by Bishop Cosin
284
,
and adopted both by Dr. Pusey
285
and Dean
Goode
286
. It being universally admitted that the
substance of the water and of the ointment remains unchanged, it is
argued from the identity of the language employed in each case that,
according to Cyril, no
substantial
change takes place in the
Bread and Wine. Bishop Cosin quotes the following passage, of
which the original is given below: “Take heed thou dost not
think that this is a mere ointment only. For as the bread of the
Eucharist after the invocation of the Holy Ghost is no longer ordinary
bread, but is the body of Christ; so this holy ointment is no longer a
bare common ointment after it is consecrated, but is the gift or grace
of Christ, which, by His Divine Nature, and the coming of the Holy
Ghost, is made efficacious; so that the body is anointed with the
ointment, but the soul is sanctified by the holy and vivifying
Spirit
287
.”
Bishop Cosin proceeds to argue thus: “Can
anything more clear be said? Either the ointment is
transubstantiated by consecration into the spirit and grace of Christ,
or the bread and wine are not transubstantiated by consecration into
the Body and Blood of Christ. Therefore as the ointment retains
still its substance, and yet is not called a mere or common ointment,
but the Chrism or grace of Christ: so the bread and wine
remaining so, as to their substance, yet are not said to be only bread
and wine common and ordinary, but also the Body and Blood of
Christ.”
Notwithstanding the great authority of Bishop
Cosin, and the assent of Theologians of such opposite schools as Dr.
Pusey and Dean Goode, it must be admitted that the argument, even as
against Transubstantiation, is pressed beyond its just limits.
The identity of language extends only to two points, (1) the mode of
consecration by Invocation, (2) the effect negatively stated, that the
material element in each case is no longer simply a material
element. A change, therefore, of some kind has taken place, and
we have still to inquire how the change in each case is described by
Cyril. “The water acquires a power of sanctity,”
otherwise described as “the spiritual grace given with the
water
288
.”
“The ointment is Christ’s gift of grace
(
Χάρισμα
), and
becomes effectual to impart by the presence of the Holy Ghost His
Divine Nature
289
.”
“The Bread becomes the Body and the Wine the Blood of
Christ
290
.”
There is here no such identity of language as would
justify the assertion that the change described is of the same nature
in each case, that because it leaves the substance of the water and the
ointment untouched, therefore the substance of the Bread also must,
according to Cyril, remain unchanged: this must be proved by
other arguments. We must also remember that if this argument
based upon the identity of the language used on the two sides of a
comparison is trustworthy, there is another passage in Cyril to which
it may be applied: “He once, in Cana of Galilee, changed
the water into wine akin to blood (
οἰκεῖον
αἵματι
)
291
,
and is it incredible that He changed wine into blood?” The
change of the water into wine was a change of substance: are we
then prepared to agree with the Roman Church that the change of the
bread also is a change of substance? Nay further, would the Roman
Church itself accept the principle of the argument? For observe
that in fact Bishop Cosin himself, when he comes to deal with this
passage, gives up his former argument, and distinctly rejects
it.
“Protestants,” he says,
“do freely grant and firmly believe that the wine, in the sense
already often mentioned, is changed into the Blood of Christ; but every
change is not a transubstantiation; neither doth Cyril say that this
change (i.e. of the wine) is like that of the water, for then it would
appear to our senses; but that He who changed the water sensibly can
also change the wine sacramentally, will not be doubted by any
292
.” Again, in describing the act of
consecration, Cyril says: “We beseech the merciful God to
send forth His Holy Spirit upon the gifts lying before Him, that He may
make the bread the Body of Christ, and the wine the Blood of Christ,
for certainly whatsoever the Holy Ghost has touched, is sanctified and
changed (
ἡγίασται καὶ
μεταβέβληται
)
293
.” Here again, as in the passage
quoted from
Myst
. iii. § 3, a sacramental change of some
sort is asserted, but its specific character is not defined.
There is, however, a passage which throws some
light on Cyril’s conception of the change in
Myst
. iv.
