Adoration and Elevation of the Sacrament 103
before the schoolmen's time, there was one Aelfric, Archbishop of Canterbury, who in his forenamed Saxon sermon, which was wont to be read every feast of Easter in the English churches, speaks expressly against the same transubstantiation, and Bertram likewise in his book of the body and blood of Christ.
Adoration and Elevation of the Sacrament 1. The adoration in the sacrament belongs unto Christ sitting in heaven, and is an inward worship of the heart, or lifting up of the mind being stirred up with these outward signs. "The signs," says
Augustine, de catech. rudi., cap. 26, "are visible sacraments of divine things, but invisible things are therein honored."
2. "If the worship be referred to the sacrament only, it is but a reverence, and no adoration, given as well to baptism as the supper," as testifies Augustine, de doctr. Christ., lib. 3, cap. 9.
3. Honorius III, anno 1220, was the first that ever instituted the adoration of the sacrament. And after him Urban IV ordained a feast in honor of the body of Christ.
4. The elevation of the host was used, not that it should be adored, but to signify the mystery of Christ taken down from the cross.
Amalar., lib. 3, cap. 26. The priests' and deacons' elevation signify the taking down of our Lord from the cross. The host and the cup signify the Lord's body. And the liturgy of Chrysostom does not affirm that the elevation of the bread was used, that Christ therein should be adored: but the priest elevating the sacred bread cries out, holy to the holy.