Chapter 20: Spiritual Eating and the Sixth Chapter of John
the nativity to be spiritual, why do we not vouchsafe to do the same in the Eucharist? And why do we not transfer all things unto spiritual eating?
I gladly join together these two sacraments, Baptism and the Eucharist, because Paul in the first Epistle to the Corinthians the twelfth chapter, knitteth them together, when he saith: "All we by one spirit are baptized into one body, and have been all made to drink with one spirit." Neither is it of any force, if thou shalt say, that we be baptized into one body, to wit, the mystical body, because from the mystical body Christ is not absent, seeing
He is the head thereof. And elsewhere Paul most plainly saith that we in baptism put on Christ.
Chapter 20:
Spiritual Eating and the Sixth Chapter of John We see moreover, that the holy writers bring out of the sixth chapter of John many things as touching the sacrament of the Eucharist. Yea rather, there is none of the fathers which in the interpreting of that chapter, writeth not plentifully of the Eucharist. Whereupon we conclude a reason after this manner: The things which be there spoken, either serve unto this sacrament or they serve not: if they belong not unto this, what need is there to write them, or by those places to dispute of the Eucharist? But if they have respect unto this, seeing there is only a spiritual eating, that is by faith, whereby is received the true body and blood of Christ, what need is there to bring in another new receiving, and to imagine a carnal eating, whereby the same thing should be received again?
For if we grant that there cometh some godly and faithful man, then these men shall be constrained to admit, that twice he doth receive the body of Christ: first by a spiritual eating through faith, afterward by their carnal
eating which they have never proved. And thus thou seest that these men do stop up their own way, so as they cannot truly cite those testimonies which are upon the sixth chapter of John. And while they affirm transubstantiation, they are found to be in the same error that the Capernaites were. Even they also revolved in their mind I know not what corporal eating of the flesh of Christ, from which cogitation, Christ straightway revoked them, when He said: that His words were spirit and life: and that the flesh profiteth nothing.
And He objected unto them the memory of His ascension into heaven, saying: "What if ye see the Son of Man ascend into heaven where He was at the first?" But these men say that they are not of the same mind that the Capernaites were: for say they: they thought that the flesh of Christ should be cut into pieces, and should be torn with the teeth, and therefore they utterly misliked thereof: but as touching the special imagination of the Capernaites, whatsoever it was they know not, but very like it is, that they thought carnally, therefore they were troubled with the mention made of ascending into heaven.
Christ's Presence and Transubstantiation Hereunto it serveth, that Christ said unto His Apostles about the end of His life, that He would leave the world and would depart from them: which should not be true, if He were with us by transubstantiation as these men would. They have used to answer that Christ left the world as touching mortal conditions, and as touching familiarity and bodily conversation.
These indeed are subtle shifts, but they serve not to the purpose. For when Christ spake these words, Philip answered: "Behold now thou speakest plainly, and without parables." Howbeit if it were so to be understood, the speech had been obscure and like a parable.
Further, if Christ remain with us so corporally in the Eucharist, He might by the same reason remain both in our hearts, and also in ourselves. Therefore