Private Mass. 89
blood is offered severally from the body. Third, because of the saving effect of this sacrament. For it helps the salvation of the body, and therefore is the body offered; and it helps the salvation of the soul, and therefore the blood is offered. For the soul is in the blood,
Genesis 9. And in his 6th lection., he says that "Both (bread and wine) belong to the perfection of this sacrament, as well to show the perfection of the refreshing, as for the representation of the passion, and also for the effecting of the salvation of body and soul." And this is also the opinion of Hales, 4 par. Summa qu. 35, memb. 1, and Cassalius, de caena, lib. 12, cap. 25.
2. The communicants used to carry home not only the bread, but the wine also. This testifies Nazianzene, in Gorgon. ad medium, and Jerome, ad Rusticum. And again, where we find the fathers to make mention of the bread alone, it is a sign called synecdoche partis, whereby part is put for the whole, or else they do take the name of bread only for the bread dipped in the wine.
Wherefore the ministering of the Lord's Supper under one kind is contrary to the ordinary custom of the whole and universal primitive
Church.
Private Mass 1. A kind of private mass wherein the priest only receives the consecrated forms, without communicating to others, was never known in the most ancient and purest antiquity, for the space of 800 years. "The Supper of the Lord," says Jerome, in 1 Cor. 11, "ought to be common to all, for He gave the sacraments equally unto all the disciples present." (Jerome, in 1 Cor. 11) And in 3 cap., Sophon., he tells how the people did communicate of the blood. (Jerome, in Sophon. cap. 3) Chrysostom, hom. 2, in Eph., also condemns this
private mass in these words: "In vain do we offer this daily oblation; in vain do we stand at the altar; there is none that partakes with us.
This I speak not to invite you to receive in any fashion, but to make yourselves worthy of these mysteries." (Chrysostom, hom. 2 in Eph.)
And in 1 Cor. 11, homil. 27: "You do not communicate of that which is common, for it was broken equally to all, and equally divided."
(Chrysostom, homil. 27 in 1 Cor. 11) "Some require a communion still in the mass, and indeed so I confess did Christ ordain it," says
Erasmus, epist. ad Julium Pflugium, "and so in ancient times it was observed." (Erasmus, epist. ad Julium Pflugium) Yea, the papists themselves confess that in the In the primitive church it was set down that the faithful should communicate every day, as Durandus in Rationale, lib. 4, cap. 53, and Hugo Cardinalis in Luke, cap. 24, do both confess. Cusanus, in his seventh epistle to the Bohemians, says that all that were not prepared to receive the Eucharist were put forth of the church. And the Council of Mentz prohibits the priest to receive alone because they held it as an absurd thing to say, "The Lord be with you," when there was none to answer. Look in Reginald Poole's first book, De
Ecclesiastica Disciplina, c. 191. "If anyone does not communicate, let him give place," says Gregory, Dialogues, lib. 2, capit. 23. And Charlemagne made a law that all the faithful should communicate and attend at the mass without any other further entreaty, Leges
Franciae, lib. 1, cap. 132. And it seems that about Walfrid's time these solitary masses began, though he himself disallows them. "In the whole mass," says he, De Rebus Ecclesiasticis, c. 22, "we do pray chiefly, and, as it were, by name for them that do offer and communicate. And we may…say that the rest, persisting in the faith and devotion of these that offer and communicate, are partakers of the said oblation and communion. But, although when the priests only do communicate in their mass, it may be understood that those
do partake with him, for whom these offices are celebrated, and whose person the priest executes in some responsories; yet we must confess that that is the lawful mass, wherein there is present the priest, the answerer, the offerer, and the communicant, as the form of the canon and the plain course of the prayers do show." "The prayers," says Micrologus, cap. 19, "which are said after the communion, are not for them that are to communicate, but for those that have already communicated; therefore, whosoever do desire to be helped with the blessings of these prayers, let them not neglect to receive the communion before they are said." And cap. 18, he says to the same effect.
And indeed, in the year of grace 1080, in the Church of Rome all were bound to communicate after the breaking of the bread.
Radulphus Ardens, in his homily upon Easter day, says that there are two kinds of receiving, spiritual and sacramental, and of the latter he says thus: "Notwithstanding my brethren, all Christians must communicate even sacramentally when they have time and place.
And therefore, in the primitive Church all the Christians used to communicate every Lord's Day." Thus says he that lived about the year 1050.
2. Private masses had their first original among the friars in their cloisters. For Gregory, lib. 4, Indict. 14, epist. 43 (aliàs c. 87), forbids public masses to be said in one certain monastery, lest there should be any occasion of popular meetings in the private houses of the servants of God. And lib. 5, epist. 46 (aliàs c. 146), he inhibits public mass to be said in a certain place, and yet allows mass to be said therein. Look also in the 71st epistle of his seventh book. Odo of Cambray, in his exposition of the canon, says that whereas at the first they never had mass without convention of the people together for