Transubstantiation or Real Presence. 93
before, by reason of the old custom, which by greater reason should have been abrogated. But now it is held laudable, yea necessary, to worship in Latin, that is, in an unknown tongue.
3. Any tongue whatsoever, even Latin itself, to those who do not understand it, is barbarous, as Ovid in his Tristia says rightly,
"Barbarus hic ego sum," etc. In English thus:
I am but barbarous in this strange land, For no man here my speech can understand.
Look at Chrysostom and Haimo upon the 14th of the first to the Corinthians.
Transubstantiation or Real Presence 1. The fathers, when they speak of the Supper, have many and diverse terms which may signify conversion. Ambrose, lib. 4, de
Sacram., c. 4, uses the word conversion, and lib. de ijs qui mysterijs initiantur, cap. 9, the term of mutation. And Cyprian, de caena, said the bread is (mutatus) changed, not in shape, but in nature. Origen, against Celsus, lib. 8, says that the bread by prayer is made (fieri) the body. And Gaudeneius, Tractat. 2, de Exodo, says that of the bread is made (effice) the body, and of the wine the blood. Eusebius
Emissenus, hom. 5, de Pas., says that the priest by a sacred power converts (convertere) the visible creatures into the substance of the body and blood of Christ. And again, that the bread passes (transire) into the nature of the Lord's body. Anselm, epist. de corp. & sang.
Dom., says that the bread (migrare) goes into the body. And Fulbertus, epist. ad Berengarium, says that it is transfused
(transfundi). Algerus, lib. de Sacram., says that it is transferred and transposed (trajici & transferri) into the body. But the ancient
doctors, when they do speak of this change and conversion of the bread, do mean the change of the use and condition of the bread, and not of the substance. And therefore, in the reading of them, we must distinguish the sacramental mutation of these signs in signifying and sealing, from a substantial mutation. And we ought to hold directly that they never knew of transubstantiation (μετουσίαν) for at least
800 years after Christ, but rather condemned it. Cyprian (or whosoever was the author of the sermon, de caena) says, "Bread retaining the form of bodily substance." And Ambrose, de Sacr., lib.
4, cap. 4, says, "They are what they were, and yet are changed into other." And Theodoret, dial. 2: "The mystical signs do not leave their proper nature after consecration." And Gelas., con Eutyc.: "The signs do remain in the propriety of their nature." And Walfrid, cap. 16: "He delivered the sacrament of His body and blood unto His disciples in the substance of bread and wine." And Paschasius, de corp. & sang.
Do., c. 10, aliâs 28: "Bread strengthens the heart of man, and wine comforts, and therefore this mystery of our salvation is rightly celebrated in the same substance." The like unto this has Bertram.
And Paschasius again, ca. 17, aliâs 46: "Therefore my son when you come to communicate of this mystery, open the bosom of your mind, cleanse your conscience, and give not yourself to receive that only which the piece of bread contains, but that which faith receives, because that in Christ is contained the fullness of divinity." Hereby it is evident that the canon of the mass for 900 years was never held to be meant of transubstantiation, nor was there in all that time any mouthly receiving of Christ's true body dreamed of. Besides,
Druthmar, that lived about the year 800, understood the words of the canon to be spoken of the spiritual changing of the bread into Christ's body, and the wine into His blood. For these are his words upon this place of Scripture, "And taking the cup," Matt. 26: "Thus the Lord commanded us to do, changing spiritually the bread into His body, and the wine into His blood, that by these two we might
remember what He did for us, concerning His body and blood." And Amalarius, about the year 810, understands the words of the canon without either transubstantiation, or real presence, lib. 3, de eccl. offic., cap. 23. And Walfrid, ca. 16: "After the solemnities of the old
Passover, He delivered the sacrament of His body and blood, in the substances of bread and wine, and taught us to celebrate them in memory of His passion." Nicetas Choniates, Thesaur., lib. 4, writing against the Ascodrugi, that would not have mysteries represented in corporeal things, says that the institution, wherein our Savior used bread and wine for the salvation and reformation of mankind corrupted, was not such as wanted bodily things. Wherefore the fathers when they speak of the changing of the nature of the bread, do mean the change of the propriety only, whereby of bodily sustenance, by the power of the deity, it is made a food for the soul.
