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As if he had intimated: My body shall be exhibited and given as food for the world; so that that food shall be given to each one spiritually, and shall to all be a preservative to the resurrection unto life eternal1.

—Όταν ὁ ἄνθρωπος λέγῃ Θεῷ, Ητοίμασας ἐνώπιον μου τράπεζαν τί ἄλλο σημαίνει ἢ τὴν μυστικὴν καὶ νοητὴν τράπεζαν, ἣν ὁ Θεὸς ἡμῖν ἡτοίμασεν ἐξεναντίας ;-Διὰ τοῦτο, καὶ ὁ Σολομών, ταύτην αἰνιττόμενος τὴν χάριν, ἐν τῷ Ἐκκλησιαστῇ λέγει· Δεύρο, φάγε ἐν εὐφροσύνῃ τὸν ἄρτον σου, τὸν πνευματικὸν ἄρτον· Δεῦρο (καλεῖ τὴν σωτήριον καὶ μακαριοποιὸν κλῆσιν), καὶ πῖε τὸν οἶνόν σου ἐν καρδίᾳ ἀγαθῇ, τὸν πνευματικὸν οἶνον—Στηρίζου τὴν καρδίαν, μεταλαμβάνων αὐτοῦ ὡς πνευματικοῦ· καὶ ἱλάρυνον τὸ τῆς ψυχῆς σου πρόσωπον. Cyril. Hieros. Catech. Mystag. iv. p. 236,

237, 238.

1 Οπηνίκα περὶ τῆς τοῦ σώματος βρώσεως διαλεγόμενος, καὶ διὰ τοῦτο πολλοὺς ἑωρακὼς τοὺς σκανδαλισθέντας, φησὶν ὁ Κύριος· Τοῦτο ὑμᾶς σκανδαλίζει; Ἐὰν οὖν θεωρήσητε τὸν υἱὸν τοῦ ἀνθρώπου αναβαίνοντα ὅπου ἦν τὸ πρότερον; Τὸ πνεῦμα ἐστὶ τὸ ζωοποιοῦν· ἡ σὰρξ ὠφελεῖ οὐδέν. Τὰ ῥήματα, ἃ ἐγὼ λελάληκα ὑμῖν, πνεῦμά ἐστι καὶ ζωή. Καὶ ἐνταῦθα γὰρ ἀμφότερα περὶ αὐτοῦ εἴρηκε, σάρκα καὶ πνεῦμα· καὶ τὸ πνεῦμα πρὸς τὸ κατὰ σάρκα διέστειλεν, ἵνα μὴ μόνον τὸ φαινόμενον, ἀλλὰ καὶ τὸ ἀορατὸν αὐτοῦ, πιστεύσαντες, μάθωσιν· ὅτι καὶ, ἃ λέγει, οὐκ ἔστι σαρκικά, ἀλλὰ πνευματικά. Πόσοις γὰρ ἤρκει τὸ σῶμα πρὸς βρῶσιν, ἵνα καὶ τοῦ κόσμου παντὸς τοῦτο τροφὴ γένηται; Αλλά, διὰ τοῦτο, τῆς εἰς οὐρανοὺς ἀναβάσεως ἐμνημόνευσε τοῦ υἱοῦ τοῦ ἀνθρώπου, ἵνα τῆς σωματικῆς ἐννοίας αὐτοὺς ἀφελκύσῃ, καὶ λοιπὸν τὴν εἰρημένην σάρκα βρῶσιν ἄνωθεν οὐράνιον καὶ πνευματικὴν τροφὴν παρ' αὐτοῦ διδομένην μάθωσιν. "Α γὰρ λελάληκα, φησὶν, ὑμῖν, πνεῦμά ἐστι καὶ ζωή. Ἶσον τῷ εἰπεῖν· Τὸ μὲν δεικνύμενον καὶ διδόμενον ὑπὲρ τοῦ κόσμου δοθήσεται τροφὴ, ὡς πνευματικῶς ἐν ἑκάστῳ ταύτην ἀναδίδοσθαι, καὶ γίνεσθαι πᾶσι φυλακτήριον εἰς ἀνάστασιν ζωῆς αἰωνίου. Athan. in illud Evan. Quicunque dixerit verbum contra filium hominis. Oper. vol. i. p. 771, 772.

4. We may next hear the ancient author of the Treatise on the Lord's Supper among the Works of Cyprian.

At the doctrine of this mystery the auditors were astonished, when the Lord said: Except ye shall eat the flesh of the Son of man and shall drink his blood, ye shall not have life in you. Because some believed not this, nor were able to understand it, they went back: for they thought it a horrible and nefarious thing to eat human flesh; fancying, that they were taught to eat his flesh boiled or roasted or cut asunder, when yet his personal flesh, if divided into portions, would not be sufficient for the whole human race-But, in thoughts of this description, flesh and blood profit nothing: for, as the Master himself taught us, the words are spirit and life; nor, unless faith be added, can the carnal sense penetrate to the understanding of so great a profundity-The divine essence ineffably pours itself into the visible sacrament, that devotion in respect to the sacraments might be a point of religion, and that a more sincere access, even so far as to the participation of the spirit, might lie open to that reality of which the body and blood are sacraments: not indeed that this union can extend to any participation of the actual substance of Christ, but certainly to a most germane association'.