§ 3: “In the figure of Bread is given to thee His
Body, and in the figure of Wine His Blood, that thou by partaking of
the Body and Blood of Christ mightest be made of the same body and the
same blood with Him. For thus we come to bear Christ in us, His
Body and His Blood being distributed to our members
(
εἰς τὰ
ἡμέτερα
ἀναδιδομένου
μέλη
).” Several good MSS read
ἀναδεδεγμένοι
,
which would give the meaning, “having received of His Body and of
His blood into our members.” This does not alter the
general sense of the passage; but the reading
ἀναδιδομένου
is supported by another passage,
Myst
. v. § 15:
“Our common bread is not substantial (
ἐπιούσιος
):
but this Holy Bread is substantial, that is, appointed for the
substance of the soul. This Bread
goeth
not
into the
belly and is not cast out into the draught
, but is distributed
(
ἀναδίδοται
)
into thy whole system for the benefit of body and soul.”
In order to accommodate these passages to the
Roman doctrine of Transubstantiation the Benedictine Editor here
introduces the idea of
species
, the outward forms or accidents
of the bread. “We must not suppose,” he says,
“that Cyril thought the Body of Christ to be divided and digested
(
digeri
) into our body; but by a customary way of speaking he
attributes to the Holy Body what is suitable only to the species which
conceal it. And he does not deny that the species pass into the
draught, but only that the Body of Christ does so.”
But Cyril draws no such distinction between the
species
and the Body of Christ: to him the Bread and Wine
after consecration are the Body and the Blood of Christ. For how
could it be said that the
species
, which in Transubstantiation
are the mere outward accidents of bread and wine, are distributed into
the whole system for the benefit of body and
soul
?
In whatever sense the bread and wine become by
consecration the Body and Blood of Christ, in that same sense the Body
and Blood of Christ are, according to Cyril, distributed to our whole
system.
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.”
Here it is plainly taught that by consecration the Bread
and Wine have become the Flesh and Blood of Christ, and that as such
they nourish our “blood and flesh” (observe the
inverted order) by undergoing a
change: in other words, the Eucharistic Body and Blood of Christ
are changed into nourishment of our blood and flesh, by being
distributed (as Cyril says) to all our members, that is by being
subjected to the natural processes of digestion and assimilation.
The unusual order of the words “our blood and flesh” is not
accidental, but answers to the process of assimilation, in which the
digested food first nourishes the blood and then the blood nourishes
the flesh.
The meaning is, as Otto says in his note,
“that the divine food passes away into our bodies entire, so that
nothing remains:” and Dr. Pusey seems to take the same
view, in his note on the words, “from which (food) through
transmutation our blood and flesh are nourished:
“
i.e
. the material parts are changed into the substance of
the human body
294
.”
Thus then, according to Cyril, the Eucharistic
Body and Blood of Christ are distributed to all our members; His Flesh
and Blood pass by a change into our blood and flesh, and we thereby
become “of the same body and the same blood with Him
295
:” and “this Bread does not
pass into the belly, and is not cast out into the draught
296
,” but wastes away as the body itself
wastes
297
.
However much this view of the Sacramental mystery may
differ from later theories, it was certainly held by many of the Greek
Fathers. Irenæus, for example, in addition to those already
mentioned, thus writes: “When therefore both the mingled
cup and the created bread receive the Word of God, and the Eucharist
becomes the Body of Christ, and from these the substance of our flesh
increaseth and consisteth, how say they that the flesh is incapable of
the gift of God which is eternal life, that flesh which is nourished
from the Body and Blood of the Lord, and is already (
ὑπάρχουσα
) a
member of Him?—even as the blessed Paul saith, that we are
members of His Body, of His Flesh, and of His Bones
298
.”