2. In ancient times it was the whole universal and orthodoxal consent of the church that that very bread which Christ broke (and not any other thing under the figure of bread) was His body. And this is the doctrine of Irenaeus, Justin Martyr, Tertullian, Cyprian, Theodoret,
Chrysostom, Ambrose, and Augustine. And therefore, these never so much as dreamed of transubstantiation. Which may be convinced by these seven reasons following. First, because the Eucharist was reserved in private houses for everyone to receive: "Being dismissed," says Cyprian of one, De spectaculis, "and bearing with him as the manner is, the Eucharist, etc." Second, because they used to send it by children unto the sick, as Eusebius testifies in his 6th book and 43rd chapter. Third, because it was used to be carried about in such mean manner, as namely, the body in a wicker basket, and the blood in a glass as Jerome testifies of Exuperius bishop, epist. 4, ad Rusticum. Fourth, because the bishops used to send it unto others (as it is probable) for salvation's sake. Witnesses:
Irenaeus, ep. ad Victor. apud. Eusebium, lib. 5, cap. 23, and
Nicephorus, lib. 4, c. 39. Fifth, because they used to give it unto infants, as Augustine, lib. 3, ca. 10, and almost in every work of his testifies. Sixth, because if there remained any parcels of the Eucharist unreceived, the young children that used the church were called to eat them up. This Euagrius, lib. 4, cap. 35, records, and Nicephorus in like manner, lib. 17, cap. 25. Seventh and lastly, because it was a custom in the ancient church to burn the remainders of the Eucharist, as Isychius, lib. 2, cap. 8, upon Leviticus, affirms.
3. Afterwards begun the disputations of transubstantiation but not as yet approved as an article of faith, nor concluded of in Lombard's age, which was about the year 1145, for he, lib. 4, d. 11, says that, "If it be demanded of what sort this conversion is, whether formal, or substantial, or of some other kind, I cannot sufficiently define." Yet the church for a whole thousand years taught no other than spiritual receiving of Christ, and all the fathers of those times understood the words of the supper to be figuratively spoken. Wherefore it is a most impudent and faithless part of Bellarmine to cite 32 writers for the opinion of transubstantiation.
4. But in the year 1215, Innocent III determined the manner of this conversion, in respect of the name, calling it transubstantiation. And for the thing itself, Leo IX determined it, in a conventicle held at Rome, anno 1049. And Nicholas II also, in his decretals, de consecrat. cap. Ego Berengarius, in the year 1060. And yet Berengarius abode in his true opinion of the Lord's Supper until the day of his death, and therefore is said to have seriously detested that absurd recantation. Hildebertus Cenomanensis praises him. And Lanfranke condemns him as a violator of his recantation, and inconstant in his opinion. And indeed there is not a papist in the world that will defend the recantation in Gratian set down by Nicholas, because he says that the body of Christ is sensibly crucified
with the teeth. And divers of the schoolmen, as Biel, in can. Mis., lect.
47, and Richardus, de Media-villa, in 4 d. 8 q. 1, do condemn it as an erroneous assertion.
5. Now the most learned schoolmen after Innocentius disagree both in the thing itself and in the manner of explaining what the pronoun
(Hoc) "this" signifies and demonstrates properly in these words, "this is my body." Richardus de Media-villa, in 4 d. 8, art. quest. 1, expounds it thus: "'This,' that is, 'something being under this sensible form,' is my body. Or thus: 'that which will be forthwith present under this sensible sign which is seen,' is my body." Thomas
Aquinas, 3 part., q. 78, in corp. art. Hoc: "'This,' that is, 'that which is contained in the general under these kinds,' is my body."
