Chapter 44: Argument of the Glorified Body and the Presence of Christ
of Rome. It is written in his life that the bread of the Lord, or if you prefer, the Sacrament of the Eucharist, was turned into a finger of flesh. If this was done for the two causes we allow, we are not much concerned. However, that life of Gregory is not highly credible. Vincentius writes that it was described a hundred years after Gregory's death by John, a Deacon of Rome, and sent to a certain Emperor of Germany.
Even if it were true, as our adversaries would conclude that through the token of a fleshy finger, the flesh of Christ lies corporally hidden under accidents, one might by this kind of miracle conclude that under sacramental forms are contained ashes and coals. This is because the holy bread was once converted into these in the time of Cyprian, as he himself writes. I think the legerdemain of deceitful men, often used to feign miracles, is not unknown.
Chapter 44:
Argument of the Glorified Body and the Presence of Christ In another argument, they heavily emphasised the dignity of the glorified body of Christ, which after the resurrection is called spiritual. This we do not deny, yet we caution, as Augustine mentions in an epistle to Consentius, that such a body is not so spiritual that it passes into the nature of a spirit.
For Paul also refers to the body as a natural body, which must not be understood as though the body transitions into the nature of the soul. Again, the same Father in his 13th book De Civitate Dei, chapter 20, writes: "The soul, while it obeys the flesh, is called carnal, not because it transitions into the nature of flesh. Similarly, the body is called spiritual, not because it takes on the nature of a spirit, but because it will be wholly subject to fulfilling the will thereof."
Jerome, in an epistle to Pamachius, which was an apology against John, Bishop of Jerusalem (who attributed to the souls of those who rise again an elementary or airy body that should not be subject to feeling or feeding), contended by all means that Christ, after his resurrection, had a most true body, and undoubtedly a visible one. He preempts an objection: if in such a way it were visible and the same body, why was it not known when he showed himself as a stranger? He answers: "because their eyes were held that they might not know him." As if to say, that which belongs to the nature of a body was both visible and could be known, but there was an impediment in their eyes, which were held so they could not discern.
Seeing, therefore, that Christ after his resurrection had a true body bound to measure and place, there is no cause to deprive it of these properties and confine it into the narrow confines of a small piece of bread, as though it were wholly contained therein, regardless of its size. But even if it is granted that this may be done by the power of God, can it straightaway be concluded that it is done? The argument, as we showed before, is weak.
They also argued from the Greek article, seeing Christ said, "Τούτό ἐστι τὸ σῶμά μου" (This is my body), as though the article has the strength to draw the proposition to its proper sense and does not permit a figurative meaning.
These men are deceived, for the Greek article does not always have such strength. This is clearly seen in the 8th chapter of the Gospel of Luke, where Christ expounded the parable he had uttered of the sower of the seed.
He said, "Τὸ σπέρμα ἐστὶν ὁ λόγος τοῦ Θεοῦ" (The seed is the word of God), where the Greek article is also used with "the word of God." Yet, this speech does not mean that the word of God is bound, as though it should properly, really, and corporally be in the seed sown into the earth. It is said to be contained therein by the power and property of the signification, which is how we understand the words of the Lord when he says: "This is my body." For we say that it is not pronounced of the bread of the Lord's body unless by signification.