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 Review of the
Doctrine of the Eucharist, c. V..”