Bonaventure, in d. 8, in 2. par. dist. art. 1, q. 1, thus: "'This,' that is, 'the substance of bread.'" And he will have (est) "is," to signify (fit) is made, or (transit) is changed or (convertitur) is turned. Scotus, in 4 dist. 8, q. 2, thus: "'This,' that is, 'this singular essence,' or ens, is my body." Marsilius, in 4 quest. 6, art. 1, thus: "'This,' that is, 'that into which this bread is changed,' is my body." Occam, quadlib. 2, q. 19, thus: "'This,' that is, 'this body, which will be forthwith under these forms,' is my body." But Peter of Aliacu, in 4 Sent., q. 5, art. 1, says that it is not necessary for the priest that consecrates rightly to demonstrate anything by this word "this," or that he should understand anything by that word more than by a word that has no signification, because this word is only given us as a sign, whereby we may know that when these words are rightly pronounced, the body of Christ is immediately under these signs, by God's good pleasure. Holcot, in 4 sen., q. 3, says that by this pronoun (Hoc, this) is signified that which remains under both the terms of transmutation, and is that which is only accidents sensible, and no substance. Biel, lect. 48, in cano. Missae, says that "'This,' that is,
'this content, into which the bread is to be turned, etc., in some part
of time which includes the pronunciation, and the terminating or finishing instant,' is my body." Cajet., in 3 p., q. 78, art. 5 says,
"'This,' that is, 'this singular substance,' is my body." Now Guitmund, that is elder than them all, lib. 2, thus expounds this word, "'This,' that is, 'which hitherto was bread, henceforth it is my body, not bread.'" Or thus: "'This,' that is, 'that I now give you,' is my body, for this pronoun (this) in this place has no relation to anything before spoken but is a demonstrative of the thing present."
6. These phrases of the fathers (that Christ's body is eaten; goes into the mouth; is touched with the hands; His blood is drunk, etc.) are to be understood tropically, that is, symbolically, signifying the efficacy of sacramental receiving, and admonish us to embrace the body of Christ that is in heaven with an unpolluted heart. For it is the fathers' doctrine that the bread and wine are truly and properly the signs of the body and blood of Christ. "Our Lord," says Cyprian, Tract. De unct. Chrismatis, "at the table where He took part of His last feast with the apostles, with His own hands gave them bread and wine, but upon the cross He gave His body to be wounded by the hands of the soldiers, that the sincere truth and true sincerity which He had more secretly imprinted in the apostles, might declare unto the world how the bread and wine were His body and blood, and upon what reasons the causes thus agreed with the effects, and divers names or forms were reduced to one essence, and the things signifying and signified should be called both by the same names. "Our Lord," says Augustine
(contra Adimunt, c. 12), "did not stick to say, 'this is my body,' when He gave the sign of His body." And again (Contra Maximinum):
"Wherein (in which signs) we must not respect what they are, but what they represent, because they are signs of things, and being in essence one thing, are in signification another." Origen, likewise upon the 15th of Matthew, says that if all that goes into the mouth descends into the belly, and so is cast forth into the draught, that
meat also which is sanctified by the word of God and prayer, as far as the material part thereof, goes the ordinary course of other meat. So Chrysostom (or whosoever was the author of that epistle) unto
Caesarius says, "Even as we call the bread before it be sanctified, bread, and when God's grace has sanctified it by the priest's means, it loses the name of bread, and is held worthy to be called the Lord's body, although that the nature of bread do remain therein, and is not called two bodies, but one body of the Son." "Christ's flesh," says
Maxentius (Dialog. 2, cont. Nestor.), "is not called the body of God as the church is, nor as the bread, which the whole church partakes in memory of His passion, but it is so called the body of God, as is a man's proper vesture or apparel, wherewith he is arrayed." "He
(Christ)," says Augustine (De civit. Dei, lib. 21, c. 25), "in saying 'he that eats my flesh, and drinks my blood, lives in me, and I in him,' shows what it is to receive His body not sacramentally, but truly, and drink His blood." Here mark an opposition between sacramental eating and true eating.
7. These words of Christ, "my flesh is meat indeed" (John 6, etc.), are by Clement (Padag, lib. 1, cap. 6); Tertullian (de resurrectione carnis); Origen (in Levit., hom. 7); Chrysostom (in Joan., hom. 46); and Augustine (tract. in Joan. 25 and 26), taken in an allegorical sense.
8. And the words "this is my body," most of the fathers take figuratively, and namely these: Tertullian (l. 4, con. Marc.); Origen in two places (in Levit., hom. 7 and in Mat., cap. 15); Cyprian (de unct.
Chrismatis); Nazianzene (de Paschate); Ambrose in three places (de ijs qui myster. initiantur, ca. 9; de Sacr., lib. 4, cap. 5; in 1 Cor. 11);
Jerome in two (in Matt. 26 and in Mark 14); Augustine in seven or eight (lib. 3, de doct. Christ., lib. 3, cap. 16; de Trinit., lib. 3, ca. 4 and 10; epist. 23; in Levit., q. 57; cent. Adimant., ca. 12; and Psal. 98);
Chrysostom (in Psal. 22); Theod. (dial. 1); Prosper (in Sent. August.), and he is cited (de consecr. d. 2, c. Hoc est); Bede (in Luc. 22); and Bertram (de corp. & sang. Domini).