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Ad doctrinam mysterii hujus obstupuerant auditores, cum diceret Dominus: Nisi manducaveritis carnem filii hominis, et biberitis ejus sanguinem; non habebitis vitam in vobis. Quod quidam quia non credebant, nec poterant intelligere, abierunt

5. Let us next hear Facundus an African Prelate, who, about the middle of the sixth century, wrote to defend Theodore of Mopsuesta for having asserted; that even Christ himself received the adoption of sons, inasmuch as he condescended to receive the initiatory sacrament of adoption, both when he was circumcised and when he was baptised.

The sacrament of adoption may be called adoption: just as the sacrament of the body and blood of Christ, which is in the consecrated bread and wine, we are wont to call his body and blood. Not, indeed, that the bread is properly his body, or that the wine is properly his blood: but we so denominate them, because they contain the mystery of his body and blood within themselves. Hence it was, that our Lord called the consecrated bread and wine,

retro: quia horrendum eis et nefarium videbatur vesci carne humana; existimantes, hoc eo modo dici, ut carnem ejus vel elixam vel assam sectamque membratim edere docerentur, cum illius personæ caro si in frusta partiretur, non omni humano generi posset sufficere-Sed, in cogitationibus hujusmodi, caro et sanguis non prodest quidquam: quia, sicut ipse Magister exposuit, verba hæc spiritus et vita sunt: nec carnalis sensus ad intellectum tantæ profunditatis penetrat, nisi fides accedat-Sacramento visibili ineffabiliter divina se infudit essentia, ut esset religioni circa sacramenta devotio; et ad veritatem, cujus corpus et sanguis sacramenta sunt, sincerior pateret accessus, usque ad participationem spiritûs: non quod usque ad consubstantialitatem Christi, sed usque ad societatem germanissimam ejus, hæc unitas pervenisset. Tractat, de cœn. Domin. ad calc. Oper. Cyprian. vol. ii. p. 40.

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which he delivered to his disciples, his own body and blood1.

6. Finally, let us hear the distinct and positive avowal of Augustine, in professed opposition to the gross fancy of those Jews who imagined that our Saviour offered to give his own literal flesh and blood as a necessary aliment for his disciples.

Christ instructed them, and said unto them: It is the spirit that quickeneth; the flesh profiteth nothing. The words, which I speak unto you, are spirit and life. As if he had said: Understand SPIRITUALLY what I have spoken. You are NOT about to eat this identical body, which you see; and you are NOT about to drink this identical blood, which they who crucify me will pour out. I have commended unto you a certain sacrament: which, if SPIRITUALLY understood, will vivify you. Though it must be celebrated visibly, it must be understood invisibly 2.

1 Potest sacramentum adoptionis adoptio nuncupari: sicut sacramentum corporis et sanguinis ejus, quod est in pane et poculo consecrato, corpus ejus et sanguinem dicimus; non quod propriè corpus ejus sit panis, et poculum sanguis; sed quod in se mysterium corporis sanguinisque contineant. Hinc et ipse Dominus benedictum panem et calicem, quem discipulis tradidit, corpus et sanguinem suum vocavit. Facund. Defens. Concil. Chalced. lib. ix. c. 5. Oper. p. 144.

2 Ille autem instruxit eos, et ait illis: Spiritus est, qui vivificat: caro autem nihil prodest. Verba, quæ locutus sum vobis, spiritus est et vita. Spiritaliter intelligite, quod locutus sum. Non hoc corpus, quod videtis, mandicaturi estis: et bibitur illum sanguinem, quem fusuri sunt qui me crucifigent. Sacra

IV. In criticism and in controversy there is this great utility, that it is morally impossible to misapprehend the sentiments of the critic or the controvertist. We may deem the criticism itself erroneous, or we may pronounce the argument itself inconclusive: but the opinions of their respective authors we cannot mistake. The very drift of the criticism or of the argument invincibly establishes the FACT, that such and such were the sentiments of the critic or of the controvertist.

The evidence, which I shall now bring forward, is of this precise description. We find the early theologians, not only (as we have already seen) denying in express terms the doctrine of Transubstantiation, but denying it also through the medium of criticism and controversy. Their rejection, therefore, of the doctrine unavoidably and irrefragably follows: and, since they always obviously and sometimes even avowedly reject it on behalf of the Catholic Church; the Catholic Church of the several ages, in which they respectively flourished, must clearly have also rejected the doctrine in question.

1. During the times of the Alexandrian Clement, or in the course of the second century, certain sectaries, who bore the name of Encratites, contended, that the use of wine was unlaw

mentum aliquod vobis commendavi: spiritaliter intellectum vivificabit vos. Etsi necesse est illud visibiliter celebrari, oportet tamen invisibiliter intelligi. August. Enarr. in Psalm. xcviii. Oper. vol. viii. p. 397.

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