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 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..”