9. But the fathers speak not only figuratively of the sacrament, but even sometimes hyperbolically thereof, to beget it the greater reverence, and to pierce men's minds, and follow the phrase of Scripture, and lest the supper should seem a tragic fiction. In this sense says Chrysostom (in 1 Cor. 10, hom. 24), "What is in the cup?
That which flowed from His side. And again, that which He suffered not upon the cross, He suffers for you in the offering, suffering
Himself to be thrust through." And hom. 21 (ad populum Antioch):
"Think what you take in hand. For it is a pernicious thing to use that tongue unto reproaches that has ministered at such divine mysteries, and been purpled with the color of that blood, and made a sword of gold."
10. That which the fathers speak of the bread and wine in the Lord's Supper, the same they speak in like manner of baptism and the Word of God. "We are said," says Origen (Hom. 16, in Num.), "to drink the blood of Christ, not only in the sacraments, but when we hear and receive His words." And in another place: "Bind not yourself unto the blood of the flesh, but rather seek after the blood of the Word, and hear Him that says unto you, 'This is my blood which is shed for you for the remission of your sins.'" "No man must any way doubt," says
Augustine (in one of his sermons, ad infantes, cited by Bede, in 1 Cor.
10), "that every faithful Christian is made partaker of the body and blood of Christ, when he is made a member of Him in baptism, nor that he is alienated from the communion of that bread and the cup, although he being in unity with Christ, be taken out of this world before he come to communicate of the said sacrament. For he is not
deprived of the participation and benefit thereof, since he has already attained to that which that sacrament signifies."
11. The fathers by the form of bread (speciem) do still understand the substance, not the accidents without the substance. In this sense, says Cyril of Jerusalem (Mystag. 4), "Under the form of bread is given the body, and the blood under the form of wine." "I see not the form of blood," says Ambrose (De Sacram, lib. 4, cap. 4), "but the likeness it has." And (lib. de ijs qui mysterijs initiantur, c. 9) "If Elijah's speech were of so great power, that it was able to fetch down fire from heaven, shall not Christ's words be of the power to change the forms of the elements?" "To make the form of visible bread," says
Augustine (Sermon, ad infantes, recorded by Bede, in 1 Cor. 10), "many grains of corn are compact together, and in the wine likewise, brethren, consider how it comes to be one liquor." "Under that visible form of ointment," says Theodoret (in 1 Cant.), "they do receive the invisible grace of that most Holy Spirit." And the same meaning sometimes they have when they use these phrases: the figure, or outward shape of the bread. And they do use these words to turn our eyes from the external signs unto the heavenly matter therein signified, upon which we ought to fix the eyes of our minds.
And hereupon Chrysostom says that there is nothing seen upon the table, but the body and blood of the Lord, and yet intends not to put accidents without a substance. Contrariwise, the word "nature" sometimes in the fathers signifies the quality and condition only, and not the essence of the thing. And in this sense, Cyprian (de caena) says the bread changed not in form or shape, but in nature; by the words' omnipotency is made flesh.
12. Cyril (lib. 10, cap. 13, in Joan., and elsewhere), and Hilary (lib. 8, de Trin.), with some other fathers, will have Christ to be in us naturally, and corporally, and so they will have us to receive Him.
But they do not speak of the manner of our union with Christ herein, but of the limits of our union. They will have us united with Christ in one mystical body, according to the truth of nature, and to be joined truly and really with His flesh and spirit, and yet after a spiritual and uncorporal manner.
13. Damascene's commutation μεταποίησις (l. 4, c. 14), and Theophylact's transelementation μεταστοιχείωσις, is the change of the bread into another state or condition, not into another substance and being, because it is united to Christ's body in a sacramental union, and of a corporal food made a spiritual. For after the same manner, they affirm that we, κατ΄ αυτό τό πρα̃γμα, εἰς ἐχείνην ἀνακεράθηναι τὴν σάρχα, that is, are really converted into that (Christ's) flesh (Chrysostom, hom. 45, in Joan.), and are transelementated into Him (Theophylact, in Joan., cap. 6), and yet they do not feign any abolishing of our substance for all this. And this same μεταποίησις is not always a changing of substance but sometimes a correction or changing of a thing into better. But however, this transformation helps not the papists a jot, for that which is transformed remains not in regard of its exterior form.
