Book 4, Chapter 17 (3)

XII. I now proceed to the hyperbolical additions which superstition has made to this sacrament. For here Satan has exerted amazing subtlety to withdraw the minds of men from heaven, and involve them in a preposterous error, by persuading them that Christ is attached to the element of bread. In the first place, we must be careful not to dream of such a presence of Christ in the sacrament as the ingenuity of the Romanists has invented; as if the body of Christ were exhibited, by a local presence, to be felt by the hand, bruised by the teeth, and swallowed by the throat. For this was the form of recantation which Pope Nicolas directed to Berengarius as a declaration of his repentance; the language of which is so monstrous, that the scholiast exclaims, that there is danger, unless the readers be very prudent and cautious, of their imbibing from it a worse heresy than that of Berengarius; and Peter Lombard, though he takes great pains to defend it from the charge of absurdity, yet rather inclines to a different opinion. For, as we have not the least doubt that Christ’s body is finite, according to the invariable condition of a human body, and is contained in heaven, where it was once received, till it shall return to judgment, so we esteem it utterly unlawful to bring it back under these corruptible elements, or to imagine it to be present every where. Nor is there any need of this, in order to our enjoying the participation of it; since the Lord by his Spirit gives us the privilege of being united with himself in body, soul, and spirit. The bond of this union, therefore, is the Spirit of Christ, by whom we are conjoined, and who is, as it were, the channel by which all that Christ himself is and has is conveyed to us. For, if we behold the sun darting his rays and transmitting his substance, as it were, in them, to generate, nourish, and mature the roots of the earth, why should the irradiation of the Spirit of Christ be less effectual to convey to us the communication of his body and blood? Wherefore, the Scripture, when it speaks of our participation of Christ, attributes all the power of it to the Spirit. One passage shall suffice instead of many. In the eighth chapter of the Epistle to the Romans, Paul represents Christ as dwelling in us no otherwise than by his Spirit.[1256] By this representation, the apostle does not destroy that communion of the body and blood of Christ of which we are now treating, but teaches that it is solely owing to the agency of the Spirit that we possess Christ with all his benefits, and have him dwelling within us.

XIII. Deterred by a horror of such barbarous impiety, the schoolmen have expressed themselves in more modest language, yet they only trifle with equal fallacy and greater subtlety. They admit that Christ is not contained in the bread and wine in a local or corporeal manner; but they afterwards invent a manner which they neither understand themselves nor can explain to others; which, however, amounts to this, that Christ is to be sought, as they express it, in the form of bread. When they say that the substance of bread is transmuted into Christ, do they not attach his substance to the whiteness, which they pretend is all that remains of the bread? But, they say, he is so contained in the sacrament, that he remains in heaven, and we maintain no other presence than that of habitude. But whatever words they employ to gloss over their notions, they all terminate in this, that, by the consecration, that which was before bread becomes Christ, so that the substance of Christ is concealed under the colour of bread. This they are not ashamed to express in plain terms; for Lombard says, “That the body of Christ, which is visible in itself, is hidden and concealed, after the consecration, under the form of bread.” Thus the figure of the bread is nothing but a veil, which prevents the flesh from being seen. Nor is there any need of many conjectures, to discover what snares they intended to lay in these words, which the thing itself plainly evinces. For it is evident in what profound superstition not only the people in general, but even the principal men, have now for several ages been involved, and are involved, at the present day, in the Papal churches. True faith, which is the sole medium of our union and communion with Christ, being an object of little solicitude to them, provided they have that carnal presence which they have fabricated without any authority from the Divine word, they consider him as sufficiently present with them. The consequence of this ingenious subtlety, therefore, we find to be this, that bread has been taken for God.

XIV. Hence proceeded that pretended transubstantiation, for which they now contend with more earnestness than for all the other articles of their faith. For the first inventors of the local presence were unable to explain how the body of Christ could be mixed with the substance of the bread, without being immediately embarrassed by many absurdities. Therefore they found it necessary to have recourse to this fiction, that the bread is transmuted into the body of Christ; not that his body is properly made of the bread, but that Christ annihilates the substance of the bread, and conceals himself under its form. It is astonishing that they could fall into such ignorance, and even stupidity, as to promulgate such a monstrous notion, in direct opposition to the Scripture and to the doctrine of the primitive Church. I confess, indeed, that some of the ancient writers sometimes used the word conversion, not with a view to destroy the substance of the external signs, but to signify that the bread dedicated to that sacrament is unlike common bread, and different from what it was before. But they all constantly and expressly declare, that the sacred supper consists of two parts, earthly and heavenly; and the earthly part they explain, without the least hesitation, to be bread and wine. Whatever the Romanists may pretend, it is very clear that the authority of the ancients, which they frequently presume to oppose to the plain word of God, affords them no assistance in the support of this dogma; and, indeed, it is comparatively but of recent invention, for it was not only unknown to those better times, when the doctrine of religion still flourished in its purity, but even when that purity had already been much corrupted. There is not one of the ancient writers who does not acknowledge in express terms that the consecrated symbols of the supper are bread and wine; though, as we have observed, they sometimes distinguish them with various titles, to celebrate the dignity of the mystery. For when they say, that a secret conversion takes place in the consecration, so that they are something different from bread and wine, I have already stated their meaning to be, not that the bread and wine are annihilated, but that they are to be considered in a different light from common aliments, which are merely designed for the nourishment of the body; because, in those elements, we are presented with the spiritual meat and drink of the soul. In this we also coincide. But, say our opponents, if there be a conversion, one thing must be changed into another. If they mean that something is made what it was not before, I agree with them. If they wish to apply this to their absurd notion, let them tell me what change they think takes place in baptism. For in that also the fathers state a wonderful conversion, when they say, that from the corruptible element proceeds a spiritual ablution of the soul, yet not one of them denies that it retains the substance of water. But there is no such declaration, they say, respecting baptism as there is respecting the supper: “This is my body.” As though the question related to those words, which have a meaning obvious enough, and not rather to the conversion or change spoken of, which ought to signify no more in the supper than in baptism. Let them cease their verbal subtleties, therefore, which only betray their own absurdity. Indeed, there would be no consistency in the signification, if the external sign were not a living image of the truth which is represented in it. By the external sign, Christ intended to declare that his flesh is meat. If he were to set before us a mere spectre of bread, and not real bread, where would be the analogy or similitude, which ought to lead us from the visible emblem to the invisible substance? For, to preserve the correspondence complete, the signification would extend no further than that we should be fed with an appearance of the flesh of Christ. As in baptism, if there were nothing but an appearance of water to deceive our eyes, we should have no certain pledge of our ablution; and such an illusive representation we should find a source of painful uncertainty. The nature of the sacrament, therefore, is subverted, unless the earthly sign correspond in its signification to the heavenly substance; and, consequently, we lose the truth of this mystery, unless the true body of Christ be represented by real bread. I repeat it again; since the sacred supper is nothing but a visible attestation of the promise, that Christ is “the bread of life which cometh down from heaven,”[1257] it requires the use of visible and material bread to represent that which is spiritual; unless we are determined that the means which God kindly affords to support our weakness shall be altogether unavailing to us. With what reason could Paul conclude that “we, being many, are one bread, for we are all partakers of that one bread,”[1258] if there were nothing but a mere phantom of bread, and not the true and real substance of it?

