Chapter 4: The Fathers and Councils
removed. Again there would be an imminent danger lest the people should fall into idolatry. For seeing the body of Christ must be worshipped, if bread remain there, that also should be worshipped. Neither doth it appear meet for the dignity of Christ's body, that it should after this manner be joined either unto bread or unto wine.
They argue also from the manner of a sacrifice. For if the body of Christ be offered by the minister, it behoveth that he have the same, and that he there stand in the sight of God, unless we will say, that he only offereth a thing signified and shadowed.
Chapter 4:
The Fathers and Councils Afterward, they cry out that the fathers are wholly on their side. First, they cite Irenaeus, who saith in the fifth book: When the cup tempered and the bread broken, receive the word of God, it is become the Eucharist of the blood and body of Christ. In the fourth book, he spake in a manner the same thing. Also Tertullian in the fourth book saith, that Christ taking bread and distributing the same to His disciples, made it His body. And Origen upon Matthew the 26th chapter saith: This bread which God being the word confesseth to be His body, and the rest that followeth.
Cyprian in his sermon De Coena Domini: This common bread, being changed into flesh and blood, procureth life. And again in the same sermon:
This bread, which the Lord delivered unto His disciples, being changed not in form but in nature, is by the omnipotency of the word made flesh.
Ambrose in the fourth book De Sacramentis: It is bread before the words of the Sacraments; after consecration, it is of bread become the flesh of Christ.
And many other like sayings he hath in his books of the sacraments.
And to the same purpose, Chrysostom in his 60th homily De Eucharistia, which is in the sixth tome, saith: This sacrament is like unto wax put unto the fire, where nothing of the substance remaineth but wholly becometh like the fire: so saith he, the bread and wine is spent with the substance of Christ's body. Augustine upon the prologue of the 23rd Psalm, saith that Christ bare Himself in His own hands, whenas in the supper He instituted the sacrament. And in the 98th Psalm expounding that sentence, Fall ye down before His footstool, affirmeth that the flesh of Christ must be worshipped in the sacrament: which would not be meet, if bread were yet remaining.
And in his third book De Trinitate, A sacrament (saith he) cannot be made, but by the power of the Holy Ghost working together with us. And Hilary in his eighth book De Trinitate, saith that Christ is in us by the truth of nature, and not by an argument of the will only: and he saith, that in the Lord's meat, we truly receive the word being flesh. Leo the Bishop of Rome in the tenth epistle to the clergy and people of Constantinople: We receiving the virtue of the heavenly meat, let us pass into His flesh which was made our flesh. They add that Damascenus is altogether on their side. Also
Theophylact is brought in by them, who most plainly made mention of the changing of elements.
But as touching Anselm and Hugo de Sancto Victore, which were in the latter age, there is no doubt but that they warrant transubstantiation: and that therefore the fathers as well old as new, they say make of their side.
And they bring in Councils: namely the Council of Ephesus against Nestorius, where Cyril was president: and he hath many things of this matter and especially he saith, that we being made partakers of the holy body and precious blood of Christ, receive not common flesh, nor as it were the flesh of a man sanctified, but that which is the true sanctifying flesh, and that which is become proper to the word itself. And they cite the