"Although the ancient fathers," says Suarez, upon Thomas, tom. 3, quest. 75, disput. 50, sect. 1, "used many words in the explanation of this mystery, yet they are all either general, as are the words conversion, mutation, passing into, and changing, or they are properly applied to the accidental change, as the word transfiguration and such like."
Only Theophylact's word transelementation comes nearer the explanation of the mystery's true property and signifies a change of the things even unto the first elements, unto the first matter. But yet that word is too unapplicable, and too unfit for this mystery. For it may signify the conversion of one element into another, or the resolution of a mixed body into the elements, but transubstantiation most properly and most fitly
signifies the conversion or commigration of one whole substance into another whole substance.
14. The fathers, when they say that the bread or wine remains no more, do not mean simply, but in respect of his intent that is to receive them, when he receives them rightly, because then we must not think of the bread or the wine, but fix both our mind and senses wholly upon Jesus Christ.
15. Where they deny that the bread is a figure of the body, they speak of the bare sign, which is without fruit. "There is not only a certain figuring of Christ's flesh," says Theophylact, in Joan. 6. "He said not, these are the signs of my body," says Euthymius, in Matth., cap. 26,
"but, this is my body. We ought not therefore, to look into the nature of that which is set before us, but into the virtue."
16. To consecrate is not to transubstantiate, but to dedicate a profane thing unto a holy use. And that the consecration of the bread is included in these five words, "for this is my body," and of the wine in these, "this is my blood," or such like, no father did ever teach.
Cyprian, Serm. de caena, says that in his time they did consecrate with these words: "Do this in remembrance of me; this is my flesh, this is my blood." Basil and Chrysostom held that it was done by prayers, as we may read in their liturgies. "Will you know," says
Ambrose, de Sacram, lib. 4, cap. 5, "what are the heavenly words of consecration? These are they: the priest says, 'Make this oblation ascribed unto us, reasonable and acceptable for us, who the day before His passion took bread in His holy hands, and giving thanks, blessed it, broke it, and gave to His apostles, saying, take, eat, etc.,' and so unto the end of the institution." But Jerome, in 3 c. Soph., says that to make the Eucharist, there is not only a necessity of solemn prayer, but also of merit in the priest. "We call that only the
body and blood of Christ," says Augustine, de Trinit., lib. 3, cap. 4, "which we, taking from the fruits of the earth and consecrating with mystical prayer, do receive in due order, for our soul's health; and as a memorial of our Lord's suffering for us." "Presently, after this prayer," says Gregory, lib. 7, Indict. 2, epist. 63, "we say the Lord's
Prayer, because it was the apostles who used to consecrate the host of oblation at that prayer only." "Unless Christ do come Himself," says Hesychius, lib. 2, in Lev., cap. 8, "at the priest's prayer, and sanctify the supper, and lay the foundation of the action, there can by no means any sacrifice of the Lord be made." "It is not credible," says
Innocentius III, lib. 4, de myst. Missae, cap. 6, "that He distributed His body before He had consecrated. But it may be said that Christ consecrated by the divine power, and afterwards showed the form that others should follow in their solemnizing, for He of Himself consecrated by His own power, but we, by that virtue which He has given to the words." "If any priest," says Scotus, in 4 d. 8, q. 2, art. 2,
"should begin to say these words, 'This is my body,' and omit the words that do go before them, I say that in all such cases we may not worship (the Eucharist) simply, but with this condition: if it be truly consecrated." And of the consecration of the blood he speaks in like manner: "We are not infallibly taught, whether unto the form of the consecration of the blood do belong any of the words which are after these words, 'of my body,' or any of them that follow until these, 'do this.' Therefore, it is dangerous to aver anything without sufficient authority be had for the confirmation." Likewise, Biel, in 4 dist. 8, q.
3, concl. 3, says that the necessary and precise form of consecrating the supper is not sufficiently determined of in the canonical
Scriptures, which assertion he afterwards affirms by reason. The learned man D. Redman, observing the tumultuous wrangling of the schoolmen about the words of consecration, was not afraid to affirm that not one almost of all the whole school did rightly understand the word 'consecrate' (History Martyr. Anglicana).
