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 EUCHARIST

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EUCHARIST

self promises to give only at a future time, is a new refection, differing from the last-named food of faith, it can be none other than His true Flesh and Blood, to be really eaten and drunk in Holy Communion. This is why Christ was so ready to use the realistic expres- sion "to chew" (John, vi, 54, 56, 58: Tpiiycm) when speaking of this. His Bread of Life, in addition to the phrase, "to eat" (John, vi, 51, 53: (payeTv). Cardinal Bellarmine (De Euchar., I, 3), moreover, calls atten- tion to the fact, and rightly so, that if in Christ's mind the manna was a figure of the Eucharist, the latter must have been something more than merely blessed bread, as otherwise the prototype would not substan- tially excel the type. The same holds true of the other figures of the Eucharist, as the bread and wine offered by Melchisedech, the loaves of proposition (panes pro- positionis), the paschal lamb. The impossibility of a figurative interpretation is brought home more forci- bly by an analysis of the following text: " Except you eat the flesh of the Son of man, and drink his blood, you shall not have life in you. He that eateth my flesh and drinketh my blood, hath eTerlasting life: and I wUl raise him up in the last day. For my flesh is meat indeed: and my blood is drink indeed" (John, vi, 54-56). It is true that even among the .Semites, and in Scripture itself, the phrase, "to eat some one's flesh", has a figurative meaning, namely, "to perse- cute, to bitterly hate some one". If, then, the words of Jesus are to be taken figuratively, it would appear that Christ had promised to His enemies eternal life and a glorious resurrection in recompense for the in- juries and persecutions directed against Him. The other phrase, "to drink some one's blood", in Scrip- ture, especially, has no other figurative meaning than that of dire chastisement (cf. Is., xlix, 26; Apoc, xvi, 6) ; but, in the present text, this interpretation is just as impossible here as in the phrase, "to eat some one's flesh". Consequently, eating and drinking are to be understood of the actual partaking of Christ in person, hence literally.

This interpretation agrees perfectly with the con- duct of the hearers and the attitude of Christ regard- ing their doubts and objections. Again, the murmur- ing of the Jews is the clearest evidence that they had understood the preceding words of Jesus literally (John, vi, 53). Yet far from repudiating this con- struction as a gross misunderstanding, Christ re- peated them in a most solemn manner, in the text quoted above (John, vi, 54 sqq.). In consequence, many of His Disciples were scandalized and said: " This saying is hard, and who can hear it? " (John, vi, 61); but instead of retracting what He had said, Christ rather reproached them for their want of faith, by alluding to His sublimer origin and His future As- cension into heaven. And without further ado He allowed these Disciples to go their way (John, vi, 62 sqq.). Finally He turned to His twelve Apostles with the question: " Will you also go away? " Then Peter stepped forth and with humble faith replied: "Lord, to whom shall we go? thou hast the words of eternal life. And we have believed and have known, that thou art the Christ, the Son of God" (John, vi, 68 sqq.). The entire scene of the discourse and murmur- ings against it proves that the Zwinglian and Anglican interpretation of the passage, " It is the spirit that quickeneth", etc., in the sense of a glossing over or retractation, is wholly inadmissible. For in spite of these words the Disciples severed their connexion with Jesus, while the Twelve accepted with simple faith a mystery which as yet they did not understand. Nor did Christ say: "My flesh is spirit", i. e. to be under- stood in a figurative sense, but: "My words are spirit and life". There are two views regarding the sense in which this text is to be interpreted. Many of the Fathers declare that the true Flesh of Jesus (crdpi) is not to be understood as separated from His Divin- ity (spiritus), and hence not in a cannibalistic sense,

but as belonging entirely to the supernatural economy. The second and more scientific explanation asserts that in the Scriptural opposition of "flesh and blood" to " spirit ", the former always signifies carnal-minded- ness, the latter mental perception illumined by faith, so that it was the intention of Jesus in this passage to give prominence to the fact that the sublime mystery of the Eucharist can be grasped in the light of super- natural faith alone, whereas it cannot be understood by the carnal-minded, who are weighed down under the burden of sin. Under such circumstances it is not to be wondered at that the Fathers and several oecu- menical councils (Ephesus, 431; Niciea, 787) adopted the literal sense of the words, though it was not dog- matically defined (cf. Council of Trent, Sess. XXI, c. i). If it be true that a few Catholic theologians (as Cajetan, Ruardus Tapper, Johann Hessel, and the elder Jansenius) preferred the figurative interpreta- tion, it was merely for controversial reasons, because in their perplexity they imagined that otherwise the claims of the Hussite and Protestant Utraquists for the partaking of the Chalice by the laity could not be an- swered by argument from Scripture. (Cf. Patrizi, " De Christo pane vitfe", Rome, 1851; Schmitt, "Die Verheissung der Eucharistie bei den Vatern", 2 vols., Wurzburg, 1900-03.)

The Church's Magna Charta, however, are the words of Institution, "This is my body — this is my blood ", whose literal meaning she has uninterruptedly adhered to from the earliest times. The Real Pres- ence is evinced, positively, by showing the necessity of the literal sense of these words, and negatively, by refuting the figurative interpretations. As regards the first, the very existence of four distinct narratives of the Last Supper, divided usually into the Petrine (Matt., xxvi, 26 sqq.; Mark, xiv, 22 sqq.) and the double Pauline accounts (Luke, xxii, 19 sq.; I Cor., xi, 24 sq.), favours the literal interpretation. In spite of their striking unanimity as regards essentials, the Petrine account is simpler and clearer, whereas the Pauline is richer in additional details and more in- volved in its citation of the words that refer to the Chalice. It is but natural and justifiable to expect that, when four different narrators in different coun- tries and at different times relate the words of Institu- tion to different circles of readers, the occurrence of an unusual figure of speech, as, for instance, that bread is a sign of Christ's Body, would, somewhere or other, betray itself, either in the difference of word-setting, or in the unequivocal expression of the meaning really intended, or at least in the addition of some such re- mark as: "He spoke, however, of the sign of His Body." But nowhere do we discover the slightest ground for a figurative interpretation. If, then, the natural, literal interpretation were false, the Scrip- tural record alone would have to be considered as the cause of a pernicious error in faith and of the grievous crime of rendering Divine homage to liread (artolatria) — a supposition little in harmony with the character of the four Sacred Writers or with the inspiration of the Sacred Text. Moreover, we must not omit the very important circumstance, that one of the four narrators has interpreted his own account literally. This is St. Paul (I Cor., xi, 27 sq.), who, in the most vigorous lan- guage, brands the unworthy recipient as " guilty of the body and of the blood of the Lord ". There can be no question of a grievovis offence against Christ Himself, unless we suppose that the true Body and the true Blood of Christ are really present in the Eucharist. Further, if we attend only to the words themselves, their natural sense is so forceful and clear that even Luther wrote to the Christians of Strasburg in 1524: " I am caught, I cannot escape, the text is too forci- ble" (De Wette, II, 577). The necessity of the nat- \iral sense is not based upon the absurd assumption that Christ could not in general have resorted to the use of figures, but upon the evident requirements of