That this was also the teaching of Cyril’s
contemporaries is clear from the famous passage of Gregory of Nyssa, in
which this doctrine is fully developed. It will be sufficient to
quote here the latter part of the passage, in which Gregory is speaking
of the Wine. “Since then that God-containing flesh partook
for its substance and support of this particular nourishment also, and
since the God who was manifested infused Himself into perishable
humanity for this purpose, viz. that by this communion with Deity
mankind might at the same time be deified, for this end it is that, by
dispensation of His grace, He disseminates Himself in every believer
through that flesh whose substance comes from bread and wine, blending
Himself with the bodies of believers, to secure that, by this union
with the immortal, man too may be a sharer in incorruption. He
gives these gifts by virtue of the benediction through which He
transelements the natural quality of these visible things to that
immortal thing
299
.”
In another remarkable passage
300
Cyril gives a further explanation of the effect of consecration:
“In the New Testament there is heavenly Bread and a Cup of
salvation, sanctifying soul and body: for as the Bread
corresponds to the body, so also the Word (
ὁ λόγος
) is appropriate to the
soul.” With this language of Cyril we may compare further
what is said by Gregory of Nyssa in the context of the passage already
quoted: “Just then, as in the case of ourselves, as has
been repeatedly said already, if a person sees bread he also in a kind
of way looks on a human body, for by being within this it becomes this,
so in that other case the Body into which God entered (
τὸ θεοδόχον
σῶμα
), by partaking of the nourishment of
bread was in a certain sense the same with it, since that nourishment,
as we have said, is changed into the nature of the body: for that
which is proper to all men is acknowledged also in the case of
That Flesh, namely, that That Body
too was maintained by bread; which Body also by the indwelling of God
the Word was changed into the dignity of Godhead. Rightly then do
we believe that now also the bread which is sanctified by the Word of
God is changed into the Body of God the Word. For even that Body
was once virtually (
τῇ
δυνάμει
) bread, but has been
sanctified by the inhabitation of the Word that tabernacled in the
flesh.”
In this passage we have the full explanation of
what Irenæus meant when he said that the elements “by
receiving the Word of God become the Eucharist,” and what Cyril
meant by saying that “as the Bread corresponds to the body, so
also the Word is appropriate to the soul.” Their common
doctrine is, that besides the Body and Blood of Christ, that is, His
Humanity offered upon the Cross for our redemption, His Divine Nature,
the Word is also present, and that it is by receiving the Divine Word
that the Bread is made the Body of Christ. “The
fathers,” says Touttée, “often play upon the ambiguity
of the term, saying at one time that the Divine Word, at another that
the word and oracles of God nourish our soul. Both are
true. For the whole life-giving power of the Eucharist is derived
from the Divine Word united with the flesh which He assumed: and
the whole benefit (
fructus
) of Eucharistic eating consists in
the union of our soul with the Word, by meditation on His mysteries and
words, and conformation thereto
301
.”
O si
sic omnia!
In this view the Bread and Wine are signs or
figures of the natural Body of Christ crucified, but they are also much
more, they are endued
by
the Divine Word, and through the
operation of the Holy Ghost, with the life-giving power of the same
Body and Blood of Christ,—a power which being imparted to the
faithful recipient makes him to be “of the same body and the same
blood with Christ,” thereby assuring him of the resurrection of
the body to eternal life, and at the same time strengthening and
refreshing the soul by its being united through faith with the Word,
and being thus made “
partaker of the Divine
nature
.”
This is not the language of the Western Church,
whether Roman, Lutheran, or Anglican, but it is the language of the
earliest Greek Fathers, and of Cyril, as is partly and reluctantly
admitted by so cautious a writer as Dr. Waterland. After
referring to the passage quoted above from Justin Martyr (
Apol
.
i. 66) he proceeds: “There is another the like obscure hint
in Irenæus, which may probably be best interpreted after the same
way. He supposes the elements to become
Christ’s
body
by receiving
the word
(Word). He throws two
considerations into one, and does not distinguish so accurately as
Origen afterwards did between the
symbolical
food and the
true food
.” The elements, Waterland adds, “are
made the
representative
body of Christ; but they are at the same
time,
to worthy receivers
, made the means of their spiritual
union with Christ Himself; which Irenæus points at in what he says
of the
bread’s
receiving the
Logos
, but should
rather have said it of the
communicants
themselves, as receiving
the
spiritual
presence of Christ, in the worthy
use
of
the
sacred
symbols
302
.”