17. The body of Christ in the fathers' writings, is threefold: real, that is His body assumed; mystical, the church; sacramental, the bread in the supper. "The body of Christ taken from the altar," says the decretals, de consecr., d. 2, ca. 79, "is a figure, if we view the outward forms of bread and wine, but the truth, when we believe the body and blood of Christ to be truly there within." "The flesh is a sacrament of the flesh," says Augustine, in Sent. Pros., "and the blood of the blood." "The bread is Christ's body, not corporally but spiritually," says Aelfrike, Archb. of Canterbury, in his sermon in Saxon, wherein he distinguishes the body crucified, and the sacramental body. "And to make Christ's body, is to consecrate the bread into the sign of His real body. Let the word come to the element," says Augustine, tract. in Joan., 80, "and it becomes a sacrament." "This is the body which the fathers say so often to be daily made, blessed, eaten, broken, divided, falls to the earth, is handled, swallowed, and torn with the teeth," Cyprian, sermone de Lapsis. "The nature of the bread and wine," says Bede in Epiph. Do., "is by the ineffable sanctification of the Spirit, translated into the sacrament of the body and blood of our
Lord." "The flesh and blood of our Lord," says Jerome, in Ephes. 1, "is understood two ways, either for His spiritual, and divine flesh and blood, whereof He said, 'My flesh is meat indeed, and my body is drink indeed,' or for the flesh which was nailed on the cross, and that blood which was shed by the soldier's spear."
18. And the creation that the fathers speak of was always without transubstantiation. "When the oil is consecrated for the sick," says
Amalar, de eccl. offic., lib. 1, ca. 12, "we conclude thus: by whom Thou (O Lord) always creates all these good things."
19. The fathers say that we receive Christ in the bread, or under the form of bread, as the bread is a sign of Christ's flesh, and instrument of the soul's nourishment, not as the receptacle of His body. And
likewise, they say that we, in the water, do receive the remission of our sins (Lomb., Sent. 4, d. 3). But this is, as we say that we have possession given us in writings, when as the writings do but assign the same unto us, and so we receive Christ in the bread, as the signified in the sign, not the contained in the continent.
20. The sacrament is honored, received, and respected, as it is the expressive seal and sign of our mystical union with Christ, by whose body we are, after an admirable manner, quickened. Hence it is called a mystery to be trembled at, because by these creatures through the operation of the divine majesty, we are made partakers of the body and blood of Christ. And hence it was that God has shown some miracles about this supper to make the institution more honorable, not to prove the real presence. And upon this, the fathers had a care that none of it should fall to the ground, and reverenced all the ornaments of the Church, and suffered not the catechumenists to communicate. And Chrysostom, in Ephes., hom. 3, says that it is a King's table, that the King Himself is present, and angels do minister to Him. By this he moved all to reverence, and hence he called it an oblation to be trembled at (Vid. Loc.).
21. The fathers give but one place at once unto Christ's body. "Our Lord is above," says Augustine (tract. 30, in Joh.), "but here also, and our Lord is truth. For His body wherein He rose again, may be but in one place, but His truth is spread abroad everywhere." Basil (de Sp.
S., cap. 22) proves the Holy Ghost to be God, because He can be in many places at once. "He ascended into heaven," says Augustine
(epist. 57, ad Dardan.), "sits at God's right hand, from whence and from no other place He shall come to judgment." And again, "In that He is God, He is everywhere; but as He is man, He is but in heaven."
And, "Doubt not that as God He is everywhere present, but His circumscriptible body is in some certain place of heaven." "According
to His human substance," says Fulgentius (l. 2, c. 17, ad Thrasimund), "he left the earth, when He ascended up to heaven."
"The flesh," says Vigilius (contra Eutyc., lib. 4), "while it was here upon earth, was not in heaven; and now that it is in heaven, it is no more upon the earth."
