5. In the Old Testament also there was
shew-bread; but this, as it belonged to the Old Testament, has come to
an end; but in the New Testament there is Bread of heaven, and a Cup of
salvation, sanctifying soul and body; for as the Bread corresponds to
our body, so is the Word Ben. Ed.:
“Here we are to understand (by ὁ Λόγος) the Divine Word, not the
bare discourse of God, but the second Person of the Holy Trinity,
Christ Himself, the Bread of Heaven, as He testifies of Himself,
John vi. 51: Him Cyril contrasts with the
earthly shew-bread in the O.T.; otherwise he could not rightly from
this sentence infer, by the particle οὖν, “therefore,” that the
Eucharist is truly the Body and Blood of Christ. And since he
says, in Cat. xxiii. 15, that the Eucharistic food is “appointed
for the substance of the soul,” for its benefit, that cannot be
said of Christ’s body or of His soul, but only of the Word which
is conjoined with both. Moreover that the Divine Word is the food
of Angels and of the soul, is a common mode of speaking with all the
Fathers. They often play on the ambiguity of this word
(λόγος),
saying sometimes that the Divine Word, sometimes the word and oracles
of God, are the food of our souls: both statements are
true. For the whole life-giving power of the Eucharist is derived
from the Word of God united to the flesh which He assumed: and
the whole benefit of Eucharistic eating consists in the union of our
soul with the Word, in meditation on His mysteries and sayings, and
conformity thereto.” appropriate to our
soul.