Again, in c. vii., he says more explicitly of
Irenæus, what is equally true of Cyril; “Least of all does
he favour the
figurists
or
memorialists
; for his doctrine
runs directly counter to them almost in every line: he asserts
over and over, that Christ’s
body
and
blood
are
eaten and drunk in the Eucharist, and our bodies thereby
fed
;
and not only so, but
insured
thereby for a happy
resurrection
: and the reason he gives is, that our
bodies
are thereby made or continued members of Christ’s
body, flesh, and bones
.”
From this view of Cyril’s doctrine
concerning the Sacramental elements we can easily understand in what
sense he applies the terms “ type” and
“antitype” to the Eucharistic elements. “The
Sacrament of the Holy Eucharist having two parts, an outward and an
inward, and the outward part having been instituted by our Blessed Lord
with a certain relation to the inward, and gifted with a certain
significance of it, nothing is more natural than that the titles, type,
antitype, symbol, figure, image, should be given to the outward
part
303
.”
Add to this that, according to
Cyril’s doctrine as already explained, the bread after the
Invocation, without ceasing to be bread, not only signifies but also
is
the Body, and we see how natural it was for him to say in one
passage that “His Body bore the figure of bread
304
,” in another that “in the figure
of bread the Body is given
305
.” The
Body which “is given” cannot be an
absent
Body of
our Lord, but must be that Sacramental Body, of which Cyril goes on to
say in the same sentence that it is “distributed to our
members.” Thus the Bread broken is a type or figure of
Christ’s Body as crucified for us; and by virtue of its union
with the Divine Word it becomes the life-giving Body, which makes the
faithful recipient to be, in Cyril’s words, “of the same
body and same blood with Christ.”
Another term applied by Cyril and other Greek Fathers to
the sacramental elements is “antitype.”
In
Mystag
. ii. § 6, where Baptism is
called “the counterpart (
ἀντίτυπον
) of
Christ’s sufferings,” the meaning is clearly explained by
the context: for in § 5 the reality of Christ’s
sufferings is emphatically and repeatedly contrasted with the
figurative representation of the same; and this figurative
representation no less emphatically contrasted with the real and actual
bestowal of the grace of salvation:
ἐν
εἰκόνι ἡ
μίμησις, ἐν
ἀληθείᾳ δὲ ἡ
σωτηρία,
.…
ἵνα τῇ
μιμήσει τῶν
παθημάτων
αὐτοῦ
κοινωνήσαντες,
ἀληθείᾳ τὴν
σωτηρίαν
κερδήσωμεν
.
We have thus a clear distinction of (1) the ‘res
sacramenti,’ Christ’s Death and Resurrection, (2) the
‘sacramentum’ or ‘sign,’ the outward form of
Baptism, and (3) the ‘virtus sacramenti,’ our real
participation in the benefits of Christ’s Passion, “a death
unto sin, and a new birth unto righteousness.” Thus, as
Cyril adds at the end of the section, Baptism “has the fellowship
by representation of Christ’s true sufferings,” it is the
spiritual counterpart in us of that which was actual in Him.
In
Mystag
. iii. § i, speaking of the
Chrism, Cyril says, “Now ye have been made Christs
(
Χρισοί
)
by receiving the antitype of the Holy Ghost, and all things have been
wrought in you by imitation, because ye are images of
Christ:” and again, “there was given to you an
Unction, the antitype of that wherewith Christ was anointed, and this
is the Holy Ghost.”
Here again we have (1) the ‘res sacramenti,’
the anointing of Christ with the Holy Ghost at His Baptism, (2) the
sacramental sign or figure, the anointing of the baptized, and (3) the
spiritual benefit received in the gift of the Holy Ghost, for, as Cyril
adds at the end of § 3, “while Thy body is anointed with the
visible ointment, thy soul is sanctified by the Holy and Life-giving
Spirit.” In these passages we see a distinction between
τύπος
and
ἀντίτυπος
.