22. Lastly, when transubstantiation was once established, the most learned stuck to the opinion of consubstantiation, as most congruent unto Scripture, receiving the opinion of transubstantiation, either solely or chiefly, because the Church had so decreed. Scotus (in 4 dist. 11, q. 3, art. 1) holds expressly that the doctrine of transubstantiation is not expressed in the Scriptures, adding this: "It seems to move us chiefly to hold transubstantiation, because we must hold of the sacraments, as the Roman Church has set down in the extravagant de haeret., c. Ad abolendam, where note these words, in Paris edition, anno 1497, in the margent: 'The faith of this sacrament is only because of the determination of the Church.'" And in the same article (resp. ad. arg. 3), says thus: "We say that the church has resolved that this meaning (that the bread is transubstantiate) is the truest faith, in the creed of Laterane under Innocent III beginning, Firmiter credimus, etc., where the truth of some things to be believed is declared, and that more plainly, than either in the Apostles' Creed, Athanasius's, or that of the Council of Nicea. Briefly, whatsoever is there said fit to be believed, we must hold to be of the Substance of faith. If you ask why the Church would make choice of so hard an understanding of this article, when the Scripture may be salved with an explication both more easy and in appearance more true, to this I say that the Scriptures are expounded by the same Spirit that made them. And we must imagine that the Catholic Church explains this to us with the same Spirit that it taught us our first faith, namely, the Spirit of truth. This opinion, both in the same sense and almost in the same words we may read in Biel (lect.
41, in Canon. Miss.), with this addition moreover: "That this ordination (of transubstantiation) was not known perhaps in the church until after the institution. And it is thought to have been first revealed unto the holy fathers or found out by them through their labor in explaining of the Scriptures."
"Though Christ's body," says Petrus de Alliaco, in 4 Sen. q. 5, art. 2, Concl. 2, "as a quantity, and the bodily quantity thereof be in heaven, and in the sacrament, yet is it not in the sacrament as a quantitive body, or a bodily quantity. And again, q. 6, art. 2: "That manner (of consubstantiation) which says the substance of bread there remains, where the body of Christ begins to be, is possible and neither opposite to reason nor Scriptures. Nay, it is easier to understand, and more reasonable to conceive, than any of those that separate the substance from the accidents and make Christ's body a nonsubstance. For this puts no accidents without a substance, which is one of the difficulties in this question. And therefore, it seems not any way inconvenient to follow the first way, if so be that the Church had so determined." And again: "The fourth, and more common opinion is, that the substance of bread remains not, but ceases simply to have a being,, and though it be not so probable out of Scripture, nor in my judgment, out of the determination of the Church. Yet since it favors this opinion, as the common opinion of doctors and holy men, therefore I also do hold it." Thus he.
"It is most plain," says Durandus, in 4 dist. 11, q. 1, "that it is a rash part to say that Christ's body by divine power cannot be in the sacrament otherwise than by having the bread converted into His substance." And again: "But if that manner (which teaches the substance of bread to remain after consecration) were true, de facto, of the thing done, we should have many doubts taken away which fall about this sacrament, in teaching the bread does not remain. For
first, there is a doubt how anything can be nourished by this sacrament; and then how the forms may be corruptible, or how anything can have generation by them. All which doubts the other sense would clear. But because this way may not be held expressly, since the Church has determined on the contrary way, whom we presume not to err in such cases, therefore by holding expressly that side, we must answer unto the arguments on the contrary side." And in his third question: "Saving the reverence of a better judgment, it may be thought that in the sacrament there is a conversion of the substance of the bread into Christ's body, and that in this manner: the form of the bread being corrupted, the matter thereof is under the form of Christ's body, suddenly, and by the eternal power of God, as the matter of food or nourishment is under the form of that which it feeds by the power of nature." And afterwards: "Therefore said manner of the conversion is evidently possible; and the other
(transubstantiation) is not intelligible, neither is the one more approved or reproved by the Church, than the other."
"Whereas the words of the Scriptures," says Cajetane, in 3 part., Thom., q. 75, art. 1, "are expounded two ways: either properly, or metaphorically. The first error in this point was theirs that interpreted these words of our Lord (this is my body) metaphorically, which the master of the Sentences, in his fourth book and tenth distinction, speaks of, who in this point is reproved. And the force of his reproof consists herein, that the Church understands these words properly, and it behooves them to be verified properly. I say the Church, for indeed there is not any forcible motive in the gospel to make these words be taken properly." But Joseph Angles, in florib.
Theolog., in 4 dist. 11, q. 4, de Eucharistia, art. 1, admonishes us of circumspection in reading this place of Cajetane. "Seeing it is certain," says Ferus, in Mat. 26, "that Christ's body is there, what need we dispute whether the bread remain or no?" Thus he. Now