Keeping of the Sacrament 91
Keeping of the Sacrament 1. The fathers used to keep the sacrament, not for any adoration or public bearing it about, but for their private use in the days next following. "Shall not the husband know," says Tertullian, lib. 2, ad uxorem, "what you do secretly taste before your meat? And if he does know, he believes that it is but bread, not that which it is called." And hereto belongs that of Jerome's relation, concerning the custom of the Romans of receiving every day, and that (as it is probable) in private houses, epist. 50, ad Pammachium, and epist. 28, ad
Lucinium. "Every one of the people," says Basil, in epist. ad Caesream Patrit, "in Alexandria and Egypt has the communion in his house, receiving it of the priest that consecrates and distributes it."
2. But this reservation of the sacrament was always in private houses, not in the church, as now it is among the papists, who keep it for curing the sick, which was not done by the fathers.
3. And this reservation was sometimes found fault withal by the fathers. "Our Lord," says Origen, in Levit., hom. 5, "did not lay up the bread which He gave to His apostles, nor did He bid them reserve it until the morrow." "If there be any man," says Concilium
Caesaraugustanum, capi. 3, "that is proved not to eat the sacrament in the church which he receives, accursed be he for evermore." "And all the bishops did cry out altogether, accursed be he," Council.
Tolet., 1 cap. 14. "If there be ought remaining of the sacrifice," says Clement in his 2nd epistle unto James, "let it not be reserved until the morrow, but let it be rid away by the care of the clergy." And Hesychius, upon Leviticus, says, lib. 2, c. 8, that the remainder is to be burned with fire; others, that it was to be given to the children.
Look at Nicephorus's 17th book, and 15th chapter.