The former is simply the outward sign or figure; the latter includes
with the sign the spiritual counterpart in us of the thing signified,
the benefits of Christ’s Passion in the one case, the gift of the
Holy Ghost in the other.
It only remains to inquire whether there is the same
distinction in the meaning of the words as applied to the Holy
Eucharist.
In
Mystag
. v. § 20, Cyril informs us
that during the Administration the words, “O taste and see that
the Lord is good,” were sung: and in reference to that
passage he adds, “In tasting we are bidden to taste not bread and
wine, but the antitypical Body and Blood of Christ.” To
taste “the antitypical Body” is therefore to taste
“that the Lord is good,” whence it clearly follows that
“the antitypical Body” is not the mere sign or figure of
Christ’s own natural Body, but the sacramental and spiritual
counterpart of it, by which those who faithfully receive it are so
united to Him, that their
spirit, and soul, and body, are to be
preserved entire without blame
at His coming
306
.
281
Cat. iii. § 3.
282
Mystag
. iii.
§ 3.
283
Mystag
. iii.
§ 3. In the same Lecture, § 7, the consecration of the
bread and wine is said to follow “the Invocation of the Holy and
Adorable Trinity.”
284
The History of Popish
Transubstantiation
, Ch. v. § 14.
285
The Doctrine of the
Real Presence
, pp. 277–281.
286
The Nature of
Christ’s Presence in the Eucharist
, p. 483.
287
᾽Αλλ᾽ ὅρα μὴ
ὑπονοήσῃς
ἐκεῖνο τὸ
μύρον ψιλὸν
εἶναι. ὥσπερ
γὰρ ὁ ἄρτος
τῆς
εὐχαριστίας
μετὰ τὴν
ἐπίκλησιν
τοῦ ἁγίου
Πνεύματος
οὐκ ἔτι ἄρτος
λιτός, ἀλλὰ
σῶμα Χριστοῦ,
οὕτω καὶ τὸ
ἅγιον τοῦτο
μύρον οὐκ ἔτι
ψιλόν, οὐδ᾽
ὡς ἂν εἴποι
τις κοινὸν
μετ᾽
ἐπίκλησιν,
ἀλλὰ Χριστοῦ
χάρισμα, καὶ
Πνεύματος
ἁγίου
παρουσίᾳ τῆς
αὐτοῦ
θεότητος
ἐνεργητικὸν
γινόμενον
.
288
Cat. iii. 3.
289
Mystag
. iii.
3. On the translation see note on the passage.
290
Ib. i. § 7.
291
On this reading,
see
Mystag
. iv. § 2, note 4.
292
Of
Transubstantiation
, Ch. vi. § 14.
293
Mystag
. v. §
7.
294
Real Presence
, p.
144. See note 8, below.
295
Mystag
. iv.
§§ 1, 3.
296
Ib. v. § 15.
297
See Pusey,
R.
P
. p. 151, note 3: “Dr. Gaisford, on my applying to
him, kindly answered me,—
῾συναναλίσκεσθαι
.
It appears to me that this word can only be explained by a
periphrasis. The writer appears to me to mean that the elements
are not thrown off like ordinary food, but that they become blended or
assimilated to the body, and waste away as the body wastes
away.’ Mr. Field gives the same meaning.
298
V. ii. § 3.
299
Oratio
Catechetica
, c. xxxvii. The whole chapter should be read with
the Rev. W. Moore’s notes in this Series, Vol. V. pp.
504–506.
300
Mystag
. iv.
§ 5.
301
Mystag
. iv. note
4.
302
Review of the
Doctrine of the Eucharist
, c. V.
303
Pusey,
R.
P
. p. 94.
304
Cat. xiii. §
19:
τὸ σῶμα
αὔτου κατὰ τὸ
εὐαγγέλιον
τύπον ἔφερεν
ἄρτου
.
305
Mystag
. iv.
§ 3:
ἐν τύπῳ γὰρ
ἄρτου
δίδοταί σοι
τὸ σῶμα
.
306
1 Thess. v. 23
, quoted at the end of
Mystag
. v. § 23.