XV. They would never have been so shamefully deluded by the fallacies of Satan, if they had not been previously fascinated with this error—that the body of Christ contained in the bread was received in a corporeal manner into the mouth, and actually swallowed. The cause of such a stupid notion was, that they considered the consecration as a kind of magical incantation. But they were unacquainted with this principle, that the bread is a sacrament only to those to whom the word is addressed; as the water of baptism is not changed in itself, but on the annexation of the promise, begins to be to us that which it was not before. This will be further elucidated by the example of a similar sacrament. The water which flowed from the rock in the wilderness, was to the fathers a token and sign of the same thing which is represented to us by the wine in the sacred supper; for Paul says, “They did drink the same spiritual drink.”[1259] But the same water served also for their flocks and herds. Hence it is easily inferred, that when earthly elements are applied to a spiritual use, no other change takes place in them than with regard to men, to whom they become seals of the promises. Besides, since the design of God is, as I have often repeated, by suitable vehicles to elevate us to himself, this object is impiously frustrated by the obstinacy of those who invite us to Christ indeed, but invisibly concealed under the form of bread. It is not possible for the human mind to overcome the immensity of local distance, and to penetrate to Christ in the highest heavens. What nature denied them, they attempted to correct by a remedy yet more pernicious, that while remaining on the earth, they might attain a proximity to Christ without any need of ascending to heaven. This is all the necessity which constrained them to metamorphose the body of Christ. In the time of Bernard, though a harsh mode of expression had been adopted, still transubstantiation was yet unknown; and in all preceding ages it was a common similitude, in the mouths of all, that in this sacrament the body and blood of Christ were spiritually united with the bread and wine. They argue respecting the terms, in their own apprehension, with great acuteness, but without adducing any thing applicable to the present subject. The rod of Moses, they say, though it took the form of a serpent, still retained its original name, and was called a rod.[1260] So they think it equally probable, that though the bread be changed into another substance, yet it may by a catachresis, without any violation of propriety, be denominated according to its visible appearance. But what similitude or connection can they discover between that illustrious miracle and their fictitious illusion, which no eye on earth witnesses? The magicians had practised their sorceries, so that the Egyptians believed them to possess a Divine power to effect changes in the creatures above the order of nature. Moses confronted them, and defeating all their enchantments, showed the invincible power of God to be on his side; because his one rod swallowed up all the rest. But that being a transmutation visible to the eye, makes nothing to the present argument, as we have already observed; and the rod soon after visibly returned to its original form. Moreover, it is not known whether that was in reality a temporary transmutation of substance or not. The allusion to the rods of the magicians deserves also to be observed; for Moses says, that “Aaron’s rod swallowed up their rods:” he would not call them serpents, lest he might appear to imply a transmutation which did not exist; for those impostors had done nothing but dazzle the eyes of the spectators. What resemblance has this to the following and other similar expressions: “The bread which we break;”[1261] “As often as ye eat this bread;”[1262] “They continued in breaking of bread?”[1263] It is certain that their eyes were only deceived by the incantations of the magicians. There is greater uncertainty with respect to Moses, by whose hand it was no more difficult for God to make a rod into a serpent, and afterwards to make the serpent into a rod again, than to invest angels with material bodies, and soon after to disembody them again. If the nature of this sacrament were the same, or bore any affinity to the case we have mentioned, our opponents would have some colour for their solution. We must, therefore, consider it as a fixed principle, that the flesh of Christ is not truly promised to us for food in the sacred supper, unless the true substance of the external symbol corresponds to it. And as one error gives birth to another, a passage of Jeremiah is so stupidly perverted, in order to prove transubstantiation, that I am ashamed to recite it. The prophet complains that wood was put into his bread;[1264] signifying that his enemies by their cruelty had taken away all the relish of his food; as David in a similar figure utters the following complaint: “They gave me also gall for my meat, and in my thirst they gave me vinegar to drink.”[1265] These disputants explain it as an allegory, that the body of Christ was affixed to the wood of the cross; and this, they say, was the opinion of some of the fathers. I reply, we ought rather to pardon their ignorance, and bury their disgrace in oblivion, than to add the effrontery of constraining them continually to combat the genuine meaning of the prophet.